This article was originally published in the first addition of Mustang Media Group’s arts and culture magazine, The Peak. Read the full issue here.
At 9 p.m., just a few streets over from Higuera, it’s a quiet night in the residential neighborhoods of San Luis Obispo. Riding my bike through the dark, guided by the light glow of a headlamp attached to my forehead — a makeshift bike lamp of sorts — I’m wondering where I’ll find the Bike Night crowd. Feelings of excitement mix with the anxiety of riding around the dark streets at night. Hopefully this tiny light is enough to give any cars a heads up before running over me.
Is this the right way? I run into some friends on a quest of their own. No, I have to pedal back two blocks in the opposite direction and make a right, they tell me. I continue on my way.
And there it is: the infamous mob of bike-nighters taking over Higuera Street. Only a couple of hours earlier were there hundreds of shoppers and food-goers enjoying the Downtown Farmers’ Market — a complete 180 degrees from the slow foot traffic to the faster-paced cycling.
Bike Night serves as the complementary chaotic after-party to the greater-attended Farmers’ Market.
“It’s just a fun thing to do to get out of the house without necessarily going to the bars or spending money … it’s way better,” Bike Night attendee and Cal Poly student Gabe said.
“It’s just a SLO staple,” another student and Bike Nighter Shawn added. “Everyone’s just trying to have a good time around here. Everyone’s just encouraging, riding a bike, getting together as a family, having a good time. That’s all it’s about.”
@bikehappening, the unofficial Instagram account of Bike Night, calls the monthly ride an “eclectic blend of student enthusiasm and local charm, intertwined in a pedal-powered dance that transcends the ages” — and a “fuggin party on wheels.”
It began in June 2000 as a group of SLOcals biking around the empty downtown streets after Farmers’. It became a recurring ride among friends that attracted other cyclists who wanted to join, and the Bike Night crowd continued to grow to become the excursion that it is today — a meeting on the first Thursday of every month.
The @bikehappening account continues this legacy with a minimal online presence, reappearing once a month to share the theme of the upcoming Bike Night. Themes are decided by “‘the high council’ of merry pranksters,” according to the account’s anonymous admin. Past themes from the “pro-freak” group included Sesame Street, Tour de SLO, Furry February and Formal Zoo Animals with Kazoos.
Themes aside, the concept of Bike Night is simple: just ride. Ride a bike, skateboard, tandem bike or unicycle — essentially anything with wheels. All that is asked is for participants to come with a helmet and bike light and to stop at red lights, as police are often in the area.
“The fuzz are fickle,” Bike Happening said in an Instagram message to The Peak. “After years of trying to convince them to use this as a teaching opportunity they just want to write tickets.”
The Bike Night pack follows the same route every month. The event starts in Mission Plaza before the crowd relocates to an empty parking lot behind the SLO Classical Academy High School, between Santa Rosa Street and Toro Street. From there, crowds take off, turning left onto Higuera, riding past cheering bar-goers, confused passer-byers and the occasional car braving the downtown streets.
You get a sense of joy just by standing on the street watching the horde roll by, but that’s nothing compared to the experience of being in the mass of bikes, letting it swallow you so that you’re no longer an individual but just another one of the crazy gleeful individuals who gives Bike Night its notoriety.
The crowd of bikers is tightly packed together. I feel like I’m about to collide with someone, or someone will run into me. But so far so good, no catastrophes yet.
After riding down five blocks of Higuera, bikers turn left on Nipomo and then again on the quieter Marsh Street, heading back towards the start of the route. By this point, the crowd that left the parking lot en masse has thinned out, with some pedaling at a leisurely pace or stopping to let separated friends catch up.
Returning to the parking lot is another scene of chaos. Bikes are moving in all directions, some of which have been left to lay on the ground. A live DJ is playing house music with a dancing crowd in front. There’s hacky sack and occasional clouds of smoke. Some are wearing the unofficial shirt of Bike Night, made by a local screen printer known as Jumbo, that reads “I got my d*ck sucked at bike night”; Jumbo has since stopped printing the iconic red-lettered shirts.
A constant stream of riders circles the standing crowd counterclockwise in a tangled lazy river, constantly expanding and shrinking in size.
Without warning, the next loop suddenly begins, signaled by various hollers and whoops, and a rush to grab the bikes splayed across the ground. It’s unclear who starts it or why — everyone just seems to know that it’s time. It’s usually when the conversation with the guy from your dorm who you haven’t seen since freshman year starts fizzling out.
Hundreds take to the streets again. You may lose your group of friends several times in the madness to get back out there, but it’s alright — you’ll find them again later, no doubt. Plus, it’s better to just be one with the crowd. Let go of who you think your friends are. At Bike Night, everyone is your friend. You become a face in the crowd, one of hundreds of adults-turned-children, as you sail under the string lights lining the downtown blocks.
The process repeats for hours, until everyone’s lost steam or the police show up. November’s Bike Night ended in the latter, after a truck with a speaker turned the parking lot into a dance floor complete with weed and booze. Either way, you hope to end the night exhausted, with just enough energy to bike back home.
As I biked home from December’s Bike Night, I met Ben Clark, a Cal Poly graduate who went to his first bike night as a freshman in 2018. He didn’t attend this month — he went to the bars instead.
“It kind of wears out after a bit, as you get older,” Clark said. “It’s like, yeah, I’ve done this. I’ll stay for a lap and then I’ll go home.”
Perhaps we can’t be delinquents on bicycles forever. But as it continues to draw a considerable crowd every month, the monthly occurrence of Bike Night doesn’t seem to be ending anytime soon.
