Black Sheep Bike Night

On Saturday night I attended my second bike night hosted by a local MC called the Black Sheep for Christ. Now from my limited experience, I find bike-nights to be pretty sedate in that all that really happens is a bunch of people on a bunch of bikes get together somewhere to socialize. That’s pretty much it.

In this case however it’s actually a pretty cool event. I rode in on my own ahead of some friends and took a spot at the end of a line of parked bikes. Immediately one of the Black Sheep guys came out and gently got me to position my bike such that it was in line with the rest which gave the entire line a very uniform presentation. Okay that was cool. Next my friends showed up and positioned their bikes the same way. After we ate the bike games started.

Slow Racing

Have you ever tried to slow-ride your bike? If you have a big heavy cruiser you will know the effort and skill that goes into something like that. If you’ve never seen it, take a look at this youtube video. Well these guys had their very own slow ride competition. Essentially the idea is to ride a straight line for a designated distance, side-by-side as slow as possible without putting your feet down. The moment your foot touches the ground, you lose! So with engines roaring and clutches being feathered and breaks being skillfully applied we saw some fairly skilled runs.

Bag Toss

Next was the bag toss. Okay so this one isn’t really as exciting as the slow race but cool nonetheless. In this case you ride two-up. The rider navigates a straight line next to evenly spaced buckets, into which the pillion rider must toss bean bags. Simple right? Nope… it’s much harder than it looks. Well judging bu the number of misses that is.

Now in this particular case the winners get bragging rights and that’s about it. But what it does to those watching is pretty magical. Everyone is together, cheering and rooting for their favorite competitor and sharing in a really good time. There were other competitions of this nature but you get the idea. So if you have never attended something like this I encourage you to do so. At least once in your riding career. It’s good fun, friendly people, camaraderie and neat watching the skilled riders.

Events, General