Beer Bike '95
The blue chair sitting up on the Control Tower scaffolding looks lonely. So does the bike track.
The biggest noise comes from the wind ripping through strings of cheesy, colored flags; the kind that make you think of swimming pool finish lines. There is no screaming, chanting, yelling, fighting ...
Certainly no fighting over using the facilities, because right now the students at the track are outnumbered by the rented Port-a-Potties. They (the students, not the toilets) are mostly coordinators in uniform, beige golf shirts, wearing the adult version of headgear: orthodontic-looking contraptions with microphones hanging out in front of their mouths.
I'm amazed again by how much a few harried Rice students can get done in an hour, because I know that the track will have been transformed by the time Beer Bike is kicked off with the parade at noon. I can already imagine the myriad Meet Sheet, Viewbook, Rice Calendar pictures that will be taken once the now empty stands fill.
11:15
I know that the parade isn't supposed to start for another 45 minutes, but I can definitely hear the roar of a flatbed truck loaded with students, music blasting, horn honking, and familiar screaming: "Sid Rich Rules, DEATH FROM ABOVE"
Turns out that the college with the Beer Bike slogan "Catherine the Great: We Know We're Going to Get Crushed, So We Might as Well Enjoy It." decided the inner loop was too small a venue for them, so they took their act on the road. I laugh as two big trucks slowly round the corner of University and Greenbriar, impatient West U. yuppie drivers ready to inflict death from behind.
Most of the people on the trucks have been awake for two hours now, and they are getting impatient with their SuperSoakers and trash cans filled with water balloons. Every jogger on the sidewalk elicits a few shots, despites the screams of "Civilians! Hold your fire!" coming from the back truck. A senior on the back truck is busy recruiting people to jump off and attack on foot once Sid reaches the inner loop. "You're jumping, right?" he yells repeatedly.
Meanwhile people are starting to arrive at the track. I recognize some of them: Cynthia Lanier, Bob Truscott, Cathy Clack. Everyone I can see is either a staff member or prof, as far as I can tell. Turns out they are here for the 11:30 judges meeting. I found out that Rice employs two of the oldest tricks in their book to hook prospective Beer Bike officials: Free pizza and free T-shirts. Not an event could go by without ...
11:30
A gnome cart drives by, the driver a student in sunglasses, clutching a Miller Lite. She hops out, welcomes the judges, then announces that there is a new, blue Ford Explorer parked illegally near the track. She says that they are getting ready to ticket cars without proper hang tags. Bob Truscott moves to his feet. I am ready for him to whip one of those electronic ticket calculators out of his pocket and start plugging in the temporary license plate number. Instead he reaches for a set of keys, gets in his new, blue Ford Explorer and moves it to the neccessary far off parking lot.
I sit, absorbing the significance.
A student has just told a Food and Housing official that he does not have the proper parking authorization and is in danger of being ticketed.
Beer Bike really is a magical, mystical event. Anything can happen today. Anything.
11:45
"Whew, that backstretch is gonna suck!"
A biker has arrived on the scene and he's busy telling his friend how much he's going to be hating life.
He's not kidding. The wind has really picked up. It takes one guy carrying a stack of papers topped by a roll of red concessions tickets by surprise. Without hands to hold the coil together, it has started unwrapping around him, making a huge, red, snakey mess.
But besides the things stirred up by the wind, there's not much movement. (The judges are still busy with their pizza.) I decide to head over to the start of the parade.
11:50, Baker College
Someone rides by, joins me. He's very excited.
"Have you seen the hose that Baker rigged up to the outer loop?!"
Sure enough, as we pass by Baker on the way to the Sallyport there is a huge group of red T-shirts gathered around the college's unfurled fire hose. (As it turns out, they managed to get themselves with this plan. The inside of Baker, its halls and floors, were muddy and wet through the next week.)
My informant tells me the word is that it's even approved by Food and Housing. I wonder what Bob Truscott would say about that. I wonder if Bob Truscott has finished walking back to the track from wherever he had to park.
In the background, Lovetteers have set up a gazilcher -- a large slingshot made out of surgical tubing. They are using it to sling water balloons into the Will Rice patio where a pre-event, per-WRC-theme disco party was going on. There are some who say that this is an unfair strategy. There are also some who say that a gazilcher is too light a punishment for any John Travolta wannabe.
11:55
Harleys with Lovett women riders are hummin' in the strobe light of the lead Rice police escort car. A water-filled condom flies through the air.
It is a motley assortment of vehicles. A hummer and school bus, Harleys and fire truck, flatbeds and convertibles, pick-ups and Jack Rabbit Slim's Dance Contest Car. "Uma Thurman" is dancing on a car ahead, as Brown's Pulp Suction Beer Bike delegation wends its way down the inner loop. Pseudo-Uma will be able to have her pick of Johnny T.'s at Will Rice.
12:05
On the science side of the loop, rollerbladers are gliding along like nothing is different about today.
On the college side I am reminded of a T-shirt that was being sold at South Padre this Spring Break: Wet, Wild, and Wasted.
12:15
A sight the parade wouldn't be complete without: one of the flatbed trucks stops short, throwing its passengers against each other and the wood guard rails. Whatever their chant has been is interupted by a collective "Ow!"
I catch sight of a shirt that says LovETT. At first I think it says "LowFIT" which I find to be an amusing play on their name (but of course turns out not to be a play at all.)
12:30, the Track
The tip of the parade has reached the track and the coordinators, in beige shirts, are bustling.
One lone truck rides around the circle, but there are no cheers coming from its passengers. Either the students' cheer is spent or the wind is blowing so hard no noise can travel.
12:45
Beer odor is wafting through the air; so are the year's first chants of "suuuck, suuuuck." Another voice blows past.
"Scott!" someone is yelling up to a student atop the scaffolding. "It windy up there?"
"As hell!"
"It going to hold?"
I listen to the structure's constant creaking and wheezing and doubt its integrity. The weather situation also has me concerned. A strong wind is lifting fezzes off of Hanszenites' heads, and I think I feel a few raindrops. Either people don't notice the moisture, people don't want to notice it, or they're already so wet they can't tell. I decide to ignore it and go get a wristband that will let me stay on this side of the track for the races.
1:00
Beer Bike shirts of years past walk by. A celebration has begun among the exclusive, wristbanded group on the track. The wristbands are not the only thing that are lending the event its Rice Party atmosphere -- i.e. the "chuggers" aren't the only ones who deserve that title today.
Close by, a contingency from Lovett starts chanting, ending "Wiess women look like men."
A Wiess woman in a Burger King crown, painted face and cut-off jeans was quick to retort.
"Oh, yeah? Well..." she said.
I'm in the middle of the Hanszen "Shriner Bike" delegation, be-fezzed students be buzzin' around me.
A drunk security guy is trying to herd people away from the track.
"Everyone needs to clear the race place! Dude! Move!"
He's flailing his arms at people to stay clear of the place he keeps falling towards.
One of his fellow security people comes by to help him out and help him along.
"Get back!" shouts the reinforcement wearing the magenta security shirt. "Or I'll spray you with my water gun."
1:45
Two people walk by. They are flushed and sweaty, legs are wavering beneath them. I assume that they have just finished biking. Then I realize that they're just drunk.
There is an unholy cry coming from the Jones section. It sounds like jibberish. Or Jib-something.
What are they saying?
JIBA...Jones is bad ass.
Maybe so, but when I look back at the track, Jones is getting some competition from the GSA. There is a grad student rider circling the track with his shorts pulled down to expose his backside, a rather prominent body part when one is bike riding. So I guess, actually, you'd have to say Jones had some bare ass competition. I'm not one to judge good or bad. Reporters are supposed to be objective.
The announcer booms, "Believe it or not, GSA is done!" And so the alumni race ends; Hanszen winning easily -- a legacy of Beer Bikes swept in years past.
2:30 -- Women's Race
A guy with JIBA shaved into his head walks toward the pit. He's a catcher, eager for the race to start. I see him out of the corner of my eye while I talk to the Sid chug judge who tells me that this is his first Beer Bike.
"I'm having a great time! This is phenomenal!" he says. "But they tell me the women are going for the win, and they have a good chance so I really have to be on top of it."
Some of the women have written pithy sayings on their legs with body paint. (They are easy to identify later that night at Rondolet. They are the ones with "Kick ass" and "See ya" tan lines shining through their nylons.)
One incident mars the race from the start. Hanszen's co-Beer Bike coordinator Brenna Copeland falls on the first lap trying to avoid an accident and has to be taken by ambulance to Park Plaza Hospital. Before the men's race, Mr. Announcer tells the crowd that she has a broken shoulder but is in good spirits and wishes the Hanszen men's team good luck.
Otherwise the race runs its course without interuption or undue comotion. Spirits are high, college spirit is high and consumption of spirits is higher. All is right with the world.
The only sad thing about the Sid women winning was that it left no hope for a college to sweep this year.
3:30 -- Men's Race
There are those colleges whose men seem to feel that the paradigmatic test of athletic prowess is drinking beer and then riding bikes. And then there is Sid.
Sid's past antics were the impetus for a new thirty-minute rule on the races and are responsible for the ubiquitous Q: "How is Sid going to disqualify themselves this year?"
A: Extra bikers on the track and a cow thrown in for nostalgia's sake
There is a delay at the start of this race; everyone has to wait while the ambulance returns. Because of course, we have a whole medical center, but no one thought to include more than one ambulance in the plan.
All the talk before the race centers on Brown's team, about which people keep saying, "They have six guys on the cycling team!" Maybe even more amazing is the fact that during the race Will Rice College got 25 seconds worth of penalties and two crashes and still pulled off a close fourth place finish.
In all seriousness this one is the most tense, suspenseful and surprising. Tense because it comes down to less than second between first place Brown and runner-up Jones. Suspenseful because it comes down to less than second between first place Brown and runner-up Jones. And surprising because GSA is a serious contender.
Looking at all of the final times I notice they are way off the track records; the best men's time is off by more than three minutes. Cold hard numbers, a testament to the wind all of the riders have had to contend with today.
The Aftermath
A few days later there are few reminders of Beer Bike.
The colorful patches of broken water balloons have been swept away. There are no more puddles of water -- or beer -- on campus.
But a lone sign at Sid refuses to let the glory slip away totally: "Did anyone find a pair of Oakley sunglasses in Gillis' pool? If you have them, call me..."
Now how would a pair of students' sunglasses get in the Gillis' pool? Oh, I forgot. On Beer Bike Day anything could happen...
Thresher Beer-Bike 1995
story by Rachel Dornhelm (Hanszen)
Christof Spieler (SRC)
and Joel Hardi (Lovett)
design by Christof Spieler
photographers:
Joel Hardi , Lovett
Bernie Yoo , Wiess
Ryan McMullan , Baker
Angel Yu , Lovett
Carmen-Gloria Yamal , Brown
Rakesh Agrawal , SRC
All photos were digitized on a Nikon CoolScan negative scanner, making this the first Thresher section to use all digital photos.
This item appeared in the Features section of the March 31, 1995 issue.
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