August Full Moon Fiasco

The Knog ride was successful to say the least. We had a record turn out and a great time. I can't thank Mike and Moto enough for coming to ride with us.

Now that the euphoria has worn off and we are all enjoying a moment of sobriety, it's time to start it up again with the Full Moon Fiasco.

Meet at The Swamp Thursday, August 6th at 8:00 p.m. and I'm sure by then I will have determined a destination. Maybe.

Welcome To The Map Spokane

(click the card for pictures)
The Knog Ride was an overwhelming success. I guess I could end it right there, but you probably want a little more than that.

For a little set up for those of you that don't know what I'm talking about, you can check out the post from a while back. For the rest I want to start by saying thank you to all of you for coming out and riding with us on a non-full moon occasion. Thanks to my lieutenants of the FBC for making everything go as smoothly as it did. Joe set us up with the destination and got Mike to DJ for us, though I was told it wasn't an arm twisting effort to get him to throw down some music. Silas made those awesome stickers that I was passing out until I ran out. I hope you got one. I still have some bumper stickers though. Don't forget Joe Kaler at The Swamp and his loyal staff for letting the FBC take the place over and disappear as quickly as we appeared. And of course Lisa. She was my worry wart about some of the little things that I tend to overlook and all those little things would have added up to create a possible catastrophe if I had let them go. Thanks everybody.

As far as our guests, Mike and Moto, I can't thank those two enough for even considering FBC Spokane for one of their destinations out of all the potential places they could have gone to ride with some great bike clubs, they chose to come here and ride with us. That's awesome. I have on good authority that of all the places around the world that these two have visited over the past two weeks, we had the largest turn out. Surprising given some of the places the have gone. I would start to list them here, but I think you might want to wait for the book. That's right, Moto is putting together a book with all the exploits of their world tour in it including their ride with us. They have promised to keep me in the loop when that will be available. Until then, you should check out his photography HERE and HERE. As for Mike, you should check out the products he let me give away HERE and at your LBS.

It should be said that with that many people that there is a higher likelihood of assholes. We did not have a shortage. I should have mentioned it earlier in the night when I had the mic but I was a little preoccupied throwing free stuff. I will mention it here.

I would like to make it abundantly clear that we are NOT, regardless of numbers, a critical mass. We are not out there to purposely get in the way of motorized traffic. We make our best effort to keep it to one or two lanes where applicable and we certainly do not plow through red lights. The way the FBC Spokane draws attention to the shear number of cyclists in the city and the need for better ways to get around is to follow the rules of the road. Nobody likes an asshole so don't be one. If you feel like you need to continue riding against traffic, purposely slowing in front of motorized traffic, going through red lights and otherwise making people angry with your bike, the FBC does not want you. Go get yourself run over on your own time, not mine. If you are hurt in a traffic accident while riding with the FBC and it is your fault, it will likely be the last FBC Fiasco and I don't think you want that. I certainly don't. Finger wagging over.

On a down-your-throat-media note, The FBC is now on Twitter as well as Facebook. You will notice some new additions to the sidebar where you can follow along on either and with Facebook you can post your pictures of FBC events, get reminders of events and participate in the suggestion box of possible destinations for the FBC. As with the Twitter, I will probably use this to let you know last minute plans for being somewhere downtown for a beverage or a show that isn't a FBC Spokane sanctioned event. You can even send me your email address and get on the mailing list for a reminder about updates to the blogspot.

There are some new designs I have drawn for The FBC as well. You have seen one design already in a previous post but now I have it in a safe-for-work version as well. Clicking on the appropriate design will take you to a separate page for each item.


Thanks for making this the biggest ride yet and for those of you that were able to make a one dollar donation, you help me keep this going.

200+ riders; low 64 and clear.

A New Design

Inspired by the flyer and spoke card for the upcoming Knog Ride on Friday July 24th (see post below for details), I put together a new tee shirt design on Cafe Press. I know it's a little steep for a shirt but you know you want to show off that you are a Lifetime Member For Life by wearing it on your clothes.

I have a plan for making a Safe-For-Work version of the design if there is any interest in it, but this is what I have now, so get on over there and pick one up. You can even get the design on a SIGG water bottle which I think is the coolest thing ever. And if this design doesn't do it for you, there are some others to pick from in the sidebar on the left. Click the picture to go to the Cafe Press site for this design.

The Knog Ride

So I contacted the brand manager from Knog, the company that makes those little silicone lights, for a possible donation for the December ride that we lovingly call Festivus and have Feats of Strength and Decorating contests and give stuff away. He returned my email with an emphatic 'yes' and I then received a package of stuff to give away to Lifetime Members For Life. Awesome.

A few weeks ago we began our correspondence again with what I think may be one of the coolest emails I've ever gotten. Here are some excerpts: (note that he speaks in both a cool and warm burnt umber tone.)

"... I am currently working on the KNOG marketing regime for 2010. The core concept is 'Where ever you find, bikes, people and KNOG - the party is happening'. As part of this I am doing a two week global photo shoot with Tokyo based photographer and cycle rider Motoyan, we are checking out real people and real bikes...

The end result will be a book about cycling around the world - and yeah - sure, partly it is a marketing thing...it ends up on the desk of every bicycle company and bicycle journo in the world..."

So a few questions

what's the set up at the FBC??

Who will come for a ride?

...plenty of KNOG schwag for the people that wanna come for the ride / event ... and if we could hook up at a bar or FBC club . . . then KNOG would also be happy to throw some money on the bar."

Is that cool or what? I quickly responded and told him we would be glad to take on the responsibility of being real people and having real bikes. I was also able to answer the questions with what I assumed was good enough to not make him change his mind. I was also intrigued by the "...throw some money on the bar." line. So the ride is on!

We will be meeting just like always. The Swamp, Friday July 24th at 8:00p.m.

The route is an easy one so I encourage you to bring your art bikes and whatever strange (non-motorized) two wheeled thing you have and enjoy the short ride. You may also notice that there is the mention of it being a marketing campaign of sorts. That means that the photos taken will be plastered all over the world, so if you feel that you don't want that to happen to your face, I suggest that you try not to be there.

If you have the option, please feel free to download and print the flyer above in either color or black and white, and hang it all over the place. If you would like a safe for work poster, email me and I can attach one for you.

See you in a couple of weeks. Excited yet?

Maxwell House is a Douche

I was hoping for a repeat of the first birthday of the Fiasco by going back to the Maxwell House, playing some volleyball and eating cupcakes. I called and got a dude that told me there would be a group that night and we couldn't come. I asked when they would be done and he said 9:30. Perfect, that's when we would come by. He further turned me down by saying that there would not be enough people working to facilitate that volume of people. I asked if they could call some people in and he said that they couldn't do it. That's when I said: "So what you're telling me is that you are turning down the business of 100 customers. On a Tuesday." He again said no.

That's when the owner called me back and said with some uncertainty that they would do it: "I guess we have to." No, you don't and no you didn't. I told them never mind and that we would be going somewhere else, thank you very much. So if you get a chance to go to the Maxwell House, change your mind and go play volleyball at Litz's.

As for our destination, I called my friend Patrick up at The Scoop and he set me up with Andrew at Far West and they were more than happy to have us even on short notice. Amy and Jason(?) served hard and fast on the drinks and were even able to stow a cake that Lisa delivered earlier that evening. Plenty of room with pool tables and real, metal dangerous darts. If you have followed the blog from the very beginning and judging from the turnout on the first five rides, you haven't, you would know that Far West was the destination bar for Fiasco One. Since then we have increased our numbers from two to 125. Not too shabby.

Riders: 125+; 52 degrees and clear.

Tomorrow I will post about the ride coming up on July 24th which includes a printable flyer to spread around town. Thanks for coming out everybody and I will see you on Friday the 24th.