San Francisco Bike Blog

What is Pedal Monster?

Pedal Monster is a multi-day, annual event organized, promoted, and hosted by Cyclecide. Cyclecide invites all other altered bike clubs to San Francisco for a weekend of activities including a poker run, a day of feasting (BBQ), and a show with the rides set up.^[10][11]

You can download a slightly higher-res version, here (38 MB).

That might have been the most overwhelming sensory experience I’ve ever participated in. You can find more details on the mayhem that was Pedal Monster 2008 at cyclecide.com.

The event was held at the Ace Junkyard - in the industrial area just south of Cesar Chavez. Upon walking through the gates of the junkyard, you enter this Mad Max-type world, something like this, but subtract the cars, add bicycles. Through the chaos that was the Bike Rodeo, you would hear these songs (Los Banos) just building up and dropping out from underneath you, and the whole while this massive trombone would just wind out its siren call, and through the smoke and flames and shadows and chaos, you just knew the end of the world was nigh. But it wasn’t. We were just having fun. 

It would not be fair to single out any one band, because they all rocked with great energy, but the opening band, Los Banos, who played during the Bike Rodeo, were my type of thing - horns are just awesome:

Heavy Pedal Cyclecide Bike Rodeo with Los Banos (punk rock mariachi)
Cookie Mongoloid (heavy metal cookie monster also known as Cookie Mongo)
Whores of War (punk, hardcore)
Murder of Crows (rap)
Hammer Horror Classics (punk horror them tunes)
Derailleurs (all girl bike dance troupe)
Waco (born again Rock!)

Cookie Mongoloid was too much fun. I haven’t moshed like that since grade school.

The Derailleurs, an all-girl bicycle dance troupe, were the surprise of the night for me. I knew about the most famous, and I thought only, bicycle dance troupe, the Sprockettes from Portland — but honestly, I didn’t buy the hype. Yes, I thought the Sprockettes were cool, and that ‘bicycle dancing stuff’ was cool, but I would read about the Sprockettes on BikePortland.org, and the reactions of many people was one of overwhelming joy - I didn’t get it. Now I do.

In what seemed like a very positive environment already, things got even more positive when The Derailleurs’ turn came. They just completely took over the spot. They were into it. The crowd was into it. Their performance just added a whole new dimension to the proceedings. Organization. Empowerment. One got the idea that there was something more to this ‘dance troupe thing’ than was advertised. If you know the statistics of bicycling, you know that women are often left out in all but the most cycling-friendly cities. Now, with The Derailleurs and the Sprockettes and female dance troupes sprouting up everywhere, one got the idea that anything was possible. My niece, just starting her life in New Jersey, was going to have some new, kick-ass role models to look up to, and that made me very happy.

The Derailleurs are part of a growing legion of bike troupes all over the world. The B:C:Clettes represent Vancouver. The Velo Vixens represent Victoria. The Spokes are out of Manchester, UK. Seattle’s Stripped Nipples have been reborn as the Bicycle Belles.

Here’s a 8-minute film about The Sprockettes which has been showing at the Bicycle Film Festival this year:

And now the men want in on the action, too. Portland is represented by Chain Reaction, and Vancouver has the Brakes.

I’m not sure if the presence of Bike! Bike! folks made this year extra special, but I can’t imagine things getting much better than they were on Saturday night.

There is a fundraiser for the Bike Kitchen at El Rio tonight (Monday).

Pedal Monster 2008 was a blast. See you next year.

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