I Love This City.
A couple months ago it was a mass pillow fight. Today, it was BYOBW.
I read about the event a couple days ago (thank you, SFist), but due to my short attention span I managed to forget about it by this morning. So Keith and I grabbed brunch (okay, it was 2 pm by that time), stopped by Safeway, and hopped on the 22 back home, and just as we boarded the bus there was a guy talking to his friend on the phone about how he was heading to Lombard for the Big Wheel races. Yikes! It was 3:30 by then, the "race" started at 4, and I was still on the bus with my friggin groceries. So we got home, I unpacked my groceries tout de suite, and determined within about 30 seconds that if I wanted to make the event in time, I would have to find a cab. Another 10 seconds was all it took to decide that I didn't want to miss it (cab fare be damned), and luckily managed to find one within a couple minutes of leaving the apartment.
I got to about a block away from the top of the race by just a few minutes past 4, and was afraid I might have missed it as a couple dozen people were walking away from the direction I was headed, but was relieved to find those people in the minority as there were hundreds of people still lining the infamous block of Lombard. I had only missed the first race and the racers were walking their vehicles back up to the top of this hill. And then, they were off!
check out the guy in the middle of the above photo riding a garbage can
crazy outfits and crashes were common
there they go...
I am so glad I went. They did three races once I got there (so four altogether), and there were so many participants (definitely 50, but probably closer to 100, I'm bad at guestimating) they had to stagger the starting times. And I ended up running into my friend Noah (small world!)--next time I'll try to get a group together, but being reminded of an event 30 minutes before start time doesn't lend itself to activity planning.
Would I actually participate in the race? Nah. It was fun enough to watch. And much less dangerous. This is one event where I didn't mind being on the sidelines.
I read about the event a couple days ago (thank you, SFist), but due to my short attention span I managed to forget about it by this morning. So Keith and I grabbed brunch (okay, it was 2 pm by that time), stopped by Safeway, and hopped on the 22 back home, and just as we boarded the bus there was a guy talking to his friend on the phone about how he was heading to Lombard for the Big Wheel races. Yikes! It was 3:30 by then, the "race" started at 4, and I was still on the bus with my friggin groceries. So we got home, I unpacked my groceries tout de suite, and determined within about 30 seconds that if I wanted to make the event in time, I would have to find a cab. Another 10 seconds was all it took to decide that I didn't want to miss it (cab fare be damned), and luckily managed to find one within a couple minutes of leaving the apartment.
I got to about a block away from the top of the race by just a few minutes past 4, and was afraid I might have missed it as a couple dozen people were walking away from the direction I was headed, but was relieved to find those people in the minority as there were hundreds of people still lining the infamous block of Lombard. I had only missed the first race and the racers were walking their vehicles back up to the top of this hill. And then, they were off!
check out the guy in the middle of the above photo riding a garbage can
crazy outfits and crashes were common
there they go...I am so glad I went. They did three races once I got there (so four altogether), and there were so many participants (definitely 50, but probably closer to 100, I'm bad at guestimating) they had to stagger the starting times. And I ended up running into my friend Noah (small world!)--next time I'll try to get a group together, but being reminded of an event 30 minutes before start time doesn't lend itself to activity planning.
Would I actually participate in the race? Nah. It was fun enough to watch. And much less dangerous. This is one event where I didn't mind being on the sidelines.
posted by T @ 10:38 PM
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