Cruiser Culture

Reports from Interbike 2009 were doused with fixie-this, fixie that, fixie culture, fixie bar spins, fixie color match combo charts and on and on. Ugh! Well another cycling "scene" dominates the city streets here in Denver......cruisers. While fixie hipster kids (fix-sters) are more than plentiful here as well......it is the kids on the cruisers that have the most fun.....as I found out last Wednesday night.



During the summer months, cruisers rule the streets of Denver on Wednesday nights. Denver Cruisers is a "brotherhood" of cruising culture. Think 50s era fun.......but instead of cars think bikes.....instead of driving.....think pedaling......instead of a malt at Arnold's drive in......think beer and numerous stops at local watering holes.


A stop for refreshments at LoDo Tavern and line of bikes a mile long.

With a different theme every week, hundreds and hundreds of cruisers take the streets and have a jolly good old time. Breezing through the Denver Cruiser's manifesto....one quickly realizes that this is no way near a critical mass ride. This is about having fun and riding bikes. No political agenda....just fun. No clogging up intersection and pissing off motorists. The night culminates with the "circle of death" at the final meeting point were hundreds of bikers ride clockwise and counterclockwise around a concrete circle at Civic Center Park in Denver. Everyone is laughing, smiling, high fiving and just taking it all in. Of course there is carnage. Wrecks abound......wobbly riders....head on collisions....rear end collisions....toppling tall bikes.....sidecar sideswipes. Truely a blast and a better ending to the night than a 1950s chicken race in suped up Ford Model As.


The circle of death and a lost soul looking out.