A few weeks ago, Cousin Ryan called me up and said that he had entered me in something called the “Midnight Classic” in downtown Denver. I wasn’t really sure what the hell it was until I did some online snooping. After some Google searches and an extensive amount of page-views I learned that it was a 10 mile cruiser ride that draws thousands of folks from the area.  Count me in, except for one minor problem… I don’t have a cruiser bike.  You can’t exactly show up to an event like this with a full carbon race bike, clipped into your pedals while decked out in spandex and have a leisurely cruise.

To remedy this, I headed to my local bike shop with the hopes of finding the ideal cruiser bike for this occasion.  After some failed attempts and an underwhelming inventory (I guess cruisers are popular to buy in the spring) I found my diamond in the rough.  Here she is, my brand new Schwinn Classic SS.  Her name: Large Marge.

Man, I’m a sucker for those whitewalls.

Armed with my new cruiser bike I patiently awaited the event only to have my cousin bail out a couple hours before it kicked off. Apparently he was too tired from his 60+ mile MTB race that day to ride around Denver at midnight.  To his credit, 12:00 AM is around 2 hours past his bedtime. Man, it’s got to suck going to bed right as the street lights are warming up.

I wasn’t going to drive down to Denver and do this thing alone, what fun would that be? Should I have scrapped the entire event?  Fuck no, I bought a brand new bike just so I could do fun things like this.  Why would I want to miss out?!

I immediately hit up my buddy Jay, he’s got a sweet cruiser bike called “Rust Bucket” that he pieced together from spare parts, duck tape and good intentions.  After explaining the event he was in.  We loaded the bikes on the roof of his car and headed down to Denver.

Locked and loaded. Down to Denver.

The ride was amazing. The streets were closed off, there were thousands of folks having a great time cruising around, we saw every imaginable style and make of bike and folks along the sidelines were cheering and pouring beer &  liquor down your throat at every possible moment.  Jay and I managed to stay sober for the entire ride despite some of the crowd’s best efforts, that’s not to say that we didn’t have an ale or two in our hands for a couple of the miles.

The big finish. Fives in the sky.

Jay and Rust Bucket doing the Atlas / fist-pump celebration on the finish line.

I immediately spiked Large Marge to the ground after this photo was taken.  Oops, guess I was a little to carried away in the moment.

Many thanks to Ryan for bailing out last minute and Jay for sliding in and crushing the ride with me.  Everything worked out perfectly and we’re planning on bringing a gigantic crew down next year to make things even more mischievous.  Also “muchas gracias” or whatever is most appropriate Spanish term may be to the folks at Chipotle for covering the entry costs. I’ll buy a burrito or two from you this year or something…