Cyclon

I surfed onto the following website from a bike events page...

https://www.aeolian-ride.info/

Anyone participating in the Aeolian Ride in Santa Monica, CA on Sept 10? I might go just to check out the 50 riders in the funky suits. Looks interesting.

leisui487g

I signed up a few weeks ago. They didn't have any location, time or distance info up then and I forgot about it until now. Should be a lot of fun.

Placid Casual

I signed up a little too late to get a suit, but I'm on a waiting list. Non-suited people, as it turns out, are also welcome to ride.

One important note, though: it's not in Santa Monica. The meeting point will be on Santa Monica Boulevard and Vermont Ave (right outside the Red Line station), sort of in the Silverlake area. Between downtown LA and Hollywood, in other words. Full details here.

Cyclon

I'm thinking of going as a non-suited person.

Placid Casual

The map of the route is now up.

Placid Casual

I got a suit after all! Hooray!

Aeolian ride was cool. For some reason, we skipped Hollywood Boulevard and just went east on Sunset all the way to Vine. From then on we more or less followed the mapped route. Lots of fun interactions with motorists, people waiting in line for clubs, people hanging out in front of art galleries, people crossing the street, etc. There was no violence from car drivers, or even any hint of it (that I saw).

Although I personally would have liked to go along Hollywood Blvd as the original plan called for, just because there are tons of tourists and cruisers up there on Saturday nights, overall there was a nice mix of heavily-trafficked streets where we got a lot of attention and quieter parts of town where we had the streets essentially to ourselves (and could see the lighted suits better for lack of street/ambient lighting). Pan Pacific Park was maybe the coolest part of the ride in that regard--a nice sweeping trail in a dark park with fifty lighted suits on bikes swooping through.

Most common calls from onlookers:

"What are you doing?" (Answers: "Having fun!" "Making art!" "Going on a bike ride!")
"What is this for?" (Answers: "The Aeolian Ride!" "The hell of it!" "It's a public art project!")

And, I swear to god:

"I don't get it!" (Answers: "Someday you will!" "Me neither!")

Also, somebody asked us if we were the Klan, and some chick coming out of a parking lot on Sunset kept shouting something about sperm--we looked like sperm, or we had good sperm, or something sperm-related.

Cyclon

Glad you got a suit. Sounds like it was a blast.

I couldn't make it out after all. I'll look out for pictures from the ride.

Placid Casual

Not to rub it in, but you probably could have gotten a suit, too. They had like, eight or nine of them unaccounted for--with events like this, a few people always back out at the last minute--and for the last few, I think they actually had to browbeat a couple of shy non-suited types into suiting up. The rule of thumb for these kind of things is: if you signed up late, show up early!

Photos should be up soon, and I'll bet video, too. The thing was being massively documented and I think a guy was even putting together a podcast.

Cyclon

Doh! If that was the case, I should of cancelled my prior engagement and showed up with the high chance of getting a suit. I'll just have to view the photos and videos and enjoy the ride vicariously.