I’ve been hearing a lot of chatter lately about possible changes to Beer Bike, about which I honestly have no opinion. It’s striking as a historical matter, though, how complicated the thing has gotten over the years. It really was an inspired idea and in the beginning was both much simpler and more dangerous. Here’s a look at 1961:
If you don’t have anything else to do, zoom in and check out the outfits on the crowd. There’s some great stuff, especially footwear.
Bonus:
Loafers and collared shirts. Definitely not current Beer Bike fashion.
Having the races in the parking lot is certainly safer, but also certainly has caused the loss of a lot of the spectator appeal and drama of racing around the quad.
There is a photo in the 1966 Campanile of the first moment of a bike crash in the race. The rear wheel is sliding out on the corner and you can see that the sew-up tire has rolled off the rim. The rider is still trying to control it, but he’s going down. One girl in the crowd is reacting. It is a great photo.
Speaking of 1966. My roomie and I discovered an unlocked gate at the stadium and decided racing around the course at 10 o’clock would be great practice for the Hanszen bike team
Turns out it wasn’t a great idea. Rice PD showed up. No way could he catch on our racing bikes. But he could and did lock the gate. My roomie, now a lawyer in Austin, negotiated our release
Didn’t come close to making the team. No where near making the team