Trikeasaurus Attacks! Creates Mobile Dance Mayhem!

(If you have good pictures from Sunday – PLEASE email them to me – THANKS) [Updated: 4/1 added new picture of “First Dolores Stop” from Chase]

Did you hear Trikeasaurus roll by Sunday? It probably sounded like some Jackson 5 booming from a pair of massive speakers attached to a shiny blue tricycle? Maybe you saw a few people dancing along behind while riding their bikes? Or maybe you caught one of the dance parties that sprung up at some of its stops?

I LUV Trikeasaurus.

I should ‘splain:

Trikeasaurus is my musical tricycle:

It’s a large adult tricycle decked out with an iPod and my FlashDance sound system (details below). I had all the components to use for Flashdances & then got a tricycle to cart them around in. But the real spark came when my friend Aaron Lander (SUPERSTAR!) built a metal rig to hold the speakers so they would be useable while I biked. Suddenly my tricycle was not just to get my equipment to my Flashdances, but also a party both to & from FDs & also for Critical Mass or whenever I feel like it. Trikeasaurus was born! Trikeasaurus is ALWAYS a good time.

 

So Sunday I decided to celebrate the spring gorgeousness & go for a short musical bike ride (maybe an hour?) Trikeasaurus had other ideas: Five & a half hours later I returned having had one of the most epically fun days I’ve had in a long long time:

12:45: TXTed Gretchen coz she is always up for Trikeasaurus time & told her to come meet me.

1:15: Assembled Trikeasaurus. Sid joined us coz he was biking by. The three of us hit the road with some Public Enemy.

– Biked up Valencia to Market street & then to the Castro to run some errands – rocking the peoples. Trikeasaurus decided to play Devo’s “Whip It” for the Castro 🙂

– Met Kunal at the Castro Theater, lost Sid.

– Rocked on down to Dolores Park (with Mary J. Blige) & biked through the park (the gay boys loved the Mika!) and stopped and got a good chunk of the park to sing “Happy Birthday” for someone….. Then as we were biking out a small group of people got up and started dancing – so we stopped again and kicked in the Michael Jackson and maybe 15 people joined in for our first impromptu dance party of the day (you guys were so fun!!!)

– Biked down 18th & up Valencia & then downtown to drop off Gretchen.

3:00: Met Jen & started a tiny little dance party in front of the San Francisco Center Mall with Jen, Gretchen, Kunal and a few random strangers – worked some Gorillaz & some Bee Gees. Left Gretchen with Jen & rolled out…

– Kunal & I biked down to the Embarcadero & first went towards the ballpark & then decided to go to Fisherman’s Wharf. We entertained many tourists along the way with a long Stevie Wonder set, & picked up another random bicyclist who blew fabulous bubbles at stops (thanks green bike woman!). The highlight of this leg was stopping where the skatepunks hang out and starting a little skate dance party with them. I let them plug in one of their iPods & we rocked out while they did skate tricks. Cool. Thanks for the “Thistle Dance” by Mac Dré skater dudes!

4:30ish: K and I biked back up Market – both up and down Market we had little dance moments break out with random folks at stop lights. This leg was all about Michael Franti & Spearhead!

– Biked back to the Mission & up 16th & then back down to Dolores Park. Biked by the park & then stopped at BiRite Creamery for some ice cream. Left Trikeasaurus playing Prince for the folks in line (after asking if it was cool of course). Got the crowd to sing “Happy Birthday” over the soundsystem for someone in line. Biked off happily with my mint chip & roasted banana double scoop & Prince’s “Raspberry Beret”.

– Decided to call it a day – but various friends in the park TXTed me asking me to return. Also heard from Gretchen who was at Fritjz. Dropped off Kunal, biked up Valencia & picked up Gretchen.

6ish: G & I returned to the park & biked up and around (played more Mika for the same gay boys – damn I love Mika) & found Tom & Catherine in the middle of the park. Started an epic 45 minute dance party amidst the hipsters (maybe 40-50 people dancing). Lots of mashups, some Michael, some Madonna, Kanyé West’s “Stronger” and OutKast’s “Hey Ya!”.

6:45: Dragged myself home because my battery started dying. Kicked it into mellow “Here Comes The Sun” – the new mix from “Love” & Fatboy Slim & Bootsy Collins’ version of “The Joker”. The battery completely died just as I rolled up to my house :-). Perfect.

It’s about biking, it’s about music, it’s about dancing, but mostly it’s about making me & lots of random folks happy.

I LUV Trikeasaurus.

‘deep

.ps
Thanks Kunal, Gretchen & Sid – it wouldn’t be nearly as much fun without a bike posse!
—–

Random Notes:

– Folks in SUVs: For some reason along the Embarcadero tons of people in SUVs were giving me all kinds of props and generally loving Trikeasaurus as they were gas-guzzling their way down the street. Sigh. I *hate* SUVs. But Trikeasurus loves everyone.

– Homeless dance parties: At a few stops (esp. mid-Market), and a few other times on Trikeasaurus, some of the folks jammin’ out were clearly homeless, or at least seriously down and out – it is always truly awesome to see them so happy. Music is a good thing.

– I play a lot of what I call “Crowd Favorites” on Trikeasaurus. Other people have called it “Wedding Dance Music,” which, while painful, is pretty apt. Part of me feels bad that I’m playing fairly routine music & that I play a lot of it over and over (MJ, Stevie, Prince, as much as I love it), but when you are blasting music out to a lot of people and want to make a lot of people happy, “Crowd Favorites” are really good. In fact, I think I’ll start calling it “Highest Common Denominator Music” 🙂

– I might try TXTing Trikeasaurus rides to Twitter so that anyone who wants to join in the fun can – but a big ride might be unwieldy so I can’t guarantee I’ll always do it. Anyway, if you want to get SMS notifications of rides, just send the message “follow deepasaurus” to 40404. This is done through the magic of Twitter, so if you are already a member (or want to sign up) you can also “follow deep@worker-bee.com” on Twitter.com to get the SMS . Note: this is also my FlashDance notification twitter so you’ll get FD announcements on FD nights (but there aren’t many announcements so it shouldn’t be a big deal)

– Technical Details for those who want to hatch a Trikeasaurus of their own:

• iPod
• Car Battery – but actually I use a deep cycle marine battery because they go through more cycles and can be treated more harshly. I also got the expensive “gel pack” kind because you can tip them over & generally treat them even worse. I can’t have nice things.
• 1200 Watt Inverter – technically a smaller inverter should work, but my 750 couldn’t handle it – it had something to do with peak load.
• 500 Watt Yamaha Stagepas speakers with built in amp
• Microphone (optional) but how else you going to sing “Happy Birthday” to people?
• The hardest thing is the speaker mount rig. What can I tell you – you need an awesome friend who manages a metal shop (Aaron – did I mention that you were a SUPERSTAR?! Also big props to T.R. Lingley for design help and getting the ball rolling). Or pay someone.