San Francisco

“Bring Your Own Big Wheel” Race in San Francisco Draws Hundreds of Riders

OK, it’s not really a sport.

But who’s going to argue that it wasn’t a lot of fun?

Hundreds of people showed up for the 15th annual “Bring Your Own Big Wheel” race in San Francisco’s Portero Hill on Easter Sunday, zooming down Vermont and 20th streets on a set of plastic wheels. No rubber allowed.

The race was conceived in 2000 in the “mind of a mad man” named Jon Brumit, according to the Bring Your Own Big Wheel website. Brumit’s grand vision back then was to ride the transportation mode of his youth and cruise down the crooked ol' Lombard Street.

Brumit was the sole rider that year, with 13 spectators.

By 2006, Brumit had 30 fellow racers, organizers said.

And then, YouTube was born.

Every year after that, the organizers note, ridership swelled to the hundreds, and spectator numbers began to spike to the thousands.

Already tired of tourists, Lombard Street residents wanted the race to move, or else.

The annual Easter phenomenon has been held on Vermont Street in 2008, and organizers are thrilled that this street is even curvier.

On Sunday, riders whooped and cheered and looked quite silly rolling down the street, their backs hunched over the tiny trikes, some in masks and hats, one man even sporting a hot pink Lyft mustache, and everyone looking like they were having a blast from the past.

There was even a group that went as BART, using cardboard and spraypaint to make the train cars.

 

Service advisory: mad cowboy in possession of bart train.

A photo posted by Levi Weintraub (@therevlev) on Apr 5, 2015 at 5:35pm PDT

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