To make a long story short, Virginia and I spent several evenings working on our Ms. PacMan costumes. We made highly reflective costumes with fun details. She was Ms. PacMan herself, and I was a blue ghost. We also added details like a power pill on the bike so she could "waka-waka" it like any other player of the game. When we got there it turned out we weren't the only ones that honored PacMan. Cami had nice tights in the same theme.

Mario and Pokemon were also honored by fans.

     

Audio is a game, and this bike was all about providing a sound track for the ride.

Donkey Kong in the house!

The shadows were long already when we gathered. The parking lot was very full by the time we started rolling.

        

Once we got rolling I could only take pictures when stopped at lights. Virginia was able to take pictures of people rolling.

Adam explained that his kit is the same as that of the avatar in the sports video game Tour de France 2014 or something like that.

     



     

I suppose Virginia was playing a "first person point and shoot" video game from the back of the tandem, looking for interesting sights and capturing them. Moving the tandem to a point where she could get a good picture of the Mohawk was a challenge for me.

    



     

When we got to the first regroup we wandered independently for a while.

Joel was riding a home made recumbent trike. He said "I wanted to find out what it felt like to ride a rear steering machine so I made one. Most of the time it's great, but the response gets a bit unpredictable when it goes over potholes." I'd say his ride was a bit more adventurous than most.

           

There was a bike laying on its handlebars with the front wheel spinning. I was drawn to it by the Mario image, on theme for sure. Then I realized it was cycling through images from a variety of games. Every thing from Rubik's cube to open source and surviving in traffic. Regretting that I didn't talk to the guy that was spinning the wheel to find out more about how he did that. Great sight though!

     

Dancing with a dog! Actually, there was lots of dancing.

     

Dancing with light!

     

Frederick explained that we don't have porta-potties this month because nobody volunteered to haul them. Those doing the pee-pee dance were on their own. Hopefully someone will step forward to help out next time!

           

Virginia took these pictures of the fire spinners dance. I was too far away to get them, although I did see them way over there.

        

I danced with Virginia for a while.

           

        

All too soon I realized that it was time to go. We had signed up to bird the corner of 24th and Julian, so there was no time to waste getting there. People were already heading out. We zoomed there. Unfortunately, I guessed wrong on the tandem's ability to climb that last curb. We took a spill. I landed bad. Went ahead and birded the corner. It was a treat to see so many friends go by in such a great mood.

When it was over we got home as quickly as possible. Then Virginia took me to the hospital. They took X-Rays. The guy that pushed the gurney to the X-Ray lab told me that something like 30% of their patients in the summer have injuries like mine. After he looked at the X-Rays the Dr. said "Separated Shoulder. Stay off your bike for a month or so. Don't injure it again and you'll be fine soon enough." Looking forward to riding again, but not going to do it until I can get through a day without feeling any shoulder pain.