Midnight Ridazz: The Heavy Metal Ride

Friday, September 09, 2005, at 08:47PM

By Eric Richardson

Today was the second Friday of September, so that means it was time for Midnight Ridazz. The theme for this month was Heavy Metal and the route took us from Echo Park west on Sunset, up Hillhurst, east on Los Feliz, and evntually over to Eagle Rock. I actually made a cursory attempt to show up in costume. Point to keep in mind for the future: a leather jacket doesn't breathe at all when riding a bike.

Despite getting hot and sweaty, I did make the 10 miles or so of this month's ride in blue jeans, a black leather jacket, and a yellow headband. I'm not sure if that's at all heavy metal, but it was the best I could do on short notice.

I think my favorite parts of this ride were the three or times when I stopped to cork an intersection. If you're not familiar, corking's when a few riders will stop and block cross traffic so the group can continue through a changing light. Yes, it's illegal, but when you've got probably 500 bikers in your group you can't afford to let lights break people up.

It's funny watching people in cars as this mass of bikes just keeps going by. I was up at the front of the ride when we hit Los Feliz and I think Griffith Park. I stopped in front of a car sitting at the light waiting to cross, and a couple others joined me. The guy in the car yelled at us to get out of the intersection, and one of the riders told him to calm down, there were going to be a lot of us coming through. He honked and yelled a bit more, but then as more and more bikes kept going through I think he just started laughing. What else can you do when a nearly ten minute stream of cyclists passes by you at 10:30pm?

Anyway, it was another great ride. Anyone with a bike in LA needs to check Midnight Ridazz out.