*** Zoobombers fill need for speed with little bikes and a big hill ***

Portland, Oregon -- 11/03/2003
~~~~~
Every Sunday night, bike riders start at the Oregon Zoo
and rip down the West Hills in search of danger and fun
~~~~~
It's a cold, star-sprinkled Sunday night, a few minutes after 10.

A band of speed demons, 40 strong, gathers in the darkness
near the Oregon Zoo, poised to drop a bomb on the steep,
deserted streets of Portland's West Hills.

"Let's Zoobomb!" shouts the guy called Nerf, an impatient
twentysomething man gripping the handlebars of a souped-up
kid's bike.

Everyone straddles some kind of bicycle, ready to zoom en
masse down the winding streets leading to downtown. Speeds
will approach 40 mph. Still, hardly anyone wears a helmet.

In fact, Nerf wears nothing. He's nude.

A couple of first-time riders ask why. Avid Zoobombers,
those thrill seekers for whom the Sunday night ride is high
church, explain that biking in the buff can be a spiritual experience.

Well, if nothing else, it fits the road-rash-be-damned attitude
of the weekly gathering, which has quickly evolved into a
mainstay of Portland's world-famous bicycle culture.

Of course, for some, the sight of naked pedalers also might
support the Zoobombers-are-yahoos view of police officers
and hillside residents who want to stop what they consider a
radical, daredevil gathering.

No Zoobomber would deny that danger mingles with fun in
the darkness. But they're not endangering anyone but themselves,
they insist.

"You've got to do it at night," chuckles one cyclist waiting to ride.
"If you saw the road during the day, you'd chicken out."

As if on cue, a five-second Zoobomb countdown commences.
Everyone rolls at once.

In the middle of the pack, there is nowhere to go but forward and
down, following a swarm of blinking taillights and the squeal of rubber
brake pads into the night. Million-dollar homes, street signs and parked

cars are a blur.

Of course, no adrenaline rush would
be real without the euphoric screams.

In late September, after a swarm of 100 riders participated
in the largest Zoobomb to date, residents of the affluent
Arlington Heights area began complaining to Mayor Vera Katz.

One e-mail reminded the mayor that the neighborhood pays "heavy"
property taxes. "The Zoobombers are disrupting the value and quality
of life in our neighborhood," the resident declared.

Dominic Desrosiers, another Arlington Heights neighbor, wrote
Katz to tell the story of how the Zoobombers woke his young son
as they "came screaming down the hill at 10:15 p.m." The boy
eventually returned to his slumber, but was again jarred awake
shortly after midnight. The cyclists had returned for a second ride.

"This Zoobomb garbage has been going on way too long,"
Desrosiers wrote in his e-mail to Katz.

Thirteen months, to be exact.

Eliza Strack was part of the first Zoobomb on a Sunday night
in September 2002. Strack, 21, says she and 11 friends with
minibikes came up with the idea while hanging out at Rocco's
Pizza & Pasta, across from Powell's Books downtown.

They loaded their bikes onto a MAX train and took it to the zoo.
In the pitch black at the top of Washington Park, they found a
starting point. One of Strack's friends promised, "This is going
to be one of those moments that flashes before your eyes before
you die."

At the bottom of the hill, they christened it Zoobomb.

Every Sunday night since, rain or dry road, bicyclists have
repeated the ritual. The crowds have grown to include everyone
from street kids to university students to Intel engineers who
want to test the velocity for themselves.

About 35 cyclists make up the Zoobomb nucleus.
They show up almost every week. For them, it's the
ultimate social gathering -- a communion of bikes,
merrymaking and an adrenaline rush that can last
several minutes, depending on the route.

"I try to bring a new friend every time," says Dat Nguyen,
a 23-year-old information technology technician for the
city of Portland. "It's a good way to get ready for Monday morning."

Nguyen shows up on a Specialized Sirrus, a $500 street bike,
complete with front and back lights and a speedometer. Zoobombers
call it a "tall bike." Most prefer to take the plunge on "little bikes,"

mostly child-size Huffy and Schwinn bicycles purchased for a few
bucks at Goodwill.

At the Zoobomb Lab, located in an average-looking, middle-class
house in Northeast Portland's Concordia neighborhood, the small
two-wheelers are tuned back to life.

Often, they're turned into Franken-bikes, fitted with handlebars,
banana seats and different-colored parts from other models. On
the street, Zoobombers affix all sorts of things to their handlebars.
A ram's skull and horns. Boom boxes. Horns. One rider mummified
her entire bike with masking tape.

Zoobombers say there are two main reasons to love the little bikes:
They can fit more of them onto MAX cars. And the closer they can
get to the road, the more thrilling the ride.

Riders, many dressed in road warrior costumes, meet at Rocco's
at 8 p.m. and take the MAX to the zoo station in waves. For an
hour before the actual bomb launch, riders congregate on a forested
lookout, where they snap open cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon, admire
the lit-up downtown skyline and talk about the sweet science of their
sport.

A voice in the darkness brings up the "Zoobomb elite,"
people who have crashed while coasting down. No one
is really keeping track, but it seems as though at least
one name is added each week.

"No one has been killed," says the Zoobomber known as
PolyHead. "The worst that has happened is when L.B.C.
crashed into that parked car and broke his leg."

L.B.C.? "Yeah, Legally Blind Chris."

The smell of marijuana invades the conversation. At about
the same time, the topic of "pepper," the code word for
police, is raised. If there is a downside to the weekly gathering,
Zoobombers say, it's what they see as harassment by police.

On a Sunday in June, TriMet officers were waiting when the
MAX arrived at the Washington Park stop. They handed
out six-month exclusions from all TriMet trains and buses to
more than 30 Zoobombers, saying they hadn't properly stowed
their bikes while riding the train.

Within a few days, however, red-faced TriMet officials rescinded
each exclusion with a letter of apology. "There was a
miscommunication on the interpretation of bike policies by
the officers," says Mary Fetsch, a TriMet spokeswoman.

Another miscommunication happened in September, Zoobombers
say. On Sept. 5, transit police picked the lock on the group's
collection of 14 bikes piled up outside Rocco's and hauled it
away in the back of a patrol car and a Ford pickup.

Police say the bikes, most of which have been reclaimed
by their owners, were obstructing the sidewalk.

Central Precinct and City Hall say officers aren't targeting the
Zoobombers. In fact, the mayor's office isn't quite sure what
to make of the group yet.

"Part of Portland's charm is that people are allowed to follow
their own muse," says Scott Farris, the mayor's spokesman.
At the same time, he says, Katz will continue to monitor
complaints and police reports involving the Zoobomb.

Not everyone living in Arlington Heights wants to put the brakes
on the group. Some, including neighborhood association chairman
Mike Dowd, are fans.

Dowd, a 44-year-old architect, says the group's free spirit
probably intimidates many of his neighbors. But that's what he admires.

"We listen for the Zoobombers at night and step out to see them
coming down the hill," he says. "They're not any louder than the
traffic after a zoo concert. . . . To be honest, I'm bothered more
by leaf-blowing machines."

Zoobombers say they take steps to avoid
bothering residents of the quiet streets they cruise.

Before embarking down the hill, first-time bombers are assembled
in a circle for "the virgin briefing." Anyone with a headlight should
use it, says a veteran Zoobomber holding a flashlight. Brake on the
sharp turns. And, please, no screaming.

"Screaming's rude, (expletive) rude," says the rider everyone
calls Lurker Jeff. "It's the virgins who keep yelling on the way down."

Geneb...Wenatchee,Washington-USA
All Things Northwest in BMX!
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