This story begins with two flat tires.

Not just any two flat tires, but two flat tires on a bike painted copper. The reason I'd decided to bring my Burning Man bike to Journey was

a) it had regular pedals, unlike The Pretty Little Bomb, which meant I could wear regular shoes and get off said bike to chase runners.
b) it was procured freely, and therefore I could ride it as recklessly as I desired without worry of damaging my preferred mode of transportation.
c) should I have to abandon said bike to chase runners into the skyways, up into the trees, through fountains, or whatever sort of nonsense those nutty blue ribboned folk would go through, to remain blue ribboned.

Unfortunately, the bike painted copper's tires would not revive, so I made the decision to wear regular shoes in spite of the awkwardness of clippy pedals on my beloved bike, for the purpose of point a, above.

I knew, as the bike chaser, that I would be terrifying to those who might run from me, so I dressed as ridiculously as I could without endangering myself to the beginnings of Minnesota's autumn. Pigtails, striped white socks, rolled up jeans, and a fuzzy pale blue cape were to be my costume of the evening. I checked the air in my tires and unhitched the Pretty Little Bomb. This bike is probably one of my most prized possessions, ranking almost on par with my camera. I did bring my biking shoes... just in case, and rode to the train station to catch a ride downtown.

This story continues with a third flat tire.

Upon getting off the train, my front tire made an awkward fwumph! noise. Sure enough, my front tire was flat. I phoned my roommate and called in a favor I'd earned during the Minnesota Fringe Festival. As we have almost exactly the same bike, and in the same size, this would not be the first time we'd traded wheels.

And then begins the game.

We will note, that at the beginning of the game, I was mostly there to spark the runners in the spirit of the game. The staff chasers had a specific strategy that was to be adhered to during the course of the game, and would be updated by the head chaser, who would coordinate our efforts by phone. Some failure lead to our head chaser not having a phone, but we checked in with B.U. and a few of us did our own strategy later in the game. It should be known to the poor people I chased up stairs and down an alley, I was just saying a friendly "Boo."

In fact, my boo was so friendly that I dismounted and encouraged three hapless runners to run, when one of them decided he wanted more to chat with me and take my photograph. This is not the single most infuriating moment of my Journey:MN experience. The single most infuriating moment happened moments later, after more and more of my loudly yelling that they should run now. No, Really, NOW. And after finally walking up and tagging the fellow, his buddies would not even move beyond arm's length, which I politely requested. I'm not exactly sure why this situation took place- whether they just wanted to be chasers from the start and rather than requesting to do so, preferred to undermine the system and create a hiccup in the game's structure, or whether they just didn't believe a girl in pigtails and a cape would tag them when she was yelling LOUDLY at them, or what, but, well... let's just say there was a reason other than the layout of checkpoint two that it was hard to get to, and I feel bad that it was my fault for tagging the guys who didn't understand we had our chasers strategically placed not to create situations like that.

After that, I succeeded in scaring a few blues around Checkpoint 2 until meeting up with Oliver X. It has been suggested that I might be a good person, because I retrieved a lost runner's manifest from some chasers who picked it up when he dropped it running from them, but reports of my good deedlyness are largely overstated, and *I* wouldn't trust a fiend with a red ribbon on her arm.

(you can see the pretty little bomb's reflection in the windows of a parking ramp stairwell.)

We decided to move on to Checkpoint 3 and that part of the city. We walked along the walkpath that accompanies the light rail line, hoping to see or spook some runners, and I think maybe we did.Checkpoint 3 was uneventful, so I decided to check out Checkpoint 4 and leave Olly behind. We both knew though, at that moment, I had dinosaur theft retaliation, burning in my heart. I wanted Dax's ribbon.

Checkpoint 4 was clever, our man at a desk under a streetlight in the park. I took the greenway to the checkpoint, which was still being set up, so I knew I was a bit early. The checkpoint was near a corner of a long safezone, and the entirety of the park was rather dark, so it was hard to see approaching runners. I did a couple loops of the area- different ways runners might approach. I ended up mostly chasing people OUT of the park, and accidentally running a team of four blues through the greenway directly into the arms of another mob of chasers. I requested for the chasers to stay in that area, so that I could make my way to Checkpoint 5 and see how that was going. But first I did a little tour of the park. (And accidentally chased some people who weren't playing.)



Checkpoint 5, an I was sure I had some time, after harassing a blue or two and Jjason, the checkpoint agent, so I ordered myself a coffee. No sooner did I have coffee in hand but Oliver X phoned me to tell me he was tracking Dax and his posse of Chicago and suburbs from Checkpoint 3, and that I should head them off. I hopped atop my bomb and jetted back towards downtown, sucking down the espresso as I pedaled and talked on the phone.

"They're crossing Marquette now." Oliver informed me.
"They're to Nicollet, I'm not sure if they turned onto Nicollet or crossed it." I started about 2 miles from where he was at, so I was biking like a demon to head off the Chi-town posse.
"They didn't turn on Nicollet. They're heading towards Hennepin."
Downtown was a portion of the Journey that meant that I actually had to navigate between Saturday night dancers and diners; I turned down Hennepin and biked through the traffic heading towards Loring Park.
"I don't think they turned on Hennepin," Olly called in, "I think they're heading towards First Ave." But something in my chaser senses was tingling, and I kept on Hennepin, scanning the crowd before I spotted Dax's telltale pigtails (And still I hear them beating!), paying fare inside a city bus headed directly for me.

I flagged down the bus, mounted my bike to the front and got on. Not just Dax: the bus was rife with blue and yellow ribbons.
"Oh shit," someone murmurred. "It's a chaser."
Dax looked at me, "That's not just any chaser." (Probably the best compliment of the night.)

In retrospect, I could have just followed the bus on bike, and tagged each of them as they exited, but my role as bike chaser included maximal scare tactics, so I got on. Dax was unnecessarily kind, and helped me pay my fare. I grinned at them as they groaned in nervousness and anticipation. Dax exited early, either thinking I'd stay with the mass of ribbons and he could slip out unnoticed, or knowing I had it in for him, he sacrificed himself to the impending dinosaur theft retribution.

Those who Journeyed, know I followed. First, he leapt over a low wall and crouched down, hoping either I'd try to follow on my bike and get slowed down, or hiding, or whatnot. I simply pointed in the opposite direction and yelled, "The checkpoint is that way."

And so began the chase.

We went over hills, around trees, over curbs. Street, sidewalk, grass, mud, everything. But Dax didn't know where the safe zone was, and headed directly away from it towards... a port-a-potty. Now, there are things we all do in that moment of terror, just anything to put a wall between onesself and one's pursuer, but this one made me giggle a little. I dismounted my bike, opened the door, and Dax- in the fight or flight mode, opportunity of flight nullified, kicked me in the boob.

"You kicked me in the boob!" I said, startled, and tagged him. I took his yellow ribbon, pointed him in the direction of the checkpoint and headed there myself.

This story concludes with a fourth flat tire.
All of the yellow-ribboned Chi-town kids were arriving before I could catch them, having dismounted, and I was hugged into not catching another large crew of yellow and blue ribboned runners. WHERE MY CHASERS IS AT?!? WHERE THE **** MY CHASERS AT?!?!

Let go, I dashed at one straggling runner from the second group, failed to tag and turned around to see what seemed to be a crowd of runners huddled around my bike. I began swearing and acting irrationally, because, well, I love my bike. A ton. Enough to have written it a love poem for slam.

Bike Love

foot bone connected to the pedal bone
the pedal bone's connected to the gear bone
the gear bone's connected to the chain bone
the chain bone's connected to the wheel bone
the wheel bone's connected to the road bone
and I feel my whole body and musculature
connected through this movement machine
this pretty little bullet
this road-flight bird-beast is me and I am flying

I wanna feel like that
when you pick me up in your arms
your arm bones connected to my back bones
my ear bone connected to your ear bone
my chest bone connected to your chest bone
part of the same machine
the purpose for which we still have not determined
some temporary singularity.

And I'm not saying that there aren't going to be some problems.
I have gone over the hood of a car,
I have gone skittering across the pavement more than once
I have found myself twisted in something that will no longer move muchless fly
But I have yet to break one bone
or abandon biking for some less dangerous form of movement.
These scrapes and scratches are part of the deal.

So pick me up and hold me,
and make me feel like I am flying down city streets,
that you might respond to a shift in my weight
and make great avian swoops
or clever sideswipes of potholes or debris in our way
And if we seem to be straining against some hill
I can downshift,
or you could put me down and just move along side me.

I have scars and hesitance
but no fear
where my voice shakes
my body is strong
and my silence should not be a sign of nothing to say
only that it may not be my voice that is speaking.
I do not wear my heart on my sleeve,
I ride it on city streets.

And I am a graceful machine when exhausted
I am a wind in and out of street lights
I am legs and wheels, lungs and gears.
I am a sure machine when drunk
bent like a rocket to be close to the road

The shoulder bone connected to the arm bone
the arm bone connected to the wrist bone
the wrist bone connected to the hand bone
the hand bone connected to the brake bone
the brake bone connected to the wheel bone
and the foot bone reunited with the street, once again two separate entities.

So hold me in your arms and join our motivations
I have no destination in mind
I only want to start moving

As I chased after the mass exodus, my roommate's front wheel made that sickening fwumph! noise, and I felt heartbreak, both at the worry I'd done something awful to the bike, and at the knowledge that I would not be able to play the game further, as I could not abandon the Pretty Little Bomb at Checkpoint 4 and hoof it. So I made my way towards the final checkpoint, but not before giving Oliver X the heads up on where CG0 was headed next. I called Dax, and he affirmed that he'd deflated my front tire- it took me several hours and team Fuck Yeah's gentle prodding to cool down and laugh about it, but I can now say I have a Real reason to once again seek retribution. That winged foot to the boob and stab at my heart (my bike, that is) beg some sort of comeuppance.

All in all, a lovely evening. I was pleased to do brunch with CG0 and fiends the next day, and embark on some other very charming adventures shortly thereafter.