For my first time ever I checked out the Bicycle Film Festival (BFF) last week and loved it. LOVED it.
ASIDE – I wonder if the BFF acronym was an accident?
Sure the BFF is cycling movies but it's so much more. To start I met a couple of friends (Aaron S and Jeff D) at the Siren Tavern for a beer. This place seems to typify old school Seattle; it's south of downtown by the docks, you won't see any drag queens here and they don't serve that trendy PBR. We're talking Rainier.
Then we walked across the street to the actual film venue at Western Bridge. What a cool place. It's very industrial with concrete walls and stairs and exposed plywood and steel beams. In a word: unfinished. But not in a cold way, it's plenty inviting.
We had some time to kill prior to the first film so hit the balloon room. Basically, a ball pit for adults.
It was a blast! You could crouch down and complete disappear or rush across the room pushing a wave of balloons in front of you. Everyone in the room had their phone out taking pictures and movies.
I have to cop to loving (good) trailers and so in addition to some shorts and the feature I also go treated to some super bonus footage. Another bonus was the cycling cap I scored from event sponsor Relentless. They were made by Walz and seem top notch. There were also tubs of energy drink all over the place but I abstained – those things scare me more than a little.
When the first viewing (we hit the 7:00 PM show and there was another at 9:00 PM) was over Jeff suggested we head over to West Seattle for some food, he's got a friend that owns a bar or something like that... It was fun. The theme of the place was hair metal and I'm not afraid to admit it was pleasantly nostalgic to listen to old Motley Cru, Scorpions, Quiet Riot, Poison and Wasp.
Did someone say after party? Oh yes, back to the Siren we went. This time for a goldsprint competition put on by Emerald Sprints. Very cool. As soon as Aaron saw the bikes on rollers he signed all of us up. And guess who was first?
This was FUN. The concept is a 500 m sprint from a standing start (Aaron and I did not know this last part...) and first one done wins. Fastest time for the evening wins a prize. There is also a series as well as championship events. Yes! Another cycling niche, finally. Unicycle mountain biking was becoming so passé...
Seeing as none of us had EVER done a gold sprint we watched some people take the bikes for a spin.
The two bikes were identical and had a quick release on the seatpost and double straps on the pedals. That didn't stop some of the I-always-keep-my-u-lock-in-my-back-pocket crowd from hoping on in their clipless shoes tho.
After Aaron and I finished it was time for Jeff to have a turn.
They guy he was up against was very fast, the fastest of the night I think.
Amazing how high your heart rate can get in the 20 or so seconds it takes to complete a 500 m sprint with no resistance! We all got off the bikes with our heart absolutely pounding. Good times. I had to hang around just a bit to wind down before driving home.
When this shows up next year, go check it out.
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