This is an archival story that predates current editorial management.
This archival content was written, edited, and published prior to LAist's acquisition by its current owner, Southern California Public Radio ("SCPR"). Content, such as language choice and subject matter, in archival articles therefore may not align with SCPR's current editorial standards. To learn more about those standards and why we make this distinction, please click here.
Last night's Midnight Ridazz was a blast, but those not on bikes probably did not think so, including the LAPD.
One thing you have to know about the Midnight Ridazz is that the route is almost never announced until you arrive. In last night's case, the only map we received was of Zürich, Switzerland. It didn't make sense until you realized that the ride was dubbed Dada. Others tried to figure out acronyms like Downtown After Dark Adventure, but this purely about Dadaism.
The website warned of an absurd route and that became apparent 4-minutes into the ride as we just stated riding in circles around downtown blocks. As a driver, it's one thing to be caught in traffic with the Ridazz once, but to be over and over again, I'm sure it's a bit exasperating.
Oh well.
After annoying the drivers and police enough, the 1000 or so group of bicyclists headed through Skid Row to the 6th Street Bridge and took a long break at the top scaring off many drivers who made U-Turns and got the hell out of there.
Then back towards downtown where the LAPD escorted us to the 3rd Street Tunnel. Okay, really, they were just screaming to stay in one lane (check out Eric's video of Tunnel Riding from last year. He also rode last night.) Then off to the MacArthur Park area where the best part of the night was riding through a film set as the crew said among themselves "what's going on?" and "I've never seen anything like this before." It was just too weird for them to even try to stop.
Riding downtown at night is one of the more thrilling and beautiful rides. When the chance comes up again, join on in. In fact, ride anyway. The big Midnight Ridazz events are on the 2nd Friday of every month at 10 p.m.
