Blackout bike ride scheduled for tonight in Tampa

Following the annual “critical mass bike ride” to bring attention to bike safety and road sharing scheduled to begin tonight at 8pm from Curtis Hixon Park, a sort of counter event, a “blackout bike ride”, which carries an anti-safety message, is scheduled to begin in Tampa Heights around 11pm.

“It’s not a protest, per se. But we feel that things like helmets, bike lights and visible clothing infringe on our rights,” said organizer Bill ‘Guts’ Gunderson. “Plus people who use that stuff are pussies so screw them.”

“We’re going to wear the darkest clothes we have and ride in the streets and on the sidewalks and anywhere goddamn else we please because we ride bikes and pay taxes,” he added. “Well, not here but when I lived in Massachusetts before I retired.”

Gunderson doesn’t recognize basic safety measures as necessary at any level and bristled at the suggestion that this might be a dumb idea.

“Yeah? Well, you know what some people thought was a dumb idea? The Constitution of the United States,” he replied smugly.

“I mean, look at the evidence; we never had any of that safety crap as a kid and we all survived just fine, so clearly it’s unnecessary,” he added. “Okay, sure. Some kids died but they probably would have grown up to be pussies, so no big loss.”

The First Annual Blackout Bike Ride Rally For Freedom will begin at the corner of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. and travel south on one-way northbound Florida Ave. Bill ‘Guts’ Gunderson will be hit by a truck at the corner of Florida and Selma Avenues, about a block away from the starting point. The event is open to all participants who aren’t pussies.