Oh, mysterious and secretive bike messengers, gathered in your insular tribes behind dive bars or freeway-bridge support beams, I have longed to enter your magical world of gonzo pedaling, forbidden path-forging and refusal to have your scene co-opted. Now, via Nathaniel Freeman's film "Down by the Weep Hole: The Story of the Stupor Bowl," I've come a little closer.
Showing as part of a 9 p.m. program Friday at the Cedar Cultural Center (416 Cedar Av. S., Mpls., $8), the short documentary is part of the traveling Bicycle Film Festival, celebrating two-wheeled adventures of all kinds.
The Stupor Bowl is a sort of guerrilla scavenger hunt, a three-hour race held every year on the subzero streets and back alleys of Minneapolis just before the Super Bowl. Hard-core bicyclists are given a "manifest" and must (A) take a drink and get a stamp at every stop along the way, and (B) try not to kill themselves slipping on ice patches.
"These are real-world conditions," said racer Jeff Frane. "There are variables you can't control -- road conditions, traffic, police."
Through choppy interviews with seasoned "alley cats" such as B-Rad, John Zito, Martin Rudnick and Frane, this "unregulated, unlicensed and unregistered" race is revealed as a highly anticipated annual ritual of the underground bike subculture, one that has grown from 20 entrants in 1997 to 400 racers from all over the world in 2009.
