If you heard strange music or saw a spaceship bike and people with pointy ears riding around northeast Thursday night, you were not hallucinating. It was the second annual Star Trek Ride held as part of Pedalpalooza.
“Are you a Trekkie? If you believe in science, if you believe in infinite diversity and the freedom to explore, and you believe in a better future for humanity and our natural world, then you don’t have to have seen one episode. You are a Trekkie. And these days, we need as many Trekkies as we can get.”
– Joe Gavrilovich, ride leader
After meeting in Oregon Park for a round of Trekkie Trivia (with warm-up questions that included, “What does the Vulcan acronym IDIC stand for?” and “What class of ship is the USS Voyager?”), a huge formation of the show’s fans explored Beaumont-Wilshire and surrounding neighborhoods in search of intelligent life, before finishing off the night with a performance by none other than USS Improvise, a Star Trek themed theater troupe.
Ride leader Joe Gavrilovich and his sister love Star Trek and started the ride last year. “Getting together with other Trekkies makes me feel better about where we’re headed as a society,” he told me last night, before the group shoved off.
With speakers booming Star Trek playlists (including, Worf’s Revenge by Aurelio Voltaire off the album BiTrekual), the group zoomed through the streets while greeting curious onlookers with “Live long and prosper!”
Ted Rivers drew a lot of attention with his spaceship bike. A semi-retired industrial designer by trade, Rivers created it with “A lot of foam board and hot glue.” The ship has all sorts of fun details, including little pilots in the front, lights in the engine thrusters, and multiple cup holders. It’s a model of a ship called the Eagle from a mid-1970s British sci-fi show called Space 1999.
“I know it’s maybe not right for the Star Trek ride,” Rivers said sheepishly as he navigated gingerly in the large pack of riders, “But how many other places can I actually ride this thing?”
Gavrilovich, the ride leader, didn’t mind at all. To him, being a Trekkie isn’t about how much you know about the show, it’s a frame of mind.
At the end of the ride, he addressed the crowd at Laurelhurst Park:
“Are you a Trekkie? If you believe in science, if you believe in infinite diversity and the freedom to explore, and you believe in a better future for humanity and our natural world, then you don’t have to have seen one episode. You are a Trekkie. And these days, we need as many Trekkies as we can get.”
(*By the way, the answers to those trivia questions are Intrepid and Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations.)
More photos below:
See all our Pedalpalooza coverage here.