Bikers Against Tasers Ride In Lubbock

Bicycle tour benefits from new rules, police presence
By Jon Vanderlaan/News Editor

About eight months after the littering, Tasering of a Texas Tech student and the ultimate break up of the biannual bicycle ride Tour de Tech Terrace, the organizers hosted the spring tour largely without incident because of a stronger police presence and more rider awareness.

Sgt. Kelley Pirkle, with the Lubbock Police Department, said the main concern of officers at the event was the safety of people participating, including bicyclists getting in the way of traffic.

“I think when they get more intoxicated, the problems will increase with the level of intoxication,” he said.

Some riders yelled insults at the officers, but most were respectful and engaged in conversation with police.

However, many changes were instituted in the tour this year, including more crowd control to the side of the road, portable toilets at every other stop and the presence of Tech Terrace Neighborhood Association representatives.

Austin Keith, the organizer of the event, said about 600 people showed up for the event, compared to the 1,250 who showed up for the fall event.

The smaller size of the event is because he said he wanted to bring it back to its grassroots origins.

“It was always going to happen,” Keith said. “It’s just that this year we didn’t advertise publicly on the social networking pages.”

Stories like this really give me a good shock at how long I've been doing this blog. It seems like just yesterday I did a big post about the dudes who got tased at ;ast year's Tour De Tech Terrace. Of course I couldn't find the post when I dug through the archives. Of course that could be because I dug through 10 Bar and Zucchi's this evening too.

But I did find some evidence that I was concious of the event last year. Plus, its always at the back of my mind as an unachievable goal from college. I always wanted to perform this task of drink but sadly I never learned to ride a bike. Yeah, you're not perfect either. So if you've got any good pictures of the Tour or a good story about how I can;t ride a bike be sure to share it in the comment section.

Here's the tasing clip from last year.