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March 23, 2007 > News > Campus gears up for 51st Beer-Bike

Campus gears up for 51st Beer-Bike

By Stephanie Jennings | Thresher staff

March 31 marks the 50th anniversary of Beer-Bike, an annual Rice tradition, and in addition to celebratory events including a commemorative race, there will also be stricter rules to follow during the parade.

Campus-wide co-coordinator Teddy Bucher said before the alumni race, there will be a tribute race with one biker from each of the nine colleges and the Graduate Student Association will chug a small amount of beer and race around the track to commemorate Beer-Bike’s 50th anniversary.

“This has no bearing on the official Beer-Bike standings, and we’ve been trying to stress that this is something fun that the teams don’t need to train for,” Bucher, a Jones College junior, said.

Bucher said the biker would preferably be an alumnus of the college, but any member of the college over 21 could participate.

“We wanted to do something really special for the 50th anniversary of college system, as Beer-Bike started out as competition between the colleges,” Bucher said.

In the original Beer-Bike race, bikers would chug a small amount of beer and then race around the Inner Loop.

Campus-wide Beer-Bike co-coordinator Sanya Desai said the commemorative race is going to be held at the track instead of the Inner Loop because the Inner Loop would not be able to be blocked off for the race.

Desai, a Brown College junior, said the only change to the race is a formalization of race-stopping procedures in last year’s race, when judges around the track had stop signs to use to signal racers to stop.

In case of an emergency, the campus-wide coordinators would notify the judges to use the signs to stop the race.

In the case of rain, the race will be run on foot, and each college will be allowed to have three to five substitutes for each biker.

Bucher said a new rule for this year’s parade is that participating students must wear their college’s Beer-Bike T-shirt.

“Last year, we had students from Baker wearing T-shirts from Will Rice and incurring fines for Will Rice,” he said.

Desai said she and Bucher have told the individual colleges’ Beer-Bike coordinators to be stricter about who can purchase a T-shirt at each college.

“It could be as simple as checking IDs when students buy shirts,” she said.

According to parade co-coordinator Emily Fortuna, this year’s parade will begin at 11 a.m. next Saturday The trucks will begin lining up around 10 a.m. starting on the Inner Loop with Baker College, which will lead the parade.

The other colleges will line up behind Baker from oldest to newest. The parade will then follow a clockwise route around the Inner Loop. There are no changes from last year’s fine structure.

“This year, each college is planning to have two trucks,” Fortuna, a Hanszen College sophomore, said. “Three colleges were chosen at random to order an extra truck in case a college does not have a truck on the day of the parade so each college has two trucks.”

Two years ago, Wiess College did not to participate in the parade because of a truck cancellation; last year, Hanszen College’s truck was cancelled the night before, but a replacement was found the morning of Beer-Bike.

Parade co-coordinator Ted Wieber, a Hanszen sophomore, said Sid, Jones and Will Rice were chosen at random to order an extra truck for the parade; the cost of the three extra trucks was redistributed throughout all of the colleges.

“We’ve taken a lot of steps to make sure all of the colleges can participate, including making sure colleges order trucks from different companies,” Bucher said. “If everything goes as planned, and we don’t need the extra trucks, we’ll put them to the side and return them after the parade.”

If there are fewer than 18 total trucks — including the three extra trucks — the morning of the parade, then a water balloon fight will be held on the intramural field 6 across from Wiess, Bucher said.

Security co-coordinator Matt McLeod said he and co-coordinator Thomas Mings have requested that each college provide 20 students for parade security. As of Wednesday, 180 students have signed up to do security.

“We will have roughly eight to ten per truck, depending on how big the trucks are,” Mings, a Brown sophomore, said. “There will be eight people on the smaller trucks.”

The number of people doing security may change depending on how many trucks are used for the parade.

McLeod, a Wiess senior, said there are no changes to this year’s security, but he wants to emphasize safety and make the parade route accessible to Emergency Medical Services in case of emergencies.

“We’re going to have the parade go on the left side of the Inner Loop,” he said. “EMS said an ambulance cannot be brought in because of safety issues, but we wanted to have extra space in case a golf cart needs to transport someone to an ambulance waiting nearby.”

Concessions this year will include pizza from Papa John’s and Chipotle burritos. Five hundred pizzas — 250 cheese, 250 pepperoni — and 350 burritos will be ordered.

Food will be delivered around 11 a.m. Ten soda fountains with Coke, Sprite and Diet Coke will be stationed behind the track. Powdered lemonade and water will also be available.

“The Papa John’s manager will send the pizzas in hourly installments of 100 starting at 11 a.m.,” Concessions co-coordinator Diana Lee said. “After the races start, the installments will drop down to 50 per hour.”

Last year, 440 pizzas were ordered initially. Lee, a Lovett College freshman, said more pizzas may be ordered if needed.

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