A shitshow by any other name.
In the years of attending the annual Homie Fall Fest, I’ve begun my electronic retelling of said events with phrases like ‘Two Parts Fire, One Part Gas‘, and a ‘Bullet Train to Drunkingham‘, and describing the resulting glow as being pushed down some stairs into a kiddie pool full of alcohol.
Photo courtesy of Ben Hovland.
But it’s much more than that. Why, there is camaraderie, and newly forged bonds… There is even homemade mulled wine and a supply of homemade black bean burritos if you’re in the right place at the right time.
But anyway I attempt to try and describe it, (and I have many times) it always falls short.
It’s simply a thing one has to experience to fully wrap their minds around, but certainly one thing is for sure- if you could go back in time and tell my eleven year old self that thirty some odd years later, I would still be ripping around seemingly abandoned tracts of land on a bike with my friends, all the while creating a new and fun kind of trouble in which to engage, I doubt I would have believed you.
The icing on this year’s cake however was that Swobo came through and supplied us with an array of their Folsoms for some pre-HFF festivities at One On One Studio.
We knew there was gonna be some weekend long hi-jinx. Just exactly what kind was entirely up to us;
Finally late in the evening, with bloody knees and swollen elbows we saw the conclusion of the first ever Folsom Fist Fight Fracas. It was time for the lot of us to melt into the night and prepare for what was to occur in just a few short hours;
*(I’d also like to note, I wasn’t the only documentator to get creamed.)
Appropriately it was just about at this moment that the settings on my camera got screwed up and all the rest of the photographic evidence turned to shite.
What followed was an eventual escape from the woods so stealthy, ninjas would have been confused, a stop by a neighborhood liquor store, and the partaking of a feast at one of the Surly dirt’s homes, the deliciousness of which will probably be one of my final thoughts as I pass from this mortal coil.
And so it goes, another weekend goes down in history filled with heathenry, hilarity and hematomas, the glow from which will last at least until we get to do it all over again.
My favorite quote from the weekend was “KISS ARMY!!!” from chiliblanco everytime Geno would talk to him.
That old guy at the liquor store calling Geno an “old queer” was another good quote..
It was actually ‘young queer’, but why pick nits when their combined age was like, 1000?
looks good. approved. AZ might do well to imbibe as such. Replicate, you know?
Swobo will come to AZ and fist fight everyone with Folsoms. You set ’em up, we’ll knock ’em down.
I became aware of the HFF as soon as I moved away from Minneapolis back in ’98. I have wanted to return just to go to that ever since. Life generally has gotten in the way. I will need to start planning it for next year now. HFF ’14, Engage!!!
I came, and all I got was creamed.
OK the next feat of strength will be…
My very first singlespeed event was HFF somewhere around 1997-98? Maybe later… It set the tone for my cycling life for the next decade and I will be forever grateful. I hope to get back again before the event becomes a casualty of age, access, and asshats. Good on ya, flasks up.