27th Annual Moonlight Cruze - It's ON, it's in SEPTEMBER, get ready to RIDE!

REAL DEAL UPDATE: First of, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU Eric, you've just cleared up a big mystery that has been troubling MANY of us newcomers to the Austin bike community for a good while now. The reason I'm thanking Eric so profusely is that in the past 3 weeks I've been BOMBARDED with questions on the correct date of the Annual Moonlight Cruze. There's been a good bit of discussion on the correct date in the comments section and in person, but no one's known the real deal, until now:

Here's the real deal on the Real Annual Austin Moonlight Cruze:

Back in the day (27 years ago) the Cruze got started by Lynn Carter and the old Austin Cruzer Bike Shop that was located on 34th street between what are now Salvation Pizza and Food Heads. It was officially sponsored by the shop, with registration, maps, and everything. The shop stopped sponsoring the ride one year after a rider was hit and killed by a driver on his way home afterwards.

Previous to that, the date was always the Sunday following the September full moon. It never had anything to do with the Harvest Moon. The year after the accident, with no official leader or sponsor, we all showed up at the usual spot, at the usual time, and found a pile of route maps waiting for us on the pavement. So we did the ride, and have continued to do so on the same route every year on the Sunday after the full moon in September. Following that formula puts this years ride on September 6. I contacted "the guy who puts out the flyers" and got confirmation from him (though he said he hasn't made any flyers yet).

Every few years someone would come off the Annual Cruze and say "we should do this every month!" and it would go for a while and fizzle out. That is until a few years ago, when the monthly full moon ride took hold and never let go. Somewhere along the line there was a crossing of the streams, and someone erroneously dubbed the Annual Austin Moonlight Cruze the Harvest Moon Cruise. It may coincide with the harvest moon sometimes, but that has never determined the date of the original event.

So spread the word: The 27th Annual Austin Moonlight Cruze will start from the Pfluger Bridge at 2:00 am Sunday September 6, 2009!

Thats the word folks. You've got a week to prepare, and I better get to work on Frankenstereo 3000! Thank you again Eric for this timeline of my favorite annual ride in town, the Moonlight Cruze! I can't wait.

UPDATE: This is the INCORRECT DATE for the cruise, according to Doug and Bob. It's supposed to happen October 4th, so keep an eye out for that.

Blahblahblah, the official word hasn't released yet, but their dating scheme is to pick the closest Saturday night (technically Sunday morning) to the full moon and ride at 2am. I'll post more as the flyers leak, but as I don't know who puts them up or distributes that shit, I'll be keeping an eye out at bike shops, same as y'all.

This is the big one, folks. I've seen over 600 people ride this thing, tons of bike stereos, weird bikes, light displays, this is the time of year when the local freak bikers pull out all the stops and go nuts. Start getting amped. Here's last years details, to give you an idea of what to look out for.