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Photographs by Thomas Crone
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Every year, the Banana Bike Brigade gets together for a nice, little Mardi Gras bicycle ride. Back in the day, the group rode publicly up to 30 times a year. With a small membership, the group’s now active about 10 times annually, with no event bigger than the Grand Parade of Soulard Mardi Gras.
Last week on Look/Listen, we looked inside the BBB studio, a tightly packed, creative workshop just south of Benton Park. There, the group maintains cycles, builds props, and socializes. But last-second alterations are frequently needed, and on Saturday morning, the group’s 20 or so participants gathered at the Soulard home of members Bunny Love and Bonita Leiber. By 7 a.m., they starting arriving in the back yard, joining those who’d crashed there for the night. Even at that early hour, the neighbors were singing after an all-night session of drinking and carousing. Mardi Gras, ‘round the clock, has a certain energy.
All kinds of last-second alterations were taking place on Saturday morning, with the idea of getting to the staging area for a pre-party by 8 a.m. The group ended up taking off later than that, but still pulled into the parade’s 38th slot by 9 a.m. Out there on the parking lot south of Busch Stadium, the group broke up a bit, spreading out over the lot, drinking with a little bit of seriousness. It wasn’t as if the krewe drank like frat boys on a spring break bender, but no one was shy about pulling out drinks from all sorts of hidden compartments on their bicycles. And then sharing them. Whoa.
The group’s St. Louis Zoo theme was perfect for Bob Bullock and Dan Hoadley. They’ve built an amazing stand-in for the St. Louis Zoo’s miniature train line, only their version features two, live Dobermans, Sky and Star. The contraption features smoke, bells, and wheels, which seem to be peddled by Sky and Star, thanks to a series of wooden legs constructed onto their fantastical push-train. The dogs and their handlers were a huge hit on the parking lot and continued drawing applause on the parade route. Creativity wed to nostalgia at its best.
With the blessings of the BBB, I got to follow along on Saturday, my first time taking part in the actual walk. Leiber helpfully suggested that I tuck in between the krewe’s golf cart and the trailing Doberman train and I tried to do that. But enthusiasm got the best of me and I wound up wandering through the street, with bicycles dressed as crocodiles, pelicans, seals, horses, giraffes and zebras whistling by. Even with some new riders in the mix, the gang’s ridden in a whole lot of parades and the circular pattern they’ve adopted came together quickly and efficiently, without a crash, blown tire or prop malfunction of any sort.
Afterwards, half the group watched the parade end, while the other half headed to the home base off of Russell; eventually both halves wound up there, where the afternoon whiled away around the kitchen island (inside) and a fire pit (outside). My memories of the week prior—that this was a group of friendly folks, who were as welcoming as could be—wasn’t shaken a bit on Saturday. I kinda figured that would be the case.
I’d also assumed/hoped that walking in the Grand Parade would be a real buzz. And it was that exactly that, from Busch Stadium on the north, to the edge of the Anheuser-Busch brewery on the south. Every minute was filled with some type of crazy visual, lots of noise, and general goodwill.
Hopefully these words and the following shots do justice to the BBB’s unique brand of performance art. Cool people, these folks. Seriously cool.
