BYOBW, Big Wheel Race Down Lombard Street

posted by Scott Beale on Monday, April 2nd, 2007

Bring Your Own Big Wheel

This Sunday, April 8th is Easter and you know what that means. That’s right, it’s time to Bring Your Own Big Wheel to the top of Lombard Street (you know, the section with the ridiculous curves) and prepare to race. Ladies and gentlemen will be starting their Big Wheels at 4pm.

2007 will be the SEVENTH ANNUAL BYOBW, neighbors and police permitting, rain or shine … there are always prizes, one year featured tighty-whities with custom denim iron-on Lombard Street Skid Marks and other years have featured paintings, string art, shellac plaques, and embroidered knit caps and t shirts, all made by me. Lombard Street is of course not the crookedest street, especially compared to Vermont Street in Potrero Hill, but with a built-in international audience and scenic landscaping, who could resist? Prizes are given for all sorts of reasons, occasionally for being first, always for being last, and as the race is designed for plastic children’s toys which are prone to failure when carrying over 80 pounds, winning isn’t the goal here - survival is. This is a free event!!!!

For more info on the 7th annual Bring Your Own Big Wheel event, check out Jon Brumit’s BYOBW website.

Eddie shot some video of last year’s BYOBW for GETV and there a ton of great photos on Flickr. Here’s another video from last year that was uploaded YouTube:

UPDATE: Here are photos and video from this year’s BYOBW.

photo credit: Troy McClure SF

filed under: Events, San Francisco

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9 comments on “BYOBW, Big Wheel Race Down Lombard Street”

  1. hey! that’s me in the blue jacket about to cream my whole left side on the first turn. Go watch my BYOBW movie from the 2003 race! http://www.recursiveirony.com/byobw/

  2. Justin is going to come too! Woohoo

    see http://www.justintv.com

  3. here’s some video from this year (theres a link to the raw mp4 file here):
    http://blog.experiencecurve.com/archives/n95-video-of-7th-annual-big-wheel-race-down-lombard-st

    and the compressed version on youtube
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhmtgmaD938

    K

  4. OMG, had I not read this post, I never would’ve heard of this screamingly funny event. I can’t decide what rocked the most — “the wave,” watching a man in an oversized afro do an impromptu summersault or realizing that no one who actually lives on Lombard Street was hanging out their window to catch the festivities. Thanks so much for minting OUR new Easter tradition! My 4-yr-old so thanks you, too.

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