Keep Vashon Stupid--The One Dillion Dollar Fundraiser

If we are to believe what we read on the bumpers of cars (the only place we get our news), then people really want to Keep Vashon Weird. The Stupid Bike Club is doing some heavy lifting in that department, but our spaghetti arms are getting tired and we need some help.

For ten years (!) the Stupid Bike Club has inflicted itself on the streets of Vashon in the form of Stupid Bike Night, a comically short bike ride on some of the most impractical, beautiful, ugly, incendiary, and stupid bikes ever created. And for what? Why spend all summer building irrational bikes out of toilets, screen doors, and roadside garbage? Why must we bring a band on bikes everywhere we go? Why is Elvis wearing a diaper?

The answer is in every photograph and video taken on Stupid Bike Night. In the foreground, of course, is a stupid bike being pedaled or played on or set on fire. In the background, though, the people are smiling. In photo after photo you see the same thing; people of all ages smiling, laughing, fully enjoying the moment.

As children it is natural and easy to tap into this type of joy. As adults, well, maybe after rent is paid and you finish your work for the day and then you make dinner and do the laundry, maybe there’s time for childish joy…but very often you’ll be too tired for making art, for exploration, for impractical silliness.

There is tremendous value to this childish exuberance and the Stupid Bike Club is happy to have created an event that allows so many people to experience it, but we need some help. Obviously, we need people to join the bike ride. The greater need we have is for sweet, sweet money.

Every year we build better and more outrageously stupid bikes and attract more riders and larger crowds of spectators, and every year our budget increases over 20% and the fun increases exactly 32.497%. In the early years of the ride, we paid for everything ourselves. We can no longer afford to do that. In recent years we have solicited support from the Vashon business community and while we really appreciate the support we have received from a few local businesses and some awesome individuals, it isn’t enough. Last year we raised $3,500 and that didn’t even cover our shop rent, insurance, permits and other expenses.

You might be thinking “A bike ride should cost $0.” And we agree. The bike ride costs nothing to join and we even give away hot dogs, but it costs money to buy bike chains and tires and bolts and propane and steel and hot dogs and welding gas and paint and lights and countless other invisible things so that a unique community celebration can make a few thousand people smile and think to themselves, “That was so fun. I have a good idea for a bike next year.”

And believe us, when we started there was not a single person among us who said, “Hopefully this will continue to grow in an unsustainable fashion so that we get to beg for money because that is such a fun and noble thing to do.” But here we are, hat in hand, asking for help.

We’d like Stupid Bike Night to be a sustainable event, but we kinda suck at raising money. So here goes. Our goal is to have enough capital for the Stupid Bike Night to be a sustainable event for the next three years. We would like more than just enough to put on this year's event, because then we would be back every year asking for money. We’d rather focus on building bikes and bringing joy to the community, not fundraising. When you donate to us, you are investing in the creative spirit of our community and ensuring that this night of joy and wonder continues.

So we are asking for One Dillion Dollars. It sounds like a lot, and it is, but maybe there is a Multi-Dillionaire who lives on the island and loves Stupid Bike Night and unless we ask we’ll never know.

In the unlikely event that a Multi-Dillionaire does not step forward to save the day, we figure $25,000 will buy three years before making you read another fundraising plea that everybody is telling us is far too long and for way too much money. But we are the Stupid Bike Club for a reason. We can't keep doing this for the community unless we have money to fund the fun.