This year, as if following some kind of rule, I saw my most inspiring solo bike cruise until Sunday night again. After we had returned from looking for our camp mate at the medical camp, everyone had gone to sleep (at least for a few hours), I took off by myself once again, for the first time that week.
But this time I didn't go out onto the Deep Playa. I'd already done that. This time I chose to follow the Exodus, the huge line of cars and RVs that were semi-patiently attempting to exit Black Rock City.
Our camp at 7:45 and K was right on the edge of the huge mass of cars that were flowing like a drain to converge on the one exit out towards the road. Cars typically idled at our intersection for a five minutes or more before moving. It was going to be a long night for anyone attempting to leave.
I followed 7:45 radially outward to the L ring, and then to the M- and N-ring steets which had been added later in the week to accommodate the increase in attendance this year. There the traffic was attempting to follow the rings down to the 6:30 road, one of the two feeder roads into the city from the entrance/exit point.
With a thousand cars lined up in the darkness in front of me, I gleefully pedaled along beside them, and weaved through them as necessary, in the direction of their flow. My plan was to follow the traffic for as far as I could, until it was obvious I had reached some kind of turnaround point, such as a gate.
In a few minutes I reached the 6:30 feeder road and followed it away from the city. I could see the cars on the 5:30 feeder road, and the mergepoint where the two roads joined together. It was obvious that the traffic on the 5:30 feeder road was much lighter.
Generally it seems like the city is less populated on the 2:00-6:00 side (the East side) than the 6:00-10:00 side (the West side). Partly is because the roads seem to funnel you that way naturally as you come in, but also perhaps because the huge popular DJ-oriented dance clubs are out at 10:00. Michele was told that our camp was located in the "Gaybrohood," perhaps for that reason.
Up near the Merge Point of the exit roads, I noticed a bright light and what looked to be a structure and a camp alongside the road, in the middle of otherwise empty playa. I came up behind it and stood by my bike. There were quite a few people sitting and tables and drinking.
As I was pushing myself forward on the bike to get a better look, all of a sudden I heard a loud crack and at once the seat of my bike gave way underneath me.
I got off my bike and looked around with my headlamp. From the pieces on the playa it was obvious that the bolt on the seat had broken. It occurred to me that there was probably no hope of fixing it, and that I would most likely be stuck riding around a seatless bike for the rest of the night.
But I decided that defeatism was not the order of the night. I picked up all the broken pieces, and upon examining them, thought there might be an outside chance that the remaining fragment of bolt was long enough to be usable.
While I was attempting to do this, a guy came around from the back of the camp and approached me in the darkness.
"Need help?" he asked.
I explained that the seat had broken, but that I was attempting to fix it.
"Probably won't work," I said, "but you have to give it the old college try."
He watched me patiently as I attempted to put the bolt through the clamp, to hold the seat onto the post. But it turned out to be in vain.
"I think I might be able to fix it," he then said.
He introduced himself as Bustin' Dustin (his playa name). He was in his Thirties, with curly blonde hair and a look of great placidity. I followed him around to the camp, where a couple dozen bikes were parked.
It turned out that the camp was Department of Public Works, the vaunted and hallowed crew of hard-core Burners who arrive many weeks before the start of Burning Man, to lay out the streets from scratch and build the city, and who then also stay weeks afterwards until no trace of the city is left.
Bustin' Dustin was a fourteen-year Burner, and had been part of the DPW for the years.
He wasted no time in addressing the broken seat. It happened that there was a Yellow Bike, one of the free take-it-if-its-there public bikes at Burning Man, parked in the bike lot by the camp. He took a seat from one of them and put it onto my bike. It didn't fit, so it sat really low for me.
"Better than a post sticking up my ass all night," I told him.
He told me that when I returned the bike to Playa Bicycle Repair, just to tell them that the seat was from the Yellow Bike Project.
I thanked him profusely for his help. Before leaving, I lingered for a while asking him questions about the Department of Public Works. A grizzled bearded hippie in a wheel chair, also a DPW veteran, came out and joined our conversation.
The station where we were (it was not the DPW camp per se), was set up to collect donated foodstuffs and sundries from participants as they left Black Rock City. Okki and Ash were going to give them our extra beer, for example. Among the things I asked them were what were the most and least useful items they received for donation during the Exodus.
Toothpaste and tampons turned out to be a highly appreciated donations. On the other hand, when I asked about what made them roll their eyes, Bustin' Dustin pointed to the enormous palette size stack of canned drinks next to him.
I looked at the stack. They were all Rockstar energy drinks, and other similar beverages.
The bearded man in the wheel chair interjected with disgust, "How many energy drinks do they think they need out here?"
I got a big kick out of that. By the end of the talk, I had all but received a subtle invitation from them, to join the DPW.
At that point, it occurred to me that I had finally hit the moment of Burning Man awareness, that I had spent the whole week trying to achieve. I knew what direction I had to go in, for the next time I was here.
Hat to tip to Coop for the link to this awesome time-lapse video of this year's Burn of the Man (Saturday night). You can see the ring of art cars around the Man on the playa. You see also see how ferocious the winds were. Fortunately we were upwind during the Burn, near the 7:30 direction. The ferocity of the winds made me think that the flames had created an updraft effect that was pulling wind into the localized low pressure zone from the fire. After we had our fill dancing there, and walked back to the Esplanade, we had to navigate the massive dust that being flung right at us. One of my favorite quotes of the week when was Gustav, one of the Swdes, while walking beside me with a psychotic Nordic stoner grin on his face exclaimed "Bring on the Storm!" in the demonic tone of a Bezerker heading out of the battle.
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