Beer Bike restrictions imposed

By Yan Digilov     3/19/09 7:00pm

As students greet the morning sun to prepare for Beer Bike festivities tomorrow, they will also greet a new Beer Bike policy that has prompted many questions from members of the community. For the first time, colleges will be limited to a single 24-foot flatbed truck to carry balloons into what is unofficially known as the largest water balloon fight in the world.The issue was first brought up in November at a meeting of all Beer Bike coordinators across the university. After the decision to limit the number of trucks was made, its reception was mixed.

"[Beer Bike] is really not going to be as fun," Mishal Thadani, a Sid Richardson College sophomore, said. "Having two trucks was fun to go to."

Thadani, like many students, said he has heard many reasons why the decision was made.

---

---

According to Mark Eastaway, one of the campus-wide Beer Bike coordinators, the reasons for the decision included evening the playing field between colleges, simplifying the system for college coordinators and preparing for the arrival of new colleges on campus. However, he said that there was one issue that stood out.

"A lot of the problem is that in the city of Houston itself there are just not as many trucks as there is demand for them," he said. "That's especially since Beer Bike happens at the same time as the Rodeo."

Problems obtaining properly-sized flatbed trucks have existed for many years, according to Eastaway. In the past, trucks have been unavailable the morning of Beer Bike, despite reservations and long-term planning.

"It was incredibly frustrating that at the last minute people didn't know if they would have a truck or not," Boyd Beckwith, Beer Bike faculty sponsor, said. "It was a recommendation of the previous advisers of Beer Bike. Even the masters were involved in the discussion that we need to do something about the truck issue."

In recent years, the university has enacted a contingency plan in which three colleges were asked each year to reserve a third, back-up flatbed in case Saturday morning arrived and a college was left with a no-show. Beckwith said he was unaware of a time when the contingency plan had failed.

Maggy Taylor, a Beer Bike coordinator from Will Rice College, said she was thankful for that plan last year. Her college was able to use Brown's reserve flatbed when they found themselves truckless.

"I hate trucks," she said. "All the coordinators hate trucks. None of the students know anything that goes into it."

But for Taylor and several other colleges that have historically only filled one truck with water balloons, the alteration does little to affect planning.

"As far as going down to one truck, that doesn't affect our college at all," she said. "I don't think anyone will even notice at Will Rice."

Taylor said that in the past, getting trucks was such a pain that at times, she wished the parade had been canceled altogether.

While Taylor's suggestion may have sounded sacriligious to some, the proposal was given consideration, according to Beckwith.

"We even talked about potentially having the water balloon fight without any trucks whatsoever," Beckwith said. "That was both from a safety standpoint . and again [there was] the difficulty of trying to get that many trucks during rodeo season."

However, some members of the university feel as though the shift may have done more harm to the very issue they set out to fix.

"If it is a difficulty in getting the trucks, they have disserved the parade," Kevin MacKenzie, resident associate at Brown College, said. He said that cutting the number to one truck leaves colleges with a higher probability of being left out of the parade altogether rather than simply having their numbers halved.

"If two or three colleges don't get that truck, it will be a disaster for the parade," he said. "The track record with the truck companies has not been good."

In the past, colleges such as Hanszen and Brown have gone as far as Humble and Spring to find their flatbeds.

Brown has a longstanding tradition of putting an emphasis on filling balloons. Last year, they were the only college with balloons remaining for the last 30 minutes of the parade.

Eastaway said that while the experience was one he cherished as a member of the college, his responsibilities as campus-wide coordinator have given him a new perspective.

"It was difficult for me personally," he said. "I love the parade. I love having an excess amount of balloons and destroying other colleges. But I was able to this year hear from other people. To them, they are having fun until they run out of balloons."

When added to the future logistical feat of finding up to four more trucks for Duncan and McMurtry Colleges, the concerns of unfairness created challenges for the parade's planning, Eastaway said.

But for others, the obstacles are not convincing enough to alter tradition.

"I think if we could have two trucks then we should," Thadani said. "I don't see why we need preparation for next year. It doesn't really make much sense to me."

With regards to the disparity in balloons filled between colleges, some say that it is simply a matter of tradition.

"There was a time when different colleges participated in the aspects of the college in really different ways," MacKenzie said, pointing to Wiess College's former boycotts of the parade as an example. "Now it is becoming more homogenous."

He also suggested empty trucks could turn out of the parade route instead of forcing everyone to travel together, allowing students with balloons to stay and enjoy the battle as long as they like.

"A lot of this is also us not knowing what to do because [former Beer Bike faculty sponsor Heather Masden] is not here," Eastaway said. "That has been a challenge. We did this one-truck thing to alleviate this problem in the future. There was probably some other way to do it."

Eastaway said that the issue would remain on the list of those needing to be addressed by a growing university. While some are predicting a truck shortage and others see an improvement to the tradition, the consensus is, at the very least, that Beer Bike will go on.

---