The dead will ride
Exercise your demons: Blood Over Texas organizes zombie social ride
- Blood Over Texas's zombie and monster social bike ride
On AMC's The Walking Dead, the zombies of that mythos reenact — albeit much slower and with fewer limbs — the activities they pursued while amongst the living.
Following that logic, were a zombie takeover to occur in Austin, we would likely find a number of health-minded zombies still practicing their deteriorating downward dogs at Black Swan Yoga, mindlessly shuffling down the aisles of Whole Foods and biking lazily around Lady Bird Lake.
To prepare for this "healthy" zombie apocalypse, Blood Over Texas — a social group for Austin's fans of the horror genre — organized a full evening of flesh-eating, drinking and general bikers-dressed-as-monsters mayhem for Wednesday. It's called Ride of the Dead, and it's exactly the sort of thing that might get us to actually ride that fixed gear that's sadly rusting in the backyard.
Everyone is welcome to join in on the three-part night of fun, and costumes can run the gamut of ghouls, undead and zombies. (It's an equal opportunity monster mash.) Just make sure your costume or your hanging flesh stay free of your bike spokes; nobody enjoys getting long tracks of skin mixed up in your gears...
The flesh-eating party starts at Live Oak BBQ on 2nd Street at 6 p.m., where food specials will be offered to anyone in costume. We recommend the Long Pig Tacos, but, really, just let your ravenous, insatiable hunger guide you on where to go. Best part: you don't have to use a napkin because zombies don't care about no table manners.
Then it's off to Jackalope for drink specials for everyone participating in the race. Sixth Street won't be as rowdy as it is on the weekends, but they're pretty familiar with big groups of drunk co-eds dragging their torn up forms across the cobblestones, so you'll fit right in. Just make sure to lock your bike up when you go inside.
Finally, the zombie herd will make their way north of campus to Spider House for an outdoor film screening on the patio. Instead of a full-length film, horror aficionado Stephen Romano has compiled his favorite collection of horror, exploitation and grindhouse movie trailers to keep short attention spans entertained and amused.
Besides seeing this spectacle unfold on the unsuspecting passerby of Austin, riders will also have the chance to join Blood Over Texas at the event, giving you discounts and the chance to take place in future members-only events put on by the group each year.
The BOT organizers ask that you RSVP on their Facebook page in order to get an accurate head(less) count. And they remind everyone to stay safe and obey all the traffic rules. It might be a gang of ghouls on bikes taking over the streets, but even zombies know the rules of the road.
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Blood Over Texas' Ride of the Dead starts at 6 p.m. at Live Oak BBQ this Wednesday. The group will get to Jackalope Bar sometime around 8:30 p.m. and then to Spider House Cafe close to 10:30 p.m.