Tune up your bikes and get ready to hit the streets because Saturday night is the long-awaited annual Bicycle Scavenger Hunt.
Tune up your bikes and get ready to hit the streets because Saturday night is the long-awaited annual Bicycle Scavenger Hunt.
This scavenger hunt started a few years ago. Kandice Theriot thought it would be fun: a bunch of erstwhile grownups peddling for dear life all over downtown Lafayette and searching out clues and competing with other teams. To compete you need to pay $5 and show up to 124 Smith St. at 8 p.m. Aug. 20.
"This year will be the 6th annual scavenger hunt," says Theriot. "This is a nighttime bicycle ride that requires different teams to take pictures of themselves performing various tasks from a list of objectives. The list of objectives change every year and each objective is worth a different amount of points. I create the list so all the tasks are limited to the areas of UL campus, Freetown, Saint Streets, Downtown, Girard Park and the Oil Center. Everyone participating in the hunt has between the hours of 9 p.m. and midnight to complete the tasks given. Once everyone on the team is back the pictures are then downloaded and posted on Facebook at a later time. The winner of the scavenger hunt is the team that racks up the most points. They pretty much just win bragging rights, but I'm trying this year to give out actual awards." The point, of course, isn't winning awards but having a hootin' hollerin' good time on bicycles.
Each team consists of 5-8 people, a cool team name, bike lights for nighttime safety, at least one digital camera (with backup batteries) to document your exploits and your I.D. since some clues involve going into certain bars.
"Since the hunt has grown so much in the past couple of years I decide this year to donate all profits from the five dollar cover to the Bike Lafayette organization," Theriot says. "I organize the bicycle scavenger hunt for them and this is a great way to promote bike culture in Lafayette. This is a Saturday night that gets everyone off their bar stools and on a bike to appreciate what this town has to offer that gets overlooked everyday."
If you have any questions go to the Facebook page for the scavenger hunt or show up to the Scavenger Hunt 2011 headquarters Saturda night at 124 Smith St., which is that tiny street on the side of PJ's Coffee adjacent to UL.