anyone been a "bandit" in a parade?

First a definition: In a running race, if you just run without signing up or wearing a number you’re called a bandit. It’s not considered uncool in running circles, unless you win or do something else to affect the race.

So, I was unicycling on an errand today and right down on the double wide, busy street two blocks from ours was a parade. It was on the far side of said street, and I turned onto the near sidewalk, going the opposite direction. Naturally, there were a bunch of people watching, and I got the usual “Mommy, look! A man on a unicycle!”, but then one guy said “Hey! Are you in the parade?” I smiled and shook my head no, and he said “You should be!”.

Has anyone here ever just uni’ed into a parade and ridden in it? If it had been going in the right direction I’d have thought about it.

yup. i did that with the fourth of july parade in my town, though I went on the sidewalk and dodged pedestrians sometimes. it was pretty fun.

Yebbut,
Dontcha wanna go in the parade? :sunglasses:

Never in a parade, but once in a running race! 3 years ago I leave my dorm one saturday morning to do some riding, and whadaya know? A marathon’s going on right outside my door! So I figured what the hey, and rode the last 16 miles of the race, cheering people on as I passed, offering them rides, and moving my arms back and forth in running fashion. That was a lot of fun.

I’ve never been a bandit in the way you describe. However, once, years ago, I was a bandit in a different way.

Our club was trying to come up with a fun routine for the 4th of July parade and someone suggested we do a cops-n-robbers theme.

I ended up riding in a striped prisoner costume. We had these big bags that had dollar signs on them. Basically the entire parade was the badits stealing the cash from the cops and then hiding it in the crowd. Then the cops would ride around chasing the badits and searching for the cash. The kids in the crowd loved it since they were often enlisted by either side to thwart the efforts of the other.

-mg

yah I just jumped into a parade before, and it was sort of funny, because I was the thing that people wanted to see most, all of the people had never seen a unicycler in person, much less one wheelwalking.

Some time in my late college years in the early 80’s, I took my Schwinn Giraffe down the Seattle Torchlite Parade route before the parade started but the crowd was already assembled.

I had my face done in a clown white base and colored mouth & eyes (please forgive me for this, I was young(er) at the time). My pockets were stuffed with Tootsie Rolls that I threw to the kids. The crowd was very appreciative and supportive of my pre-parade antics.

Whenever I UPD’d I would enlist an adult to assist in the remount, which was quite entertaining too.

Steve (the ex-clown)