Goofball events like Bring Your Own Bigwheel are what made me fall in love with San Francisco in the first place. This is old-school San Francisco weirdness, and the fact that things like this still periodically happen here is one of the major factors that still makes it worth putting up with all the ways in which this city has gotten worse over the last few years. This event is just so hilarious, stupid, and a little dangerous. My face hurts from smiling so much!
I've gone to this every year for the last 8 years or so, and I think that in only two or three of those years have I managed to convince any of my friends to come along.
All of my friends hate fun, you see.
#56 Mona Lisa
This event is one of the reasons I moved to SF ~6 years ago.
I've been thinking about this event (which I still love although I haven't been able to catch it for a couple of years), as well as the Bernal Heights soapbox derby (apparently now totally underground, never announced beforehand due to police issues) and Survival Research Labs (now based in Petaluma). I'm never sure if this type of thing has really gone away from San Francisco, or if I've just stopped hearing about it because I have a kid and don't know any artists anymore.
One of my favorite memories of my time in SF is the first year I went to BYOB, when it was still on Lombard. The cops showed up at the top of the hill, and an officer with a megaphone said, "All right everybody," (pause during which I think it's going to get shut down), "You can go down one more time." (cheers from the crowd) Hard to imagine the police being that compliant today.