Last night, Ledcat and I stopped by Cattivo for a fundraising event to benefit the formation of Pittsburgh's official chapter of Dykes on Bikes (www.pittsburghdykesonbikes.org).  We stayed for about 45 minutes and it seemed to be a really fun event.  Proceeds from the door and various internal activities will help cover the start up costs (forming a 501c3 legal expenses) and the event organizer told me that they pretty much met their goal.

Cool.

We aren't really jello shot consumers, but Ledcat did enjoy getting her leather Doc Martens shined up ... and we caught up with some friends we haven't seen in awhile.  I took two photos that I can publish.  One is so blurry you can't see who is actually in them, but the silhouettes look like they are having fun.  This shot is facing the stage, but the crowd behind me is huge.  The crowd was at least 125 people. 

Here's a Blackberry photo of event organizer, Dyke of Bikes chapter founder and my friend, Miranda with DJ Adele who played a whole host of my favorite tunes while we were there.

 

I'm glad we stopped by.  Miranda reports to me that the chapter will focus on fundraising to support other local groups and hopes to hold another event in March.

On an interesting note, she commented to me that a lot of attendees identified as bisexual women and had actually contacted her in advance to see if they were welcome "I'd like to come, but my girlfriend is bi ... is that okay?" sort of thing.  And more than a few women identifying as bisexual brought their boyfriends along!  So that's a really different vibe than events I typically attend.  Miranda hopes that the Dykes on Bikes chapter will cut across some of this cultural divide and help people unite around the things that they have in common such as being part of the larger queer community. 

Of course, the real payoff will be seeing the growth of the Dykes on Bikes contingent at PrideFest this year.  That will be awesome.  Kudos on a great event!