A Giraffe, a Dinosaur and a Guy in a Skirt Go to the Beach. The Deus Slidetoberfest 2023 Dress Up Beach Drag Race

Words flounder and fail when it comes to describe day two of the Deus SlidetoberFest. At 8 am we were back in the black sand setting things up for what was, in full hindsight, the funnest event of the entire weekend. The Dress Up Beach Drag Race.

We needed to travel forty minutes up the coast to secure two hundred and fifty odd metres of secluded but reasonably straight beach on which we could make a hell of a racket, flying up and down on a small horde of ‘ride what you brung’ bikes.

Looking back at it, the bikes may have been less important than what people came dressed as, we saw a couple of security guards and a giraffe. There was the red Telly Tubby and a Mexican hombre. A couple of gents took drag to mean plunging into their partners dresses and we even had a Grab food delivery rider. The abundance of original outfits creased everyone’s faces in the right way and while it made for some peculiar looking riding, don’t be fooled, it was all doused competitive spirit. Just because they might have been dressed differently didn’t mean that they didn’t come to win.

The first flag dropped a little after ten when the tide had receded enough to open up the beach. We ran through the hundred odd competitors and then doubled back to begin whittling the heat victors down. The sun was damn low in the sky by the time we had all of our winners across the three divisions.

Yeah, we know that this event strayed heavily into the fast moving stream of unconventional but for the hundred odd riders and all their mates who came to spectate, this was one hell of an amazing afternoon filled with laughter and spectacles.

We’re now thinking we might not be able to wait until October next year to run it again, perhaps sometime a little sooner?

We couldn't have done it without assistance from our friends over at Motul Indonesia and Island Brewing. The first one lubricated our bikes, the second our bodies.

Film by
Andre Cricket
Yoga Santiyasa
Akbarqkahom

Photos by
Ram Matteo
Didit Prasetyo
Mirza Nurman
Kelibow