Fourth of July bike cruise in Huntington Beach, which returns Saturday, keeps growing

Huntington Beach resident Ed Romo used to quiz his two daughters on their favorite part of celebrating the Fourth of July.

The annual parade is always majestic, but they told their father that they always preferred riding their bikes along Main Street or Pacific Coast Highway when it was closed down.

In the summer of 2020, “closed down” was a good way to describe things. In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, the city heavily modified the annual parade, with two small car caravans driving around the city’s downtown and residential areas.

Romo had an idea. How about a bike cruise from Lake Park to the beach?

He had fliers made, and spread the word on social media. He and emcee Mel Craig expected maybe 30 to 40 people.

When they showed up at the park, Romo said there were more than 1,000 bicycles.

Thousands of riders converged on the streets of Huntington Beach at the 2023 cruise.

(Courtesy of Ron Lyon Photo )

“I mean, I looked and it was flooded,” Romo said. “I was like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me. What’s going on?’ That’s when there was a lot of stuff going down with the [Black Lives Matter movement] and all of that stuff.

“The cops show up like, ‘Who’s in charge of this thing?’ And all of my buddies ratted me out and pointed at me. I’m like, ‘Man, you guys suck.’”

The police didn’t shut down the event and ended up helping the riders with an escort. Ever since then, the Huntington Beach Locals Fourth of July Bicycle Cruise has been held on the Saturday before Independence Day. And it has exploded.

There were about 15,000 bikes at last year’s event, Craig said. This year, they’re expecting 20,000 for the fifth annual cruise. Next year, they want to bring Guinness World Records out to Surf City to officially set the record for biggest bike cruise.

“Quite frankly, there’s no doubt in my mind that we’ll get it,” Craig said.

For the first time, this year the city has shut down Main Street for the cruise. Participants are asked to meet at Yorktown Avenue and Main Street near City Hall at around 9 a.m. on Saturday. Huntington Beach veterans will kick off the ride at 10:30 a.m.

Riders will travel down Main Street to Walnut Avenue.

Huntington Beach public affairs manager Jennifer Carey said in an email that the cruise is not an official city event, but the city has issued a permit for it. Main Street will be closed between Yorktown and Walnut from approximately 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday. East and west traffic on Yorktown will remain open.

Romo said the veterans will be treated to a free lunch at Bruno’s Sports Bar & Grille downtown and presented medals and a Hawaiian lei. He also expects to have three Volkswagen buses for the ride — one red, one white and one blue — and about 200 roller skaters will provide a buffer between the vehicles in front and the bikers that follow.

Participants are encouraged to be patriotic, of course, both in colors and bike designs. One thing that both Romo and Craig said they want absent, though, is politics. Romo said he had a couple of friends early on who asked if they could bring Trump flags, and he asked them not to.

Mel Craig, left, pictured at the first ride in 2020, serves as the event’s emcee.

(Courtesy of Mel Craig)

“It’s not that I’m against anybody or for somebody, I just want to take this one time and not think about any of that other stuff,” Romo said. “It’s not about where you go to church, who you vote for, what shopping center you go to. It has nothing to do with any of that. It’s the one time that we can all get together and just go for a ride together, not worry about any of this other stuff. And, let’s focus on our kids.”

Romo’s daughters have grown up, but they stay in the front of the cruise with two big American flags.

And though the parade is back to normal, his cruise on the Saturday before Independence Day has become an increasingly popular event for locals, too.

“I look at the video, and it’s like, yeah, it’s the biggest, but it’s all of us,” Romo said. “It’s our core of Huntington Beach. It’s just so nice.

“When you see a little girl on her bike with training wheels, all dressed up in red, white and blue and peddling really fast, you just go, ‘Wow.’ You feel that love.”