Yarr! Bike Pirates!

Ay Ay, Bicycle Buccaneers! It's the second ever Half-Masst event!

Here are the rules:

1. Every player starts with a bike, and their choice of safety-approved pirate weaponry. Players are encouraged to wear clothes that distinguish them as a pirate, such as a striped shirt, vest, eye patch, bandanna, sailor's hat, or three-corner hat. Excessive jewelry is not recommended.

2. Players have a half-hour to collect treasure flags and their cans of ballast within four square blocks of uptown Athens. Flags are worth a point, cans two, and tall cans three. Flags will not be found anywhere on the main streets, but in alleys and parking lots. Flags will always be reachable from street level.

3. Players may form teams of up to two people. Solo pirates are awarded double point values.

4. Players may attack their opponents to gain their treasure, or send them back to the College Green if they have no treasure. Combat is only allowed in off-street areas, like alleys and parking lots. The Green is a combat zone, except for the monument circle.

5. No hitting with anything besides your weapons, in their intended fashion. No headshots with melee weapons. No intentional ramming while on your bike.

6. After a skirmish and subsequent plundering finishes, the two players must lose visual contact with each other before they may engage again.

7. Approved weapons include: 

A. Foam melee weapons (or boffers) no longer than 3 feet from hand to tip

B. Any single-shot foam projectile shooter (including pistols, rifles, shotgun, bows, and crossbows) as long as it fires safely padded bullets or arrows and can only be used once without reloading.

C. Large "sock bombs" made of no less than 8 socks. Only one sock bomb per player is allowed.

All weapons will be checked in before the game and scrutinized for safety standards.

8. You may dismount at any time for fighting, collecting, or hiding, but remember that pirates steal bikes, too! Stolen bikes must be brought to and retrieved from the statues on the Green.

9. At the conclusion of the game, players must return to the monument circle for their treasure to be counted. Results will be tallied and the pirate(s) with the most loot will get to open the treasure chest and see what bounty they've won.

Half-Masst is always halfway through the month, either on the second or third Friday. This month's game will be Friday, November 14th, starting at 5pm.