“The plan was simple, a group of bikes in front to cork the intersections and a group of us make a barrier around Richie as we ride so no one gets too close to him,” said Rosie Fatemi, who was part of Trimble’s protective bubble of bikes that day.

Five years ago Richie got the itch to build a tallbike; his first also stood head and shoulders above the rest, as a seven and a half-foot triple-tall dubbed Kabuki Sky. Built at the West side bike repair co-op, the Bikerowave, Kabuki Sky was one of the first freak bikes to be built among a collective of creative cyclists that banded together to form Los Angelopes.

After Kabuki Sky proved a successful (rideable) tallbike, Trimble eventually decided that it was time to grow—so he added a fourth frame, and Kabuki Sky was reborn as Kafourki Sky.

Instead of adding more frames to build a bigger bike, Stoopidtall is made up of just one common Huffy beach cruiser that has been lengthened with steel tubing to give it a brand new life as an extraordinary freak bike. In place of conventional shop tools Trimble utilized what he had at his disposal—a shopping cart, a log, and a few c-stands—to bend and brace the tubes as he built the bike up. Twelve hours and 32.5 ft of bike chain later, Stoopidtall was born.

“I went on a bicycle ride and someone made a joke about me being jealous that they were on tallbikes and I wasn’t, so I challenged him to the tallest bike in L.A.,” said Trimble, “and then I went and built the tallest bike in L.A.”

Debuting it at CicLAvia, strangers and friends alike gazed upward in awe, including the heckler who had ended up on the other side of the tall bike challenge, Rick Hill.

“The first thought that came to mind was, ‘That jerk set me up and had the metal to build one when he challenged me,’” Hill said, laughing over it. “I am currently working on a bike that will top Stoopidtall, and I’m trying to keep most of the projects details as secret as I can.”

As the pair egg each other on, Trimble hopes to set a new record for the world’s tallest rideable bike before the year’s end. The current record was set by Terry Goertzen in 2004, when he rode an 18 ft, 2.5 in bike in Winnipeg, Canada.