Kaho Asai | The Chronicle
The 10 minutes of a marching band show are made up of countless constantly moving parts. Spinning rifles, matching steps, waving flags and now 44 bikes.
The Mason High School (MHS) Marching Band purchased bikes this year to use in their 2026-2027 show, becoming the first ever high school to do so on such a large scale. Not only are the color guard performers riding them, but the musicians are as well. The show will have a theme inspired by the Chinese New Year and is titled Fire Horse.
Marching Band Director Jason Sleppy is in charge of organizing the show, including the theme itself. He said that he stumbled across the concept of a fire horse and decided that moving bikes would bring that idea to life much better than any stationary prop.
“Marching band is a way that people grow and learn, but also [a performance],” Sleppy said. “Bringing something that’s unique and creative to audiences that are watching is a cool [part] of the marching band experience.”
Sleppy said the bikes will be modified to represent this theme. Prop horse heads will be attached to the handlebars, and flame tails to the back. To provide musicians a safe place to keep their instruments, the band purchased “archery bags” for students to wear while riding.
The MHS Marching Band woodwinds, or “hunters,” circle around the battery with their
instruments in “archery bags,” weaving through the entire band throughout the show.
“Lots of unique problems arise when you try to do something nobody’s ever done, because you have to come up with the solutions for everything that goes wrong,” Sleppy said. “Nobody’s ever done it. You can’t copy paste anything. You [have to] make it up.”
Junior Emilee Gorder has been part of the color guard for three years. She said she is one of the few people who did not have prior experience with bike riding, and had to learn independently in order to participate in the show. Before the season, the show theme was revealed to the students by the directors.
“I was genuinely horrified,” Gorder said. “[The directors were] like, ‘We’ve had no props, we’ve had tarps, we’ve had huge bridges, but we’ve never had a prop we could ride. Then they started talking about how we’re gonna have 40 something bikes, and I was like, ‘I don’t know how to ride a bike.’”
With the bikes being a completely new concept, the demands are different than what the color guard is already familiar with. The group had to practice riding in straight lines, staying in time and pedaling on certain counts. Freshmen, being new to high school color guard, had to add bike riding to the long list of skills they are required to learn to succeed in the sport.
“I think it might be a little challenging, especially having to prop the bikes up in a certain amount of counts,” Gorder said. “Then, the freshmen have [a routine] right after. But there’s no doubt that they will get through [it]. I’m proud of them all, and they’ve done awesome work.”
Seniors Sreshta Cherukumoolinti and Lucia Munoz are woodwind Section Leaders in the marching band. The two were assigned the roles of Bike Captains, which includes resolving any technical issues with the bikes and arriving early at practice to set them up. Cherukumoolinti said her first reaction to the bikes was not positive.
“I thought they were gonna be really gimmicky,” Cherukumoolinti said. “Like it was gonna be some kind of joke, it wasn’t gonna be taken seriously. But after we started working with them and we got to see other people’s reactions to them, I think it was really cool to see how they were integrated into the show.”
Cherukumoolinti said this show is different from her past three years because it is difficult to picture what it will look like when it comes to fruition. For previous shows Enchanted Promises, Rabbit Season and Regency, the students had a stronger sense of the visual story going into the season. But her final show Fire Horse has a completely unique concept.
Junior Emilee Gorder rides one of 44 bikes across Dwire Field during the first part of the
ten-minute Chinese New Year themed performance.
“It’s like going out with a bang,” Cherukumoolinti said. “I can’t imagine not doing bikes [senior] year. I’m really excited. With the direction we’re going, I think it could be a really special show.”
Munoz said that due in part to her childhood background in dance, she was selected to perform a visual solo. For a portion of the show she will be distanced from others on the field, and is required to improvise her own choreography.
“Usually I’m pretty good at following the choreography, but when I’m making it up myself, it’s definitely a lot more challenging,” Munoz said. “I’m [on the field] with my bike trying to figure out what I can do that looks somewhat cool and not super [silly].”
Munoz said American high school marching band programs have been increasing in intensity in recent years. With bands constantly trying to out compete one another, she said there is a pressure to perform more difficult music and elaborate visuals with higher level props.
“I don’t know how you can get more elaborate than bikes,” Munoz said. “A lot of people who didn’t know who Mason is, will after this show. They definitely will remember [us].”
