The motorbike gangs were particularly brazen on both sides of the Bay Sunday afternoon, halting traffic on the Bay Bridge, allegedly robbing a store in Oakland, and creating bedlam in the Castro, Mission District, and North Beach.

It’s becoming a pretty common weekend activity that dirt bike gangs and/or sideshows take over Bay Area roadways, but Sunday’s shenanigans were particularly audacious. KPIX reports that motorbike gangs took over the Bay Bridge twice on Sunday, and also allegedly committed a mass robbery at an Oakland retail store near Lake Merritt. And it was a similar story the same day in San Francisco, as large groups of motorcycle gangs had their way all over the streets in North Beach, the Castro, and the Mission District.

KTVU posted video of the Bay Bridge and East Bay motorbike mayhem, and their report notes that at around 2:45 Sunday afternoon, “a fight broke out among some of the riders” and then “some of the bikers started stealing items from the business, which wasn't immediately identified.” But the tweet above from KTVU’s Henry Lee indicates the business was a Chevron gas station.

The California Highway Patrol told KTVU that the bikers commandeered the Bay Bridge eastbound lower deck at around 11:15 am Sunday, and then the westbound upper deck at 3:45 pm. “They were not only riding on the bridge, but they were doing their tricks, you know, jumping their motorcycles on one wheel and it was extremely dangerous," Oakland City Councilmember Noel Gallo told KTVU, as he happened to be driving on the bridge at that time.

Either the same gang, or a different group, tore up the streets of San Francisco early Sunday evening as well. The above thread from SF Homeless Oversight Commissioner Sharky Laguana is 13 tweets long with plenty of videos of a dirt bike gang running roughshod all over Valencia Street starting at approximately 7 pm.

“Eventually more showed up and they started doing wheelies, going in circles on Valencia,” Laguana says. “45 minutes later, they were still there, burning tires in the intersection. The restaurant smelled like burned rubber. We didn’t finish the pizza. At one point a car did a doughnut suddenly in the intersection. Parents were grabbing their kids tightly and fleeing."

Almost got hit head on this is absurd
byu/Live_Confusion_3003 insanfrancisco

A similar group was spotted near the Giants’ ballpark Sunday afternoon, as was posted to Reddit above.

Hell's tricycles, you know ya'll are weird af right?
byu/devilquak insanfrancisco

And the nickname “Hell’s tricycles” is obviously pretty funny, but the video shows an offshoot of dirt bikers on 16th Street near Potrero Hill.

SFPD actually attempting to pursue a motorcycle group flying down Columbus
byu/Mkrah insanfrancisco

We do see some degree of police presence when the rally hit North Beach, though not high-speed direct pursuit. Police are generally discouraged from engaging in high-speed chases, though those rules may soon be loosening.

And NBC Bay Area’s Sergio Quintana notes a dirt bike gang descended to Castro and Market streets, “blocking the Muni F line from doing anything while they hang around the corner gas station” (also a Chevron). He later added that “A single SFPD Patrol cruiser arrived and the group disbursed. There are probably a hundred in this group. The police cruiser eventually followed the group with its emergency lights on.”

So was this all the same motorbike gang, on both sides of the Bay, causing trouble from 11 am to 8 pm or later? Yes, given the timelines, this could have all been the same group. Or it could be that multiple dirt bike rallies all started separately in both SF and the East Bay. Frankly, those are both bad possibilities, and create a conundrum that law enforcement will have trouble handling as we rev into the Bay Area’s warmest month of September.

Related: Motorcyclist Injured Amid Dirt Bike and ATV Sideshow Near Lake Merritt [SFist]

Image: devilquak via Reddit