Comm. Ave. cyclist rides loud and deep

Pedestrians often talk about the quirky characters who barrel down the crowded sidewalks of Allston and Back Bay as if they were celebrities: There is the “Comm. Ave. running guy,” a perpetually sweaty body builder who jogs for hours carrying weights around his wrists and ankles. Then there is the tricycle man, a.k.a. Louie Evans, who, according to The Boston Globe, logs almost 1,000 miles each month riding along city streets in his flag-decorated tricycle, hollering like a siren.

Measured against these legends of the strip, Brighton resident Rob Vellela, 21, is pretty nondescript. A scruffy local in a long T-shirt and a lover of old-school hip-hop, Vellela doesn’t stand out much on his own, even when he’s blasting his music for all to hear. It’s his bicycle that puts him in the pantheon of street personas.

For starters, Vellela’s DK brand bicycle looks impressive just by managing to stay upright while in motion: Six C batteries, a portable XM radio, two speaker boxes, three amps and a hefty Black & Decker rechargeable battery all hang on the bike’s low-slung frame. The whole sound system cost about $2,200 and “countless man hours” to assemble, Vellela said –– and it was worth every penny.

Small touches make the bicycle even more personalized. American flags and neon lights decorate the sides. Lost amid the tangle of car battery wires and amplifiers, a rusty silver bicycle bell near the crook of the left handle bar still rings clearly despite looking more than half a century old.

“Lots of people they say, ‘That’s my favorite thing about the bike,” he said of the bell. Like many personal touches, Vellela said he found the bell on a vintage roadster for sale at a used bicycle shop.

Vellela’s ride also changes with the seasons. For October, he placed a miniature pumpkin at the front and back of his bicycle, though one fell off while he was riding through Back Bay. If the weather cooperates in December, he plans to drape Christmas lights along the body of his bike. But like a bear hibernating during winter, he will stop riding during the coldest months to protect his expensive sound equipment.

“This is strictly a nice-weather thing,” he said. “No rain, no snow, no mud. I’ve got one route, because this thing can’t take too many bumps.”

College of Arts and Sciences junior Dory Greenberg, who hosts a WTBU radio show devoted to underground hip-hop, said she remembered walking home along Brighton Avenue in Allston last fall when “out-of-the-blue this guy zoomed by blasting this music.”

Though she has seen Vellela ride past her several times since then, Greenberg has not managed to stop him and ask more questions.

“All I know is that whenever I see him, it puts a smile on my face,” Greenberg said. “I can’t help it.”

Vellela said he aims to please. He even turns the station to classical music when he reaches Boston Common, because he noticed upper-crust Beacon Hill types smiling more when he played Beethoven instead of the Beastie Boys.

The only instance when someone walked up and told him to turn down his music occurred while he was waiting for the traffic light to change at the BU Bridge, Vellela said. Another cyclist, this time a police officer, told him he was being too loud and fined him $50 when he refused to turn his speakers’ volume down, he said.

Aside from the officer who fined him, Vellela said no other authorities have bothered him for disturbing the peace. “Every other cop I see nods [his] head and starts dancing when I come by.”

Boston University Police Department Sgt. Larry Manning said he saw Vellela for the first time coasting down Bay State Road two weeks ago. Though the officer didn’t dance to the music, Manning didn’t find any reason to stop him, either. The cyclist looked young, and appeared to just be passing through the neighborhood rather than disturbing it.

Still, the music was not exactly quiet, Manning said.

“It sounded like a parade, actually,” he said. “But as far as I know, I haven’t got any complaints about him.”

Though Vellela avoids playing what he calls “garbage new rap,” the artists he typically plays — hip-hop legends like A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul — are not for everyone.

College of Arts and Sciences junior Amar Patel said he does not like Vellela’s music, though it does not bother him. Patel said there are too many other distractions in Boston to let loud music faze him.

“Walking in the city, you see weird [stuff] every day,” he said. “I would consider someone running down the street naked weird. This guy’s not weird in the sense of odd, but just different.”

Greg Hoffman, the service manager at International Bicycle Center, said he admires Vellela’s innovation. Though Vellela gets his sound equipment from stores like Best Buy and Autozone, he comes to the Allston repair shop whenever he needs work done on his DK lowrider.

“We definitely get our share of local quasi-eccentric bike people who come in,” Hoffman said. From an area youth who put a motor on his skateboard to a club of cyclists who weld bicycle frames on top of one another until they sit as high as six feet — “They’re well above the crowd, no doubt about it.”

It was at International Bicycle Center where Vellela heard about this “rival bike gang” known as the Sculls that includes a rider who also plays music from an onboard radio.

 Vellela said he knows his rig is louder because he uses amps to make his bicycle sound “as loud as any car.” He said he looks forward to running into the Scull rider who plays music on the road.

“I want to find him and out-thump him,” he said.