I FOUGHT THE LAW"I'm just real soured right now," Lubke told Rocks Off. "I've been fighting with the fucking city because it was the city who invited us out for the Super Bowl."

The majority of Lubke's criticisms have to do with his competition and the fact that the pedicab industry, if one can call it that, is completely unregulated by the City of Houston. Pedicabs skirt the city's taxi ordinance because the drivers don't charge a fare and they bikes don't have motors.

"The city won't regulate anything because they don't want to be liable."

Owner Travis Stowers echoes that sentiment.

"Most companies don't even have insurance," Stowers said. "I keep a $20,000 insurance policy."

Lubke said some of the other companies' practices make all bike cabbers look bad. Stowers said that if the city doesn't make gains to officiate the business, he'll likely be leaving Houston for a city that does.

Space City Bike Cab has a sister operation in Arlington called Lone Star Bike Cab. After the new Cowboys Stadium was opened about a year ago, bike cabs descended on the arena to help stadium-goers avoid the outrageous parking fees, some as high as $75. Within a few months, the city had moved to create regulations for the pedicabs.

Those regulations require all pedicabs to have lights, proof of insurance, helmets and seat belts, inspection certifications and slow moving vehicle signs on the back of the bench. They also regulate the types of pedicabs allowed. Trailers that attached to regular bikes are prohibited. Space City Bike Cab and Lone Star Bike Cab's bikes are all one extended frame, sort of like an Xtracycle. Arlington also put a limit on how many bike cabs can service the stadium.

They made available 40 total permits to operate bike cabs. Lone Star has 10 of them.

EVERY DAY I'M HUSTLIN'

On the phone, Rocks Off asked Lubke how an average passenger could tell that his company was more legit than any other group riding bike cabs in Houston. In person, the answer seems clear. All of Space City's bike cabs look the same -- blue with a blue House of Blues ad on the back. The drivers all wear the same navy T-shirt with Lone Star's logo on the back. The cabs also all have the same sign explaining that fares are free -- the driver work for tips and tips only, an important detail.

"If you look nicer you'll make more money," Lubke says. Then he points to a cyclist for another company. "These guys in the yellow bikes and yellow shirts, they're trying to look more cohesive."

Those identical bike cabs and matching t-shirts had to be funded somehow, and one thing Rocks Off notices as we pass other bike cabbers is that almost no one but Lubke's people have advertisements on their bikes. The House of Blues deal is sweet, but not the sweetest one they've ever scored. When the Super Bowl came to San Diego in 2003, Coca-Cola paid the pedicab company Lubke worked for $40,000 to put ads on four bikes, he said. The Bud Light deal that helped bring the company to Houston was pretty good too.

And Lubke likes to talk about all the famous people who've ridden in his cabs: Doug Flutie and Snoop Dogg, who Lubke says didn't tip at all.

"I drove Brett Favre's parents around during the Super Bowl," he said.

Suddenly Lubke interrupts himself to point to a pedicab in front of us carrying some young girls to the Toyota Center, where Taylor Swift is about to perform. The bike is pulling a trailer-style cab with a bench made out of exposed plywood. There are no reflectors, no lights, no horn -- no safety features at all.

"Look at this -- you think you can see that trailer at night? If your daughter falls out of that trailer and gets hit by a car, you think that guy's gonna stick around while you call the cops?"

Many drivers build trailer-style cabs in their garages, using who knows what kind of safety standards. Lubke said the less ethical owners don't even keep the bikes maintained, and require the drivers to bring their own lights and other equipment. He poses the question -- if you're renting a pedicab to drive, what is the rent going towards?

Pedicab rental works on a confusing scale. At Space City, Lubke charges his drivers a percentage based on the average tips collected that night. This method requires his drivers to report their tips to him, which means, of course, they're going to lowball the number to keep the rent low and the take-home higher. If a nightly average is $200 in tips, then Lubke would charge $60 for the rental, giving the driver $140 in his pocket.

Several times throughout the night, employees of Lubke would pull up to him to complain about how slow it had been. Outside the House of Blues, two drivers -- one who was working his very first shift -- were talking about the lack of tips. Within a few minutes, they both got riders.

"What are the odds of that," he asks sarcastically.

It seems to be a hobby of Lubke's to bitch about his employees. He alternates between calling them thugs and slackers.