Mechanical bulls, sharks or surfboards — in which you try to stay on the machine for as long as you can before getting thrown off onto an inflatable or padded surface underneath — can be rented through party service companies. But one of the few places in the Granite State where you can regularly ride one is at Club ManchVegas, which owns a mechanical bull as one of its main attractions.

According to co-owner John Rousseau, the cost is $3 for one ride, or $5 for two rides. The bull has been a fixture of Club ManchVegas for about five years and is open for riding all night on each night the bar is open.

“The bull … brings us new people in who may have heard we have it and they’ll walk in and go ‘Look, there’s the bull.’ It’s something different,” Rousseau said. “It was just something that we had tried out in the beginning as part of the branding. We used to rent it out before deciding to just buy one.”

The rules are simple: hold on to the saddle of the bull with your dominant hand and use your other hand for balance once the bull operator turns on the machine. You can also shift your body weight with how the bull moves to stay on as long as you can.

“Every ride is exactly the same for everybody, whether the rider is a novice or experienced at it, just so that the operator himself can’t say, ‘I’m going to try to throw you off,’” Rousseau said.

Sometimes the bar will hold special contests using the mechanical bull, in which those who are able to stay on the longest receive prices like gift certificates.

“We always do have people come in as part of a little group who challenges themselves,” Rousseau said, “and we’ll probably do contests every couple of months. We’ll be looking back into it in the wintertime.”