Six cyclists have been arrested in Minneapolis – with charges including making a terrorist threat – after firing water guns at revellers riding in ‘Pedal Pubs’ in Minneapolis, with one group targeted turning out to include half a dozen off-duty police officers, the aftermath of that incident caught on film.

The presence of the ‘beer bikes,’ which people can rent out for parties, has polarised opinion in the Minnesota city, where 11 of them take to the streets on a typical weekend.

A Facebook group, I Hate Pedal Pubs, calls for their removal but swiftly distanced itself from comments made there on Saturday which urged people to take action against them.

A post from the page owner on Saturday read: “I have received a few messages that some people have pursued pedal pubs today with squirt guns and water balloons. Wrong idea guys. Although getting wet is mostly harmless, it is still considered assault.”

Pedal Pub manager Lisa Staplin, quoted on the website of local CBS affiliate channel WCCO, said: “We got wind of it about 7, 7:30 in the morning,” on Sunday, after she saw the post which called for people to assemble at a city park with water guns and water balloons.

“The owners and I were conversing about what we wanted to do with what we saw on the hater Facebook page.

“We went there [the park] and scoped it out a little bit at one. We saw the park police were there and nobody came and it got to be mid-afternoon and we thought maybe the whole thing would just blow over.”

But two of the beer bikes were then targeted by protesters, she said, with the driver of the first squirted in the face.

“Just before 6:30 that one got hit and then two minutes later another got hit,” she said.

“They stopped her in the middle of the street they blasted her directly in the face and they got a couple of other people and this is all happening in the street.”

The third bike targeted, however, contained six off-duty officers from the Burnsville Police Department. They restrained some of the cyclists until local colleagues arrived, with one apparently heard of-camera threatening to break someone's arm, and threatening the person filming with arrest.

Here’s a video of the aftermath of that episode. There's a bit of swearing, so best not to have the sound on if you're at work.

Ms Staplin, however, said: “To my knowledge they were just another group of riders that were out for the afternoon.”

WCCO says that charges against the six people arrested range from assault to making a terrorist threat.

By coincidence, the I Hate Pedal Pubs page has only returned to Facebook in the past couple of weeks following an 18-month absence after it was suspended by the social network following a complaint by Pedal Pub, as detailed here.