Wednesday, December 05, 2007

my first alley cat race

this saturday i did my first alley cat race! it was starting three blocks from my house, and it was an all-girl race, and word on the street that the boys working check points were going to be wearing hot pants....so, i was in for sure.

let's just say: hot pants + boys = attendance guaranteed.

there were 23 girls out for this! that was pretty sweet-- this is by fairyland before we began.


well, i knew next to nothing about how the hell these crazy races go. but luckily i found the totally awesome montano velo hellyer girls, alicia and jenny, down there who gave me instructions. basically it is like a scavenger hunt on a bike. you have to go certain places, get a peice of paper signed.

i started out paying $5. then i got a peice of paper with some locations in the east bay and one of those spoke cards that looked like the thing to the right. (i don't like to accessorize my bike, though, unless it matches my color schemes....that being red or orange)

Well, we had 8 places to go. Jenny, Alicia, and I started out together. But then Jenny and I lost Alicia at a light right at the beginning. Our first check off point was at the port of oakland. the boys there is hot pants were lookin' good and told us we had to do a skid before we get our papers signed. i can't do that shit, so i gave a wimpery look at they let us write a dirty word on the boys bathroom wall instead. i wrote: "cocksucker." that is a good dirty word for a bathroom wall, i think.

our second place was not too far away at some abandonned train station or something. there, the boys in hotpants were looking really good.


here we were asked some really hard simpson's trivia, neither of which jenny or myself knew, so they let us leave too.

then for number three we biked way up along the bay trail to the albany landfill. this was a pleasant and windy part of the ride. the boys up there were not in hot pants because they said it was too cold. that stunk. but they were funny and made us sing a song that they designated. i got cindy lauper's "girls just wanna have fun." well, i was having too much fun singing this song-- getting really into the bridge section where she goes: "they just wanna.uhh.. oh .... they just wanna.... ohhhh"-- and jenny had to cut me off: "BETH C'MON!" i stopped singing, picked up my bike, and raced off.

well, I was off, and we wiggled through traffic to spot number 4. some bar in north berkeley. now this is when i started to feel how bad ass alley cats are, as jenny is splitting lanes, going through lights, and in general just maneuvering through things so quickly. now, i didn't want to get dropped, so i was just wiggling through too. at spot 4 we had to spell out a word, like human boggle on a twister board. those boys had some nice hot pants too.

well, we started to head off to our next place, until we realized we needed to back track, cause we forgot about a place. we lost some time here, but quickly made it to 924 gillman, the punk club. there we had to take a shot of whiskey. cheap whiskey. that made me feel not good biking to spot number 6.


off we went to spot number 6, the edible school yard at king middle school. now, this stunk, cause while we found the school quickly, we couldn't find that garden....we wasted some time tooling around here. well, let me say, thank god for my cyclocross, cause i dismounted my track bike so fast, ran up stairs and through a garden to this checkpoint where we had to take a seductive picture with our bike. well, i couldn't think to well, so i just licked my top tube, quite uncreatively. again, i picked up my bike i ran through the garden and hopped back on our bikes, for our final stop before the finish.


this is joi. she tried a track race last year and will hopefully come out more this year!

going to check spot number 7 was fun, cause jenny was behind me and yelling at me to go through lights and between lanes, and then at one point we were going right into traffic down macarthur blvd. but, there were only like 5 cars or so and it was only for a block or two...but i am usually a sissy in traffic, so this was exciting for me.


checkpoint 7 was at mosswood park. we rolled up to this group of guys playing kickball. we asked them to sign our paper and they said we had to chug a beer and then play some kickball. jenny grabbed a beer, took some sips, and kicked a ball and started to run bases. i was admist chugging a beer, watching jenny run the bases as this guy says: "what are you guys doing, anyway?" this was NOT our checkpoint! these boys were bamboozling us! i threw down that keystone light so fast, grabbed my track bike, and made it through the park for who we were actually looking for. they were wearing jeans, but as they saw us roll up, they pulled off their pants and showed us their hotpants. very nice. we did some jump rope, then headed out to the end point, a couple blocks away.

jenny and i ended up coming in 2nd and 3rd. that was pretty sweet! i won a pair of armadillo tires, so that was even more sweet, cause i really needed tires. i've had the same pair for 1.5 years. that is too long, huh?

this is aftwards, where i was still very cold! i wore all red with a red sweatband, so i could match my beautiful red track bike!

all in all, the ally cat was a bunch of fun, and much thanks to jenny for showing me how it is done. the only dangerous part of the day, was when i was biking home that night with alicia, with these tires swung awkwardly over my neck and shoulder, and then almost got doored. yipe! but me and tires are okay!

7 comments:

place_holder said...

you look x'mas.

~ lauren said...

aw man, that's totally my kinda race.
doin shots at 924 like in highschool and beers and singing and stuff.

but who's camera is that taking pics? it's awful - i can't see ANY of the hot pants.

they're all blurred.

norcalcyclingnews.com said...

yes, more detail in pictures, please.


those urbanos ... such mad skilz.

you guys keep alleycatting and you'll find yourself able to skid 'cocksucker' on sidewalks before you know it.

TreBone said...

I want hot pants.

Sasserman said...

you guys keep alleycatting and you'll find yourself able to skid 'cocksucker' on sidewalks before you know it.

Um I can do that.........dont ask why

Sasser

Dino Dante said...

oi fixie fukker! maybe you can come to Sactown for the Valentine Masacre. you can kick it on or couch. We'll let you know when they set a date. Happy Holidays. Dino

mattio said...

hey, 2nd and 3rd is not too bad! armadillos are pretty dern flatproof. the reason you haven't changed your tires in a year and a half is because you don't know how to skid.

did you know that i met jenny at some point over the summer when she was visiting nyc? true story. she's nice.

i've been meaning to take pictures of my road bike to post on my blog, but haven't. frowny faces. alleycats are rad. this morning, on my bikeway to work, i met my friend audra's partner - audra org'ed this summer's nyc all women's alleycat.

so it's all connected.

take care!