Well, despite the crap weather I competed in my first race of the season Saturday afternoon. I raced the alleycat put on by the Dallas Organization of Messengers (D.O.O.M.). I'm proud to say I finished DFL. In fact, I wasn't just the last rider... I dominated last place. Nobody was even CLOSE to as last as I was. Every aspect of my ride was last (except of course my impeccable style).
For those of you who don't know what an "alleycat" is, here's a quick definition:
An alleycat is a race traditionally put on by bike messengers as a competitive outlet. Rather than a traditional start to finish road race, alleycats are meant to simulate "a day in the life" of a messenger, with multiple checkpoints at which riders must collect signatures, and no mandatory route.
So I got to the start point (a spot D.O.O.M. calls "Baghdad" which looks like... well, looks like bombed-out Iraq) about an hour early. Instead of riding around to keep warm, I went ahead and sat down till I started to get really stiff. After all, if a thing's worth doing, it's worth doing right. Due to ice in FW, I rode my SS mountain bike... of course when I got to Dallas there was no ice, and everybody else was on fast fixies and road bikes saying mean things to me like "Ice?... What ice?" Oh well.
After downing a couple of delicious longnecks of Rahr & Sons Red (which didn't help warm me up, by the way), I was ready to start. I got my manifest and maps, and planned my route in my head. The bikes were laid down in the street, the signal was given, and we made the running start.
There were four different manifests given. All had the same stops, but in a different order so that the race wouldn't just be a big pack of riders following each other. After finishing the first manifest, a rider had to return to the start pick up a new manifest (same stops, different order again) and continue. First rider to finish 2 manifests won.
As I took off toward my first stop, I saw the riders on the same route as me far ahead in the distance. I was shocked, though, to see them turn the wrong direction, away from the first stop, which was a coffee shop I happened to stop at on my way to the race. So there I was, the first one to get a signature at the first checkpoint!
"Man," I thought, "I kick ass." That was to be the last ass-kicking I did that day.
My second stop was downtown at a spot called urban market. I had highlighted messily on my map, so I actually ended up a block north of where I should have been. When I pulled out my map to consult, I dropped it because lobster-style gloves make it difficult to handle paperwork, and the manifest and it blew down the street a couple of blocks. After I finally caught up to it, I managed to find the second stop. At this point I knew my "race" was over. So I just started to enjoy the ride. A TV newslady stopped to ask what we were doing, so I talked to her for a bit. She said we were the first people they had seen out in the weather that were actually from Texas. Everybody else braving the cold/wet was foreign, apparently. Including some Korean golfers, which I personally would have liked to see.
Anyway, I realized I probably wouldn't make the news, because my face was so cold my words were coming out sort of slurry... like I was drunk. Hell, maybe I was drunk... a little.
Anyway, I reeled off my last two stops, then headed back to the start for my second manifest. I was the last to get it, and just as I was about to leave the guy who got it before me arrived, just having finished his second run. So I never started the second one... just grabbed a beer and moved on.
It was a fun race. Even for a non-courier like me, the unique format made things interesting. I enjoyed it so much, that I'd like to put one on in Fort Worth, open to professional messengers and wannabes like me, too. Look for it in the spring.
The losing manifest:
Maps of the area we covered:
