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Saturday was a busy and tiring day. But it was also a fun day. First up was the Fremont alleycat, which was a 3-person team based race.
Team Nuut consisted of me, Spiro, and Darin. For a team thrown together in the waning hours before the race, we did pretty well. We came in 4th place, and I scored a nifty little Shimano Chainwhip/Lockring tool worth about $40. Yee!
After we rushed over to San Francisco for the premiere of No Cassettes, featuring a few fellow SJFers, such as Dan Karl.
And yes, Wilson, I did blog about this. Bitch.
Chrome held and alleycat and goldsprints race in San Francisco at their 4th st. location.
Normally goldsprints are pretty fun and exciting. You hop on the stationary bike and ride for either 500m or 1000m. Not 2000m. On Friday night I experienced probably one of the most brutal and rigorous exercises ever.
The standard 500m distance can be completed in around 20 seconds. Just multiply that by more than 4x for the 2000m. The amount of stress that your body endures during that 1 plus minute and afterwards is nothing short of torture. Matt yakked a few times after his race. I collapsed onto the cement sidewalk after getting murdered by 15 seconds by Jose.
I was also able to snap a picture of the elusive couple that is Citybeats and Manjo.
Caught!
JP came up with this flyer for the 2nd installment of the SJFixed “It’s a WRAP” Alleycat series. Clear your calendars peoples.
Had a good weekend that consisted of an alleycat race in Fremont, and homemade pazooki, among other things that I won’t go into too much detail about.
So why was the weekend also ugly? I got 4 flat tires on Saturday during the race, which was really frustrating because not only was it a hassle for me to change, but it prevented others from finishing as well. A small group of my friends and some other people stayed back with me which made it a lot better. I now owe 5 people tubes. At one point I was riding for miles on nothing but my rim.
The good thing was that SJF took some of the top spots, with JP and Reggie snagging spots 4 and 5. We had at least 10 SJFers place within the top 20.
The following day, Nieman invited us over for some baked goodies, so we rode down to her place. And I got another flat. The once praised Continental Gatorskin failed me again. After inspecting the tire, we all came to the conclusion that I received a lemon. I mean 5 flats in two days? And countless ones before that too. Da succccccc?!/!?!?
Anyway, I think going out and staying late has taken a toll on me, because now I am feeling a little bit under the weather.
Yesterday’s premiere of the It’s a WRAP alleycat presented by SJF was sensational. Well over 200 people showed up, and close to 150 people raced. Everything went smooth as butter, Land o’ Lakes style. Checkpoints at various locations in San Jose, depending on the route you took it was around 20-25 miles. Afterparty was at the Lab. Again, I’m too tired to do much writing. So I’ll leave you with some pictures. Mark did a good job setting everything up, thanks to everyone else who participated and helped out.
My apologies for not posting in a while, but I have been going non-stop since last week. It all started off with a trip to Vegas, then an immediate “arts n crafts” party for the alleycat, to the art show and shenannies afterwards, to a day of climbing in San Francisco, to the actual Alleycat. Everything has been a huge blur, I don’t even feel like writing/posting much. Pictures are a mess too, so deal with it. Finally have day to just relax. Haha. Riding up and down the Las Vegas Strip was sick.
I cut my little vacation to Southern California short to attend the Race for the New Year in Pleasanton. The race didn’t seem like it was planned all too well, but I figured the company was good so the race would be good.
Tim and Dennis figuring out where to go.
There had to be at least 15 San Jose riders who made it to the Tri-Valley, which accounted for at least a third of the racers. When we arrived, things didn’t seem too legit, as none of the checkpoint doos contacted the organizer. The race commenced anyway, and about half way through most of us pulled out since there were no checkpoint guys. A few of the guys did finish, and Bennett ended up taking home the grand prize of $60.
I thought JP found the checkpoint guy; but no he just needed to relieve himself behind a tree.
Some girl in a nice little SUV shouted out Mark’s name, so we backtracked and flagged her gas guzzler down.
Luckily Ben lived in the area, so we rode over to his pad, where he graciously threw an impromptu BBQ. BTW, I’m sitting in my jammies as I write this.
Alright, I’ve been a little behind in updating with the upcoming holidays and all, so here is something that went down last Saturday.
Completed Winter Wipeout Manifest
The folks up in Stockton put on the Winter Wipeout Alleycat, which had seven checkpoints at Starbucks shops all over town. It was nice to see the boys from San Jose take home a good amount of prizes, in both the race and tricks competition.
I think we had more than a few riders finish in the top ten. Except for me, I came in 42nd place, which is funny considering there were only 30 racers. Whatever. I still got a prize!
I know I used the term ubiquitous in the last post, but Starbucks is ubiquitous. The entire race was based on the different Starbucks locations around Stockton. Shoot, I mean it’s like they completely saturated the coffee market everywhere. It was really funny/ironic, because I just happened to be reading a book about Starbucks, How Starbucks Saved My Life. I didn’t think too highly of Starbucks as a company before reading the author’s (Michael Gates Gill) memoir. After reading the book, it changed my view of da Starbuk doo; I don’t think of them as the Walmart of coffee shops anymore. It was actually quite the contrary. They treat their Partners well, by providing health insurance, education reimbursement, relocation assistance, etc.
I was supposed to wake up in time for the 10am train to Sunnyvale, but almost missed it due to oversleeping. Luckily Tim called me at 9:25, and I shifted into turbo mode to make it to the station on time. Haha, I am sooo dramatic.
I carpooled with Tim to San Francisco, where the 3rd annual SuperMarket Street Sweep was being held. The sweep is an alleycat race that helps benefit the San Francisco Food Bank. How does it work? Basically each rider goes around to supermarkets in the San Francisco area, and picks up the items that are listed. Each participant was given a race manifest that included two different types of races; speed, where you try to pick up the items and complete the checkpoints as fast as possible; and points, where you try to purchase as much food as you can possibly haul.
Tim, Wilson and I decided to go with the points option, simply because it would be more laid back. Maybe a little too laid back. I have a few alleycat races under my belt now, and supermarket sweep was by far the easiest one. But the whole point is to raise food for the SFFB anyway. It was fun ransacking all of the stores for items, and then piling them into a shopping cart to take out.
The sponsors for the race donated some amazing prizes and freebies. Just for showing up to race, everyone received a Crumpler Bags cellphone holster case; which I used to carry my camera. Tim went balls out towards the end, and loaded up the Timbuk2 bag that he won from Goldsprints with cans of corn. He ended up winning a North Face hat for his valiant effort.
Tim's bag filled with food for the SF Food Bank.
Dirty Dave and a few others brought cargo bikes with big ass trailers, some so heavy that they were straight oakland scraping the ground.
Bennett trying out some crazy mini geometry cross hybrid flying car bike complete HED wheels.
After the race we jetted back down to San Jose, to watch the epic Manny vs. Oscar, aka Filipino vs. Mexican boxing match at Mark’s house. It was also Matt’s real birthday, so we celebrated in true epic fashion. There was plenty of food, vegetarian and otherwise, and “specialty dranks” to go around.
Hey look at the Filipino and Mexican punching each other
Celebrating the Filipino's victory and the Mexican's loss
