A win is a win. Even if you tie and the first two finishers are DQ'd.  So that being said I won my first alley cat race in my second attempt.  The long brutal day began with a large helping of pain that started well before the sun clocked in for the early bird shift.  My warm-up was a cat ¾ road race in Prospect Part at 6:30 in the morning which being my first one but a heavy tax on the legs and lungs.

The day was tough, but the day was kind.  My main challenger Pablo's missing luck was suspiciously found residing in my Shimano clipless pedals as I powered through the maze of NYC to victory.  As the results say I tied for first which is true as my random brunch companion turned teammate/navigator Lee helped me more than I wish to admit. 

The race was switched on with a mad dash Le Mans Style at Madison Square Park.  Something like forty racers showed but that mattered little as I got my typical ballistic start and led (w/Pablo) to the first checkpoint at Union Square.  I was too busy planning my route during the pre-race meeting to realize a few of the checkpoints were fill-in the blank unmanned stations.  After a slight panic Lee hit the check point and got me squared away.  We hammered up 1^st Avenue Monstertrack style towards 58^th at Sutton place on the East River.  I was in the front ahead of Lee and a pack of four.  Not knowing which way to turn off of 1^st onto 58^th I eased up and heard Lee yell "left".  So left I went cutting off the pack viscously causing them to overshoot the turn (check out Lee's data).  This was the first near accidents as the city rang loud with the screech of locked taxi tires and blaring horns.  Of course my teammate/navigator Lee wasn't always right and the left really should have been a right.  A few blocks the wrong way we corrected our mistake and nailed the checkpoint (Which was manned by a very nice lady who had all sorts of treats).

We decided 57th was the most direct route to the 58^th Greenway checkpoint.  Off of Sutton I made a suicidal right turn across the path of a Police van.  Lee slotted in behind with the remnants of the pack.  The drive down 57^th was a horrible congested clusterfuck.  We hit every red light and weaved our way through the gridlock.  I seemed to be the designated pick as I would slowly roll through the red lights causing the crossing traffic to nail the brakes while the pack sailed through.  The second checkpoint on the greenway was really located near 56^th St which caused slight confusion.  There another nice checkpoint lady offered a shot of tequila which Lee and I declined.  Since she deemed us pansies for not drinking hard liquor during a bicycle race we were forced to display our bike handling skills by performing a trick.  Lee's pathetic wheelie was almost as bad as my nose wheelie and we were off up the bike path towards Riverside and 105^th St. 

Leaving checkpoint number two we encountered another pack of racers who hadn't yet completed the 58^th Sutton Place checkpoint.  Lee and I quickly dispatched this group as we almost leveled some poor kids who were out on a Sunday stroll with Pops on the Westside bike path.  I hammered as hard as my tired legs could go and made my way up Riverside.  Lee who decided to Cyclocross up some stairs fell behind for the time being.  It has been a long time since I've felt that much pain on a bike as I pushed up the rolling hills of Riverside.  My hamstrings were hammered from the road race earlier in the day and my tongue hung out of my mouth like a maxed out puppy chasing sticks at the beach.  I ate little gel nuggets and dug deep into the reserves.   The next checkpoint was another fill in the blank as we had to read some historical signs about some Buddhist monk.  As I deciphered the checkpoint Lee rolled up and I slung him the data and we were off towards Downtown. 

Lee also looked a bit haggard already so I handed off some gel blocks and offered verbal encouragement as we rode paceline style up the rollers.  The best path was determined to be again the Westside bike path.  Again I dropped Lee as his brakeless descents allowed a gap to form.  I hooked up with a recreational roadie and drafted my way down the path.  Eventually I caught up to Andrew who was riding crazy style on the Westside highway.  We teamed up took a left on Horatio and made our way into the confusing streets of the west village.  Lee erased the gap by picking a better route off of the Westside and we all met up and made our way down Seventh Ave. towards Commerce.  For this checkpoint we named the Cherry Lane Theatre.  

The next checkpoint was Debrosses street which is about as random of a street as they come.  I sprinted ahead and Lee followed as I took the long (wrong) way around towards Debrosses.  The run up to this checkpoint was down a hobbly cobblestone road.  Not particularly wanting to recreate Paris Roubiax I hit the sidewalk and rolled to the waiting checkpoint attendants who obviously are not anarchists as they made me (and Lee who followed my sinful ways) backtrack the entire street.  After bouncing down the street again I was forced to eat a large cracker and say some nonsensical phrase to celebrate the Passover.  After this was the checkpoint I was looking forward to.  I eat lunch in China almost everyday so I know the back roads.  The best path was wrong way down White, through the detention complex, up Bayard, right on Mott, and finally a quick right on Mosco.  Wading through the sea of Chinatown pedestrians was insane as it slowed our path little.  I navigated our way out of Chinatown, up Canal (another hellhole of traffic) towards Bowery.  We made another move going the wrong way down Rivington towards Bike Works. 

Of course it was April Fools ha-ha!! There was no checkpoint at Bike Works.  Only FOUR! cardboard signs with the address to the hidden checkpoint at the East River bandshell.  Unfortunately this is the checkpoint that caught out Pablo who figured the bike works guys had simply forgotten to man the check point and missed reading the sign.  Lee however read that shit like a pro and knew exactly how to hit the spot.  We navigated our way to this checkpoint beautifully and ran down the steps to meet our awaited stamp.  The Times Up affiliated check point attendant forced us to exchange a song for a stamp.  My brain literally froze solid and it took a good minute before I could recall the words to any tune.  What first parted my lips was Meat Loaf's "I would do anything for love".  Lee got off with an equally bad 80's tune and we were off towards Brooklyn.  Before leaving we collected some position information.  We were 4^th and 5^th (not including Pablo and Luke who never showed at this checkpoint) about five or six minutes back.  The gap was huge but we had found our groove.   Lee handed me half a banana and guided us towards the Williamsburg Bridge.>>

We debated momentarily about going over the car path.  It went like this; me "You want to take the car path", Lee "Oh man I'm not so sure" Me: "Lets do it" as we served onto the car path straight into traffic.  Again the sound of horns and locking tires pierced the air.  I towed Lee (and his wicked 48X15) up and over the hill while angry cabs and SUV's blew by with mere inches to spare.  Some auto vehicle car passenger was kind enough to remind us how fucking stupid we were and to tell us about some sort of bike path that he seemed to think existed.  Nonetheless this move probably won the race as by the time we hit the McCarren Park we had almost caught the two riders in front of us (and apparently passed another rider over the bridge).  Smelling a podium finish we closed the gap down Metropolitan and arrived at the Java checkpoint neck in neck.  At this checkpoint we were first A. forced to do 20 pushups and B. given a riddle to solve the location of the final checkpoint.  Down by the river there was a piece of foam with a marker drawing of a large star.  Atop the foam sat two items, a candy bar and a rock.  Lee instantly made the connection "Rockstar bar" which happened to be basically a straight two mile dash to the finish.

Our closest competitors Ben and Jonathon solved the riddle by listening to an excited Lee announce it loudly.  They also happened to have no idea where the place was so they were going to happily follow us home.  Sensing a tactical error my mind fired and I was determined to win the sprint.  After a half-mile of pulling these guys along in our draft we moved over to let them break the wind for a change.  Knowing they didn't have a clue of the finish line Lee and I sat in and quietly discussed the run up to the sprint.  I whispered for him to start calling out the meters and to time it perfectly as I figured whoever got the jump was winning the dash.  Soon it was our turn to pull the pace and as I moved into the lead I accidentally swerved a bit and clipped Ben's wheel almost causing a three rider crash in a four rider field.  Ben skidded to a stop which was Lee's merciless signal to sprint like a fucking madman.  I muttered a fleeting apology as I stomped on the pedals towards an oxygen debt finish.  In the confusion of it all we made a huge gap and rolled to the Rockstar bar simultaneously.  They checked our manifest for the hidden checkpoint and we were called out to be the winners by tie which was a complete surprise.

Pablo (who also was up for the road race although he suffered the bad luck of a mechanical failure on lap four I think) looked like someone ran over his cat as we were declared victorious.  Tough luck and I felt bad but these alley cat races don't always go to the fastest riders.  Still good times were had by all and after a good hour and half of beer/pizza consumption as we put matters to rest with a drunken Gold Sprints dual which I won 33.85 to 33.95.  I'll stop far short of bragging though as I'm sure Pablo's revenge strategy will involve thoroughly trashing me.

Dave August