Monday, March 12, 2012

2011 Bikes vs Zombies Alleycat Race


So out of all the different types of races that I've competed in, nothing was quite as unique as the alleycat race I raced in on the night of Friday, October 21st, 2011. An alleycat race is supposed to simulate what a bike messenger would do as part of their day. We were to be given a list of addresses and the person who finished the race first after making it to all the addresses was the winner. In addition to finding the address, at each address we were either given something to take with us in the form of a package or item, or we would have to perform some sort of challenge or task. Because the theme of the race was bikes vs. zombies, all the checkpoints were manned or womanned by volunteers dressed up as zombies.

Holding with the Halloween theme, racers were also encouraged to dress up in costume, and the person who was voted to have the best costume automatically earned a 4th place finish, in addition to whatever place they actually finished.

What could I dress up as to go with the whole "fighting zombies" theme? I thought about dressing up as a character from the Left 4 Dead videogame, or maybe someone from a zombie survival movie. But the best idea presented itself when I was watching Connor play the Plants vs Zombies videogame. What could be better than dressing up as one of the plants from the videogame? I ended up deciding on the puff-shroom, a purple mushroom that shot spores at zombies, and was used during the "night stages" of the game. The alleycat was going to be at night, we were going up against zombies, what could be more perfect?

I ended up designing the mushroom head using a spare bike helmet, a piece of cardboard, some purple cloth & felt, and polyfill for the stuffing. It turned out really nice but wasn't at all suitable for doing a bike race. To top it off, the initial design was WAY too big and WAY too heavy, even to wear for a few minutes. I ended up having to modify the design by making it a lot smaller in the few hours before the race. Even so, I did not factor in the fact that polyfill is very scratchy and itchy, and while I wore my costume at the start of the race, the polyfill started poking through the vents in my helmet and I ended up having to ditch it in my car for the race. People were still impressed with it though!

I talked a co-worker and friend (Brahm) into doing the race with me. He had never done any sort of scavenger hunt or adventure race so this was new territory for him. I was hoping my adventure racing experience would be of some use. However, he was much more familiar with downtown Little Rock which would prove to be extremely useful when route planning. I was going to be riding my Kona Jake the Snake cyclocross bike, and he was riding his brand-new Specialized 29er mtn bike. We decided that we would do the entire race together. This was going to be the first of 3 races I would be doing in a 40-hour span that weekend.

The race was set to start at MacArthur Park at 8:00pm and I arrived early around 7:15pm to give me time to prepare for the race. One thing I've learned is that you always do better at these races when you're prepared and ready to go at the start, rather than stressing out and rushing around like a madman trying to get things ready. I had prepared for the race by bringing my Timbuk 2 messenger bag, a headlamp, my Stella 120 bike light, and the piece de resistance, a seatpost mounted rack & bag. I figured that might come in handy if I had anything really heavy to carry!

After checking-in and mingling with the other racers and having a photo shoot done, Vinny (the race director) gave out some last minute instructions. He handed out a crayon to everyone. He made sure everyone had water. Because in his words, if you didn't have either, you were pretty much f***ed. He instructed everyone to move their bikes to the road just across from the Bowen School of Law, and then we returned to the bike polo courts to receive the Manifest - the list of addresses and instructions. It would also serve as our race "passport", proof that we had made it to each address or checkpoint.

With a toss of the manifests in the pile on the ground, the race officially started! Brahm and I each grabbed one and as he scanned the addresses, I got out my city map in case we needed it to locate an address. We each also had our iPhones handy as the GPS/Maps would come in handy. Being more familiar with Little Rock, he quickly figured out where each checkpoint was located. We verified a few questionable ones with our phones and he came up with an initial routing.

There were two in the vicinity of the start so we would hit those first. The first one was actually located at the Arts Center, just on the other side of the park so we raced toward our bikes and took off across the park grounds. Reaching that checkpoint (CP), we were given a UPS shipping envelope and was told the contents were very fragile. Great. A fragile one from the beginning. I hoped to make it through without breaking whatever was inside! We were also made to do the chicken dance before we could leave. Brahm and I improvised as best we could. We asked if any other teams had been there. Nope, we were the first. Crazy considering how close to the start that was. Other teams were going to have to backtrack to get that one we figured, so we were already ahead. Next stop was the Little Rock National Cemetery to get a rubbing of a tombstone.

We didn't have any problems finding a tombstone to get a rubbing off of. Apparently some teams climbed/hauled their bikes over a huge wall to get into the cemetery and other teams were chased by dogs. Looking at the remaining addresses, we decided to hit the ones by the River Market next.

At the corner of Sherman & President Clinton Ave, we reached another CP manned by zombies. We were told that we had to pick up a FedEx cardboard tube there and carry it the rest of the way. Definitely an awkwardly shaped package! We were given the choice of assembling our own box, or we could save time and down a jello shot in return for a pre-assembled box. We chose the jello shot and gulped those down. Yummy! Brahm and I helped each other wedge the boxes behind us and we were of towards the Junction Bridge. The long, narrow boxes sticking up behind us definitely made for some awkward cycling until we got used to riding with them.

Reaching the Junction Bridge, I yelled out, "any zombies up on the bridge?" I was greeting with some moans from high above. Great! Zombies! Having Brahm watch my bike, I ran up the steps two at a time and found two very lovely zombies waiting for me. They signed my manifest and told me I couldn't leave until I found a banana. At first I thought the bananas were on the zombies themselves but they said they had been hidden all over the bridge. I spied one on the steel beams and grabbed it and headed back down. As I descended, I yelled to Brahm to come up and we quickly switched places. We encountered some pedestrians while leaving and they inquired as to what we were doing. We told them we were doing a scavenger hunt on bikes they wished us luck as we sped off!

The next CP we decided to hit was in Brahm's neighborhood, south of I-630. We truly felt like bike messengers now, racing against the clock as we raced through the lit city streets and intersections. I will admit that we probably we didn't follow every *single* traffic law out there as we raced that night, but we WERE careful. The ride to the next CP was definitely rather long, so we chatted with each other as we pedaled.

Soon enough, we reached our destination, a small neighborhood park dimly lit by a single streetlight. The zombies here informed us that we needed to spin the....(da da da dum...) Wheel of Misfortune (Oooo..) to determine what we needed to do. I was amused that the wheel of misfortune was actually a bicycle wheel with a wheel cover, and it had different spots on it with different instructions. I spun and was told I needed to carry an inflatable inner tube the rest of the way. I slung it on the FedEx tube while Brahm spun. He ended up having to eat two packets of condiments for his misfortune. He informed me the Taco Bell packets were quite salty. We thanked the zombies for their effort and headed off to Hillcrest.

Our next checkpoint was an address in the Hillcrest neighborhood of Little Rock. It would require a slow grind up Kavanaugh to get there. As we passed Spokes Bike Shop, I secretly wished they were open so I could stop for some coffee. We managed to find the street in the heart of Hillcrest, but we couldn't find the house number. The only other thing on this street was Kroger...

Suddenly, something jogged my memory and I remembered one of the instructions saying something about getting a receipt. Surely the address wasn't referring to Kroger, was it? I dug out the manifest and checked. The evidence for this checkpoint was a receipt. I left Brahm watching our bikes as I dashed into the store. "Is the address for Kroger 614 Beechwood?" I asked the cashier. She looked quite surprised at my appearance, me decked out in cycling gear, with a messenger bag slung around my shoulder, a huge FedEx tube poking up behind me, and a deflated inner tube. "Yes, you have the right place." While she rang up the two Snickers bars I grabbed (requesting two separate transactions), I explained to her that we were doing a bike scavenger hunt race and that she should expect more riders any minute. Her colleagues watched from across the store with curious looks. "I'm doing a bike race," I yelled out as a ran out the store. As I gave a receipt to Brahm, several of our competitors pulled into the Kroger parking lot. "Is this 614 Beechwood?", one of them asked me. I shrugged my shoulders and said, "I dunno, is it?" The race was afoot now for sure!

Satisfied that we were leading some racers, Brahm and I headed back the way we came, shooting for Cedar Hill which would take us down to Allsopp Park, where the next checkpoint was located. We speculated that we were definitely in the top-10 and that motivated us to go a bit faster. Cedar Hill was dark and twisty, and I rode the brakes all the way down to maintain a safe speed. Nearing the bottom, we spied a couple of zombies in the parking lot at Allsopp Park and joined them. They signed off our manifest and gave us each a brick to carry. Nice. As Brahm worked on putting his in his backpack, I was glad I had the forethought to bring the seatpost rack on my bike and that it finally paid off. No heavy brick for my messenger bag, nosiree! I stuffed it into the bag mounted on my rack and was good to go.

We had gotten all but 3 of the checkpoints now, with the remaining 3 the easiest, but furthest away. We conferred and decided to get the one at the top of River Mtn Road first, then the Big Dam Bridge, and last at Pfieffer Loop. Just as we were pulling out, the racers we saw at Kroger came flying down the hill. We crossed over Cantrell and got onto Riverfront Drive. I pulled Brahm as much as I could, him being slowed on his mtn bike. We had a long ride ahead of us, it was a good 6 miles to River Mtn Road, and I knew we had competitors not far behind.

Sure enough, eventually we got passed by two groups as we passed the golf course on Rebsamen Park Rd. I watched their red blinky lights get further and further away, getting smaller and dimmer. I hoped that we would be able to make up some time on the climb up River Mtn Road. Starting to get nearer to our destination, but not knowing exactly where it was, I told Brahm I was going to ride ahead and would wait for him at the Two Rivers Bridge. I hoped that extra time would give me a chance to figure exactly where we needed to be at the top of River Mtn Road. I sped off into the night, enjoying the quiet, car-less road, with only the wind sounding in my ears. I managed to gain some on the competitors in front of me, but I couldn't quite muster enough strength to chase them down. Reaching the Two Rivers Bridge, I got my phone out, typed in the address and was shown the location to be on Cantrell on the other side of I-430. It was quite puzzling as I didn't see them making us ride down Cantrell across I-430. I figured we would find it when we got to the top of the hill.

Soon after, Brahm rolled up, breathing heavily. I had timed it perfectly. I asked him if he was ready to tackle that "bastard of a hill" and we set to climbing it slowly but surely. One of the teams in front of us passed us going down, but it wasn't either team I had recognized. I wondered what was taking them so long, perhaps they had gotten lost or couldn't find the checkpoint. I made it to the top and as I waited for Brahm, I looked out west on Cantrell but couldn't see any cyclists out there. It didn't seem like anyone was going or returning from that direction. We rode up towards the intersection of River Mtn Road & Cantrell and finally spied where we were supposed to be. The checkpoint was set up at the driveway to the church and the teams ahead of us were still there.

Rolling in, I recognized my friends Aly & Bryan that were manning this station, and their daughter Mandy was riding around on her unicycle dressed as a ghost. Such an awesome ghost costume! Her riding on her unicycle had the effect that she was really floating above the ground. We were informed that we had to eat 5 mini powdered donuts before they would sign off our manifest. Haha! What a great idea! This proved to be even more difficult because our mouths were already dry from the effort of riding up River Mtn Road. The teams ahead of us left shortly thereafter as Brahm and I munched on donuts. Nom nom nom. It took a while but soon the cup was empty. Good thing I still had a water left in my water bottle. Bryan signed off on our manifests, snapped a couple of photos, and we were off.



I also must mention that my bike light had died as I crested River Mtn Road so I was without a headlight from this point on. I thought the light on high power was supposed to last more than 2 hours but I was mistaken. I guess that's why it kept blinking every few minutes before it died.

A quick detour to the BDB and Pfieffer Loop and we would be done, having only to ride all the way back to Vino's. Since Brahm had the only light, I followed him closely to the BDB (which was un-zombied) and Pfieffer Loop. We passed a couple of more teams heading back across the BDB, hoping they hadn't done River Mtn Rd yet. I tell you what, even though I had ridden Pfieffer Loop dozens of times, it was quite something else riding on the twisty entrance trail without any lights. We met up with another couple at Pfieffer Loop, grabbed a couple of UPS envelopes there and headed back. As we were riding back across the Big Dam Bridge, all the lights went out. Mental note: the lights on the BDB turn off at 11:15pm. We still didn't see a CP or any zombies on the bridge so Brahm and I quickly took camera phone photos of each other (as proof we were there) and then we raced back to Vino's as quickly as we could. I figured now we were racing against the clock and against other teams who may still have needed some of the downtown CPs.

I urged Brahm to draft behind me as much as he could, thinking that every second counted. I had no idea where other teams were relative to us at this point. I knew there were some ahead of us, and guessed that there were some behind. I looked back every few minutes, just knowing one of those times, I would see bike lights in the distance gaining, but the road behind us remained clear. As we rode, I remarked how much fun I was having, and how neat it was riding on the deserted river trail at night, with the stars above us. It was so calm and peaceful.

We managed to make it back to downtown, and on the final turn onto 7th Street, two blocks away from the finish, the FedEx package which I had managed to carry successfully all this time, finally decided to give up the ghost and went flying across the intersection. I made an emergency U-turn, scooped it (and the inner tube) up as best I could and rode the final two blocks to the finish. There was no other cyclists in sight so I figured they must be inside. We were looking for a place to lock up our bikes when one of our fellow competitors came out & told us we could bring our bikes inside. I held the door open for Brahm and followed him into the party room. We were greeted by applause and cheers from those who had finished ahead of us. Brahm was informed he finished in 8th place and I finished in 9th, only because Brahm entered Vino's ahead of me. Apparently, out of the 25 or so racers that started, we were the last ones to finish who managed to get to all the addresses.

Vinny checked us off as we showed him all the things we had collected along the way. Unfortunately for me, at some point I must have lost my manifest as I couldn't find it anywhere. Brahm remarked that he saw something fly off of me on our ride back. While that should have been grounds for a DQ, Vinny was gracious enough to let it slide and awarded me 9th place anyway. We had a blast and I definitely had fun racing as part of a "team". And to finish with all the points and a draw from the prize table was just a bonus!

After picking out some cycling shoe liners, I wasn't done...after all the prizes were given out, Vinny informed everyone that I was the last official finisher, so I received a small trophy for DFL, or dead 'effing last.

All in all, it was one of the most unique, fun, races I've ever done and I look forward to doing another one next year or helping out! Now I had less than 24 hrs until my next race, the Super-Prestige Cyclocross race at Kanis Park.

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