the terrible twos

Kicki Raiders reggae machine – a permanent fixture in the cricketers arms

as a kind of joke i asked chris gillespie if he wanted to enter in the terrible twos alley cat race. i have always wanted to attempt an alley cat but just didn’t get around to it. thankfully he agreed.

the two [three including the clint dogs cervélo] roadies sit isolated and confused

the night before hand i had been out for a lot of drinks with a farewell from work. all beer and no dinner – then arriving home at 2.00am. i had a big day racing around for the boys on saturday then left at around 3:15 in the afternoon to catch the train down to the city for the race. just before the train pulled in to central clinton rang, so we met up and rode to the cricketers arms.

doesn’t take much to confuse me

i was feeling pretty average but my legs were good. i know now the 5 or so chips i had for dinner probably weren’t really enough food and the two beers before we rode didn’t help either, well they did help for dutch courage though. chris arrived and that meant we were ready and i have to admit i did have a few butterfly’s. we paid our entry fee and were given the course map/tasks. i was completely confused as to what should be done with it all but chris, clinton and i worked out we should be doing the A.B.C.D etc route. we didn’t have to do it in any set order so i decided to make our way to the furthest most checkpoint and then make our way back from there.

lewis started the race and i immediately took off with clinton following behind – he wasn’t racing as he had a dinner to go to but he thought he would do at least one check point with us. i turned up bourke street with clinton behind and it was just then that he yelled out “aren’t you going to wait for chris”. i didn’t even know but he had been held up at the first lights. as i looked back i saw him [chris] and about 20 other riders take off from the lights and head down fouveax street. i turned and hammed to catch up to him.

i missed him at lights down the bottom of the hill so i waited then took off up elizabeth street only to pull over and call his mobile. he was only about 1/2 a km up the road so we met up and then we were off again. our first point of call was the australian hotel in the rocks and it was required for us to sing happy birthday to a guy named “hans solo”. on the ascent to the pub from george street we overtook a couple of competitors. they were on fixed though so we kinda smashed them on the hill. they did yell out “fuck i thought we would be first” and i responded with “shit man – we’re cheating we have gears”. i can still remember the looks on the faces of the people at the pub. as we were the first to arrive
they had no idea what was going on and i think they would have been in for a bit of a treat for the next hour or so as other riders turned up and sung – pathetically i am sure, to hans solo. ha. funny times

from that check point we headed down to pier 5 [king street wharf]. we took probably not the best route – down to the end of the rocks and down a couple of large flights of stairs. not the best way because we were both in full roadie cleats and pretty much both slipped and almost fell over. once grounded on the road below i decided i would take the opportunity to purchase a parking ticket which would complete one of the compulsory items.

at pier 5 we were required to do a hula hoop impersonation. felt stupid but was back underway pretty quickly. we took off up the service road at the base of the aquarium at darling harbour but ended up reverting back into the corso of darling harbour and around the back of the ent cent to avoid the pink concert crowd.

the swap, the BMC was really nice to ride. stiff. very stiff

this checkpoint saw andy [bmu member evil] as marshal and at this check point we had to swap bikes and ride around the tafe building. not as easy as it sounds because i ride with shimano and chris with look pedal. not to metion chris is quiet a bit taller than me. it was good challenge though and andy explained later the funniest was a team where a guy was on a fixed and the other on a roadie. the roadie rider had never ridden a fixed before and found it really difficult.

next stop central station for a piggyback from chris. once we were signed off we went to leave for the next check point only to see two guys take off straight across elizabeth street and nearly be cleaned up by a coach. as chris says, not really worth death for a t-shirt!

we powered through to the hordon pavillion where the challenge was to skull a vodka and run around a tree. riding off was little hard as we both had cleat dirt so we couldn’t click in properly. once in – it was a straight ride to the finish… or so we thought.

we arrived back at the cricketers arms in 3rd across the line but as it turned out we really didn’t read the instructions properly… or maybe they weren’t really that clear, probably more us than the instructions. either way we did what we thought was best/right. we had a small challenge of riding kids bikes joined together via tyre tube which proved a little more difficult than i thought it would have been, actually we had to do twice as the first run we dropped the connecting tube and paid for it by one of the courier dudes just crash tackling us and making us ride the alley again… that was of course after a shot of burbon…

overall it was a fucken awesome night. chris and i rode so well together – thanks so much mate.
we will be back! but next time there will be correct reading of instructions and more than the 60-70% of effort applied. here is the sports tracker recording of the race

the one thing it has also made me consider again… another fixed? or maybe just a SS build up of the repco de-ville in the garage

thanks chris – and boutique cycles for not knowingly letting me steal the pictures cameron took! and chris for a great two’s rider.

oh… and worst thing. i lost my first alley cat spoke card : (
the mavics didn’t hold onto it