Sunday Sprints.

I was a sceptic. An unbeliever. When I first encountered the Sunday Sprints, two words came to my mind: Spandex & Jocks.

I was wrong. On arriving to the Gallivan Center I initially really felt out of place with all my gears and sprockets. I imagined how difficult it would be to do all those stands and the assorted tricks that the fixed gear crew do before any event.

People streamed in and continued streaming in on what was the bicycle, nay, the fixed bicycle revolution. Then, like an alley cat, donation calls were made and rewarded handsomely with the laminated spoke card from the BFC. BFC? That one is still a mystery. Don't ask. Rather read.

When about 50 people arrived, we rode to the destination, while trying to keep up with the mass that often felt red was green and green was really fast concerning the state of traffic lights. It was like Critical Mass, except faster and more insane.

On arriving at the location, a less frequented street on the west side, the group congregated over a giant container of sports drinks and planned out the ensuing sprints.

Then after everyone had their fill on drinks, about five or six bicyclists went further down the street and through a series of signals combined with shouting to the group far down the street, they took off at full speed. They sprinted about a block and then another group followed them shortly thereafter.

This was the part I thought I would hate. But their was no ass slapping, over exuberant belching or pompous walking that could be seen. Not to say their weren't competitive people, because by default, events of this nature always get at least a handful of individuals with their eye to the prize. However, it felt more like the competitions of alley cats where you do it for the spirit of the ride, with intentions to win, but if you don't its not a big loss. Your not going to be tempted to Floyd Landis it up for the event by any means because of the pressure to win.

Next was a competition known as the "Foot Down" Competition. The concept is pretty simple. A handful of bicyclist start circling around as the spectators create a circle to encompass them. The object of the bicyclists in the circle is to stay on their bicycle for as long as possible without their body touching the ground. So bikers will ram, pull peoples shirts and block each other in an attempt to get them to fall down. As bicyclist fall, the circle moves closer. I would liken it to the mosh pit, and sometimes even more dangerous as bicyclist and their frames of fury fly out at you when the fall.

Mini-bikes, aka children's bicycles hanged over on the west side of the street from the beginning of the event and now they were ready to be rode. It was announced a prize to the individual that could jump off a homemade ramp with the most style. Many tried and I almost got smashed in the incident of one mini rider launching off the ramp. It was a good work up to the Ubomb, and had me craving some mini bomb madness.

BFC has something good going on here. I was informed that they have some other interesting events planned akin to Paperboy which sounded really awesome in an 8-bit go reality kind of way. Stay informed of the BFC happenings by visiting the SLC Critical Mass website forum.

Contribute to the BFC Sunday Sprints Gallery / Flickr Photo RSS Feed by adding the tag "sundaysprints" when you upload your pictures for the Sunday Sprints to Flickr. The link is on the right side of the blog for the SundaySprints RSS Feed and Flickr gallery.

The RSS Feed is:
http://api.flickr.com/services/feeds/photos_public.gne?tags=sundaysprints&lang=en-us&format=rss_200

Learn more about RSS from the links on the right side of the Saltcycle.com blog.

View my pictures(cbailey) of the Sunday Sprints and anyone else's who add them here:
http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=all&q=sundaysprints&m=tags

graphic credit: saltcycle.com.
photo credit: saltcycle.com.

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