I hate my life alleycat: What fun, what fun!

Boyo Boyo.
This short-notice race is a fun little one Joergen and I cooked up in the spirit of the alleycat-a-week trend we've got goin' on down here in SLC. I must say I'm excited for this one! A relatively simple concept: Pick 3 things up, and check them each off 3 times. Only problem: The checkpoints are me on a bike, and 2 scooters. We have routes you'll be informed of at the start, catch us if you can! This is a fairly easy race in terms of length and terrain, the challenge is the variability.

This Friday, in the circular area to the west of Rio Grande restaurant, 300 S and 500 West. Come on out!

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Emigration Hustle Alleycat

--NEWS FLASH-- The Emigration Hustle Alleycat is postponed until further notice, Dima and Davey will be in SF racin' in the rad massakre!

Mark your calendars boys and girls! On July 10 at 10 : 30 PM is the Emigration Hustle Alleycat. This will be a lot like the Gnarlycat and will begin at the center of Liberty Park on the big hill and will be an all out rumble to the top of Emigration Canyon. No entry fee, no prizes, just bragging rights for the lucky cyclist who manages to achieve the much sought after 1st place.

-W.L. Emsworth

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summer of salt UBC alley cat results

alright it was fun and of course a huge thanks to Anthony Woo for wrangling up the prizes and setting up this lovely manifest that you see here. here is a little bit of what went on...

the alley cat today from what i gathered everyone had fun we only had one person that did not finish but i thought it was fun even if it was annoying it tested the ablity to plan and find things as well as speed. as it was said Jessica was in the lead until she missed a stop and then tragically got a flat. and had to walk from westminster to sugar house park for a 3rd place finish. davey did come to the rescue for the last half block giving up his bike so she could roll through the finish line.... what a day. haha i also heard of some close calls by daylan and davey. daylan almost got cliped by a car and davey had to throw down some urban cyclecross to bunnyhop over a sewer grate that was quite epic i was told. so with out further ado here are the stats.

total of ~9 miles
15 stops from downtown to sugarhouse park
Ryan with ???? he got there before i did (teleportation???haha) it took me 25 min with riding around with the pack for a little bit Road?
davey with 44min 9 sec Cyclecross
joergen 44:12 Fixed
Jessica (got a flat) 1:03:15 Road
Alan, Daylan, and john at 1:15:20-30 SS, Fixed, Road
after the headace that was turning the map around and finding all the stops only to find the information at the stop. we ended with a sprint around sugarhouse park
times for that where
Joergen 3:40 Fixed
Davey 3:43 Cyclecross
Anthony (took a little shortcut = P) 4:03 Fixed
Jessica 4:11 Road
Alan 4:22 SS
Ryan???? anonymous win consensus in the sprint road magic
talk of another alley cat in two weeks from today ???
the UBC will throw another one down next month so we have a little more time to get people to come on down. a huge thanks to cyclesmith for sponsoring the race. for those of you who dont know they are located on 1300 east and 250 south we would have had not very many prizes with out them thanks again to all of those who came and made this happen. those of you who couldent make it i hope you will be able to make the next one. the summer of alley cats continues

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A huge step backward

I love gambling towns, don't you? They always inspire such a vitality in me, encourage my better inclinations, fufill my soul. For example, a small po-dunk town in Colorado has decided to BAN BICYCLES WITHIN THE CITY LIMITS! Ah yes, very inspiring indeed. Exactly the direction I want my small towns to go. (Click below for my full hotheaded rant. You've been warned)

If you disprove of this kind of -dare I say it?- inbred short-sighted retardation, you can write to the city council and give them a little piece of your mind. I'm sure they'll appreciate it, right after they learn how to read. I have to admit, though, I don't find this very outrageous or alarming, it just seems in-line with the direction consumer-oriented American values are headed. Take away a huge personal freedom and transform the status quo of car ownership into a mandate. I can just picture the coughing, wrinkled, compulsive gamblers of Black Hawk getting fatter and fatter in front of their slot machines and behind the dashes of their wheezing '81 Broncos. The might as well mandate smoking, for all I care. Let Darwinism sort things out for them.

The scarier truth, however, is that if this kind of gross myopic thinking continues it may be seen as common practice to mandate the way people get around, even in the face of every shred of evidence that thoughtless oil dependence is a completely useless, wasteful, and unnecessary thing to normalize, let alone legally require. I mean, let's be real. That town's probably 3/4 of a mile across! It has one freakin' road! They could ban cars and everyone would still get around just fine. Well, except for granny whale with her oxygen tank. She still needs to drive to the 7-11 to buy a pack of American Spirits.

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Warning: The Heart of Darkness III

It's there. A rumbling in the distance. The fast-approaching sound of the greatest SLC alleycat of the summer!!!

Come one, come all, all bikes, all strengths, to a mess of a race around the city on that day of remembrance, July 24th. This race should take us all over town and never stop, 3 seven stop manifests in a row, joy oh joy. We've had a serious up-swing in Alleycats, yet I still forsee this as a topper in terms of fun, endurance, and effort. Not to mention a top prize of a Surly Karate Monkey frame courtesy of Andrew Chase, as well as a grip of other goodies from Reelight, Octopus Caps, MER, Discrete, Hold Fast, Knog,and some Marathon Plus's from Schwalbe.

Thanks to meester Alexander H for the flier image!!

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The summer of salt alley cat from the kids at the UBC

lets keep the one a week alleycats goin here is the next one
$2
sunday the 20th
meet at galivin center plaza @ 3:30
goes from downtown to sugarhouse
please bring a lock this will hopefully be a more interactive one requiring you to go inside places to find the answers and some searching may be involved. but there will be some ride by stops as well. i just dont want anyone getting their bike ripped off while they are inside for a minute that would be tragic.
i project around an hour and it is in your benifit to know where you are going a couple of the last stops i think will be the race determining ones depending on the route and order. but then again when is it not nice to know where you are going haha.

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News flash! Call U police about stolen bikes

I've just heard an unfounded report from Tony that the U police raided a house near the U and seized over 100 stolen bikes, a good deal of which were fixie bikes, what have you. If you've had a bike stolen in the recent while give 'em a call!

super-edit:  After doing some digging with the help of some government contacts, Jonathan Morrison of the Bike Collective has concluded that the U police are either keeping mum about the situation or have no idea what we're talking about. In short, there probably ain't no 100 liberated bikes. Darn.

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Urban Downhill

Come one come all to what's sure to be a crazy race: The Urban Downhill Alleycat, this Sunday the 13th at 2:00. Meet at the top trax station of the University Line, Medical Center. All bikes are encouraged to come to this event, you can take to the stair sets on your dirt-jumper and make up for time you'll lose in the flats against the roadies. Think top of U to Gallivan, with a gamut of stops in-between. Yes!

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Ride your bike and flier: get into hot party with free beer!

Just passing the word along, my friend Adam Price wants help publicizing the cool upcoming event at the Salt Lake Art Center: Contemporary Masters. It's gonna be so rad: a fully playable free miniature golf course in a downtown museum/gallery space, each hole designed by a local artist.

Basically, Adam wanted bikers to cruise around town putting up fliers, in exchange you can get an exclusive invite to the pre-opening of the show on June 17th, a party that'll be featuring, among other things, a custom microbrew from Squatters, the Putt-Putt Pilsner. I'm so excited. Email Adam at adam@337project.org if you're interested.

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The Ataxian

Most of us have probably dealt with the dark train of thoughts that spawn from the idea: "What if I couldn't ride anymore?" It's a fear that seems almost insurmountable. Here's one guy's story down that path.
The Ataxian Looks like a great story, I'd e interested in screening it here.

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