Night of the Living Dead Alleycat Report

This race was fucking brutal, there was a point where I had a stitch, cramp and a heart attack all at the same time. Prior to the pain we all met up down the waterfront in Bristol to sign up, get our spokecards and puff out our chests like fixed gear bike riding peacocks. 27 fine examples of men put their name where their mouth is and I slinked off to change into my sexy cycle shorts, I am a man who likes to have an ache-free gooch as well as massive guns.

We all took off from the meeting point for a mass ride through the streets to the start point at one of the city’s cemeteries (all checkpoints were cemeteries), Keiran told us we needed to collect ‘flowers for the dead’ before hitting the final checkpoint and I made an inappropriate joke about shooting an innocent black man at the end instead. I was repaid by my water bottle falling out of it’s cage and delaying my start, d’oh! Very few of the 27 knew their way around Bristol so the pack very soon split into a few groups of outsiders following locals.

It very soon became apparent that this race was going to be a bit of a hill fest, with a 72GI and super steep track drops my bike doesn’t really lend itself to steep hills, long hills yes, steep hills no and I was fucked pretty quickly. I didn’t fall behind on the hills I was just way closer to death than everyone else at the tops but I do love to bomb so I made up some time on the way down. All was going really well until the local (Cab) and his hangers-on I was following turned a corner and I lost them, I took a wrong turn and they were gone so I had to wait a few seconds for Ade ‘44/16’ Ridley in the hope that he knew where he was going. How quickly the tides turned, one second he was my foe, then he was my friend and I would stick by his side right to the finish line, where I planned to stab him right in the back and attack when he wasn’t expecting it.

The first thing we did was to steal some council flowers then hit Park St, this bastard of a hill is usually a piece of piss but after 3 checkpoints it nearly broke us, we ascended slowly but surely, calculated turn after turn, pull after pull we conquered the beast. There was a fair amount of flat after this and we started to make good time before we got a bit lost and had to ask a girl for directions. She could have just pointed but she wanted to give us turn by turn directions (twice) and eat crisps at the same time, the tension was palpable as she led us through “take a right, then an immediate left, then right, then left, then right…”, I could have slapped her but I was too polite. We entered the cemetery from behind and after a bit of pounding we found the checkpoint, Ed signed us off and we hit what was to be the final hill and the one that finally took our manhood. It all happened so fast, the sweet sensation of metal under foot was replaced by the sickening feeling of asphalt, tears streamed down our faces, breath fell from our mouths and we walked broken men. At the top we mounted our steeds and Ade slowly pulled away from me, I was done, I followed without losing too much ground but it was enough to put my plans of a last minute attack firmly out of the window.

The finish point was at the ice cream van on the downs, we rolled up in 14th and 15th place. A lemonade lolly has never tasted so good. We all agreed that the race was a belter and grumbled about how much pain we were in, the temperature fell as we waited for the rest of the racers to turn up. The prize giving took place out in the open, the top guys got a few prizes each and then everyone down to 20th place got to pick one thing each. I spotted a bangin’ blue Bagaboo hip pouch, although in my eyes it was actually a tiny little messenger bag, the kind that I’ve wanted for a long long time. Unfortunately being 15th I knew I would never get it, everyone took their turn to pick a prize, the t-shirts went, the top tube pads, the phone holders, the wallets, it was like fucking Countdown in my head as these prizes went down, I honestly couldn’t believe that someone would pick a mini top tube pad over this pouch. As we drew nearer I turned to Ade and shotgunned the pouch, I think he could see the evil twinkle in my eye because he took the Tracko Chalk Bag and I got what I wanted, I couldn’t believe it, I was sure it was going to go first!

After a great ride back down into the centre of Bristol we all went our separate ways for food and then we headed back home. This was the toughest alleycat I’ve done so far, it was just right I suppose, not too easy but not so hard that the enjoyment was lost. Big shout out to the Bristol Trackdropouts boys for putting on another killer event, I’ll see you in October for the Hacksaw…

(All photos by Brad Bishop)

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