The Foot Down

The first shop outside of London to stock 14 Bike Co’s clothing brand 4TN is Hip in Leeds, to celebrate there’s gonna be a bit of a doo with an alleycat on September 30th. Hit up the Facebook page for more info.

The 2010 London’s Calling event is taking place in a couple of weeks time. I’d love to go to it but I’d almost certainly be killed by a real life messenger or a real life bus.

The weekend long event will raise money for the London Courier Emergency Fund which helps London’s bike messengers in all kinds of ways, I love when a community makes a real effort to take care of itself. For more info click your way over to the official website.

Check out the video below from the 2007 race, it’s easily my favourite alleycat vide by a looooooong long way. Even the fucking terrible music is good! It was shot by Lucas Brunelle, all his videos are off the chain.

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)

The 2nd annual Hacksaw’s Challenge will hit the streets between Bristol and Bath on October 30th. I missed the last one but I’ll be at this one in the fanciest fancy dress EVER! For more info go to Bridge the Gap or the bloody wonderful Trackdropouts forum.

Cardiff’s second fixed gear alleycat is planned for September 11th, it doesn’t start until 8 so it’ll be 10x more confusing for people like me that only know their way from Jessops to the Apple Store and back. The first race back in May was bangin’ and I expect this to be no less so. Hopefully more of the Bristol Trackdropouts can come over the Bridge for an ass whupping this time, and YOU too, wherever you are!

For more info pop over to the Fixed Gear Cardiff blog…

A couple of weeks back one of the Fixed Gear Cardiff lot posted on Facebook about a little get together they were planning, this is a pretty regular thing for them but it caught the attention of us Swansea boys and after a fair few people showed some interest the local meet became a mini-event with spoke cards and everything.

The Spiral Sprints were to be a series of races up and down a new multi story car park which sounded like a gas so Sion, Evs and myself hit the road and met up with all the guys (and gal) at the pub for pre-race drinks. We headed off about 8ish and made our way towards the car park, as the traffic light around the corner turned green we all went hell for leather across the road, through the barriers and up and up and up and up and up the spiral ramp, it was like it was never gonna end, the sprint across the roof determined Paul as the champ. Security was on us within seconds, like flies around shit, and we were kicked out putting an end to the sprints. The ride back down the ramps was fun and pretty scary, we headed off down to the bay for a quick trackstand comp (which I came second in, but I will come first one day!), I gave out some misprinted ‘Oh God’ t-shirts and a set of Skullcandy earphones as prizes and then we headed home.

Fixed Gear Cardiff – Spiral Sprints from The Foot Down on Vimeo.

This may have been the worlds shortest race, at about 30 seconds or so I’d like to hear of a shorter one, but more of these semi-organised events are on the cards. Good stuff guys!

The last Bristol alleycat of the summer will take place on August 28th. The Night of the Living Dead race will be a usual checkpoint race but with some exciting twists, I hope one of those twists includes eating some hipster brains! For more info Go to the Trackdropouts blog.

For the second year in a row I missed the Bristol/Bath Tunnel Sprints which really sucks because it looks like one of the most fun events out there! Here are a few photos by Gavin Strange, and if you wanna read more go to the thread on the Trackdropouts forum.

Go!

The Whiteland boys, Jake and Gary.

What a turnout!

Get your arses over to Bristol next Saturday for the second Tunnel Sprints event! The format is simple, you pedal like fuck from one end of a tunnel to the other against someone else and if you win you get to gloat about it to them forever and a day, oh, and win some killer prizes from Cadence Bike Shop, Freshtripe, Fenchurch, Velosolo and 14 Bike Co. I’m gonna be there, are you?

For more info hit the Trackdropouts forum.

Just the other day I was thinking ‘you don’t see many alleycats in London’ then BAM, the Fixedgearlondon Checkpoint Race is announced. More info on their blog.