Yes, I have been biking in Minneapolis, which is now a pretty good city for this activity. I rode the bike-orienteering race with Darryn, who has made a good write-up of the event:
The GPS track:
http://www.attackpoint.org/sessiondata.jsp?sessionid=1512870
Cycling Road race 2:38:54 - 32.73 mi
6:17 PM. Minneapolis. 86.0 °F
Earlier this summer I did two No Name alleycat races with my friend Chris B. They are essentially informal score-O’ races for bikes on city streets. They are organized by a group of local Minneapolis, urban bikers. Everyone contributes $5 at the start. The winner gets the money, but they have to buy a round for everyone at the end, so they walk away with a few bucks. Apparently they have been happening every month (in the winter too) for a few years now.
They way I heard it is that one guy that won some of the early No Name races, stopped winning, but still wanted to set courses, so he established the annual All City Championships. This was the fifth year for this weekend long event that attracts locals and visitors from other states. The weekend events include trick riding, a visit to a skateboard park, group rides, parties, and the big event — the All City Championships Alleycat Race.
A few weeks ago I received email from Otto Andersen from Norway. Otto lived in the Twin Cities for a few years in the 80s and 90s and was an active MNOC member. He was the first person to map Afton State Park, amongst his contributions to the club. He was, and still is, a good orienteer, regularly placing in the top 5 on Blue at A meets around the country, and winning the orienteering race at the Chequamegon Fat Tire Festival the first couple years (and set the course one year too). In his email, Otto said he would be in town this week and asked if there was any orienteering planned. I wrote back an told him “no”. With the MNOC ROGAINE the week before, the club would be taking a break. But a couple weeks ago I remembered Chris and I were planning to do the All City Alleycat, so I wrote Otto back and suggested he join us, to which he quickly agreed.
Since Otto was flying in from Norway the day before the race, I felt some responsibility to learn as much about the race as I could. I watched the race forum and blog and learned that the race was going to be a score O’ format with some constraints: you have to bring your own map, there was going to be one section called the “Crosstown Hustle” and “four picks and four drops”. More importantly I learned that the addresses of the checkpoints would made available at noon on race day. With the race time at 6pm, that would give everyone some time to make the points on their map and do some route planning. It was not possible to completely plan our route because the “constraints” were not fully released until about 5:30 when all the racers received the “manifest” — but more about that later.
Otto was supposed to arrive at my house about 3:30, which would give us some time familiarize him with the map and control points. He borrowed a friends bike and road to my house from near St. Catherine’s college in St. Paul. Someone told him he could take Cleveland Ave straight through, but that is not true. He got lost for a while and so didn’t arrive until about 4pm. But I had marked a map for him ahead of time, so we made good use of the time we had and prepared our gear.
At about 4:20 we started the leisurely twenty minute ride to the start at One On One bike shopped and coffee bar in downtown Minneapolis where we agreed to meet Chris at 4:45. The sun was high and bright, and in our faces as we headed west down Como — it was hot. At a stop light Otto remarked, “I’m going to burn up.”
We arrived at One On One before most of the competitors, grabbed a seat and started people watching. It’s hard to describe the fashion sense of the crowd, but there is one. I guess you’ll have to experience it yourself. Chris showed on on time, bought a cookie and joined us at the table. Registration started soon after. I note this only because of one odd thing at registration — a professional photographer took everyone’s picture before they could register — I never did figure out why they did that.
Otto has always been a good competitor on foot, bike and cross-country skiis. He had planned to ride alone today, but between having just flown in from Norway the day before, and three earlier workouts (running, roller skiing and something else!) on race day, he was getting tired. So he decided to ride with Chris and I.
Even though we still didn’t have the manifest, Otto started doing more route planning. Since he hasn’t lived in the Twin Cities for more than 15 years, he started asking us what would be the best route between pairs of controls. After doing that for a few minutes, we learned that we need to move into the alley, behind the building. That is where the manifest would be handed out and last minute race announcements would be.
In the alley, the 150+ participants and their bikes, plus spectators, gathered. It was not as chaotic as you might expect, but definitely high energy. After a while, Jeff the race organizer came out, made a few announcements and handed out the race manifest. Traditional orienteers would recognize the manifest as a combination of a clue sheet and punch card, with a rules addendum. The manifest gave the addresses of the twelve control points we had to visit. The additional rules included the “Crosstown Hustle”, which was a stretch along the Crosstown Greenway from the Minneapolis Rowing Club on the Mississippi River to the Bryan-Lake Bowl. On that leg our manifest would be sealed in an envelope so that we could not “punch” any other controls. Since this leg was predefined, it guided most riders to make the decision to choose a generally clockwise route around downtown Minneapolis.
The other major rule was the Picks and Drops section. There were controls that were designated Picks and Drops. The four controls had to be visited in a certain order where we had to pick something up, and then eventually drop it at one of the other three controls. So each of those four controls would need to be visited twice — once as a pick and once as a drop. These four controls were all closer to the start than any of the other controls, so Otto and I quickly decided to visit the other eight controls first, and then do the picks and drops at the end. And while Otto and I planned the order in which we would visit the controls, Chris actually led us most of the way as he was the most familiar with the city streets and alternate bike routes. We would just tell him where we wanted to get to, and he led the way. And even though his bike was loaded down with panniers in preparation for a ride to New York starting in two days, he was clearly the strongest rider all evening.
The race was supposed to started at 6pm, but didn’t get started until about 6:17. And while the start was later than expected, the finish was not. We had to be back by 9pm or be disqualified. We began with a mass, Le Mans style, start. Everyone had to set their bike down on the ground, and then walk behind a start line about 50 feet away. I suspect this was both to break up the crowd and to provide some good photo opportunities. A quick verbal command from Jeff, and we were on our way.
Our first stop was the Witch’s Tower along Univesity Ave. Chris knew a great route. We rode across the Stone Arch Bridge, to a quick right and followed a railroad bed all they way past the U of M football stadium. We then hopped on the transit way for a few blocks then crossed over to the tower. It was not the shorted route there, but we certainly minimized the number of traffic stops we had to make. We went fast out of the shoot, and I suspect this was our fastest leg — probably not the smartest thing we could have done. We saw the Gear Junkie and A3K at this stop. Later I would learn that they had already visited another before this.
There were volunteers at each stop that stamped our manifest to prove we were there. Our next stop was the Hexagon Bar near 26th and 26th. From there we head down to the Angry Catfish bike & coffee at 42nd, then up to the boat house at Lake Street and the Mississippi River. The next leg was a quick ride down the Greenway to the Bryant-Lake Bowl. A lot of riders chose to go directly down Lake Street, but I find it hard to believe that was faster — unless of course they ran a lot of red lights. We stopped at red lights, and either waited for them to turn green or at least wait for the intersection to be open and safe.
From the Bryant-Lake Bowl, we headed north to the liquor store at Hennepin and Franklin, and then on to the Wirth Beach House. I dumped my bike right in front of the beach house in front of the three race volunteers and about ten bikers behind me. Luckily I made a good roll across the sidewalk onto my back and quick recovery. Cut my right knee and scratch my right hand and forearm, but nothing serious.
We then proceeded up Wirth Parkway to Plymouth Ave and took that all the way to University Ave in NE Minneapolis. As we approached Jimmy’s, our next stop, Chris said something about abandoning that control point. I had no idea what he was talking about. He pointed out that it was already 8:15 and we had only 45 minutes to get this point and get downtown to visit the four pick and drop sights two times each! I thought we were doing really well, but it quickly became clear we were not going to complete the course by 9pm and the race organizer asked that we all be back by 9pm. We decided to get as many as we could and still be back by 9pm.
We left Jimmy’s and headed back to Plymouth Ave were it crosses the river. Our next stop was Palmer’s bar in Cedar/Riverside. We took the bike path to Nicollet Island, headed downtown and took river road to the U of M and then road the few blocks to Palmers. It was now after 8:40 and it was not at all clear that we could make another stop and still make it back to the finish by 9pm so we decided on a deliberate ride back to the finish.
We didn’t know what it meant if we didn’t get all the controls in the allotted time. We were hopeful that it was like a score O where everyone is ranked first by how many controls they get, and then by time. I was a little disappointed to learn that since we did not get all the controls, we officially DNF’d. But that aside, we all had a great time. As we checked in at the finish they handed us our beer glass.
It turns out that only about one third of the riders finished the race, including Gear Junkie, A3K and a third friend riding with them. GJ said that last year’s ride was tougher and he didn’t come close to finishing, so he was feeling pretty good. They showed us their route, which was similar to ours, but they made some strategic passes through downtown to do the first three picks and drops in between getting the outlying controls. Clearly this was a smart thing to do and I learned a good score O route planning lesson as a result.
Could we have finished? If we would have started on time at 6pm, and made some of the strategic pick and drop stops like GJ and A3K, we might have been able to do it. They went about 35 miles, and we went almost 33, so I think it would have been physically possible for us to finish on time.
The after party was in the downtown alley behind One one One. We had a couple beers, watched the crowd, a few bike tricks and talked with other racers. Some other local friends stopped by to pick up Otto to go party NE. We said our goodbyes and off he went. Chris and I hung around to watch the awards presentation, which was anticlimactic since we couldn’t hear it very well and they didn’t announce the winners times.
The party crowd was interesting and fun, but it was getting late by my standards, so Chris and I biked to 280
Station for some pizza and burgers. We got out of there about 11:40 so I got home right around midnight.
Barring the DNF the All City race was a great experience and I am looking forward to it again next year. One more reason to get a new bike — someday.
