Yesterday’s ride included a stop at Cadence in Manayunk. One among us had equipment problems and it was ‘too early’ for the people at Human Zoom to help that rider. Way to hustle, guys. From now on, we’ll be trying things on at your store and then buying them cheaper on Nashbar, just to be cocks.
I digress. We go to Cadence, and its like you’ve stepeed into an alternate reality where everyone is pleasent and helpful. In addition, they have all these work of art quality road bikes hanging on the walls. Stuff that we all agree is droolworthy now, and about 10 years and a midlife crisis away from purchase for us.
I’m told later that Chris Carmichael(Lance Armstrong’s trainer) is a coowner of that place. Then I realize that all the staff, in addition to being the most courteous bike shop staff I have encounted in a while, all had the line(pictured above).
A brief exchange/ explanation of the line:
‘So its not like a laugh line, its a grimace line’
‘no’
‘its a no-fat-cells-in-the-face line’Alley Cats are basically unsanctioned free for all events put on in any city or town where there are bike messengers. They involve doing tasks that messengers do, like running from this side of town to that, picking stuff up, dropping stuff off, getting things signed.
This Alley Cat is a theme race. Its themed off of the movie 12 Monkeys, featuring Brad Pitt, Bruce Willis and Madelaine Stowe. All of the checkpoints and stops will involve themes and or shooting locations of the film.
March 11. 2006. 1:30pm. There I am, looking like a roadie. Spandex shorts, brand spanking new Sidis (hideous bright shade of blue, but CHEAP) Scoping out all the other guys and girls. There are maybe 3 other people wearing roadie type clothing. Many others look like skateboarders who happen to have traded in their Es for road shoes, and their boards for fixies. Others still look like they either just rolled out of a tattoo convention, a meth clinic or from a historic re-enactment of the events in the movie ‘The Warriors’.
Those people are rumored to be the fastest, of course. I guess they must have to be.
Meanwhile, I am a 32 year old IT manager for a company that promotes tourism for Philadelphia. I started riding alot about a year ago. First to get around town when I landed back in Philly, then to commute to my job, then with a crew of roadies for various long distance rides, like the MS 150 from Cherry Hill to Ocean City NJ. I don’t like being overweight. I don’t like spending money on gas. I don’t like coasting. Pick a reason. I love riding, and doing a race just seemed like the next thing I should do.
I used to race with some success in skinny long boats on the Schuykill, the Harlem and other waterways up and down the east coast and Canada. But that was becoming a distant memory.
My old boss, and good friend Robb, agreed to come down from NYC to do this race with me. He’s done a bunch of alley cats this past year and is reasonably fast. His knowledge of Philadelphia starts and ends with a semester stint at Drexel Engineering in the early 90s. I, on the other hand, grew up here, went to a high school in North Philly that pulled kids in from all over the Delaware Valley, and spent a great deal of time in Philly after college skateboarding. I know the city well enough that, with the notable exception of Mount Airy and Chesnut Hill, I don’t need a map. So I figured we’d trade off each others strengths.
Rob shows up with 2 other guys from NYC, Leif and John, both Bikeforums folks. Another Philly bike messenger named Jason, whose Milwakee’s Beast bag I immediately recognize from around town shows up at Reading Terminal at breakfast. We all ride around town a bit before heading to Dilworth Plaza for the start. We run up Ben Franklin Parkway one time to show off the sprint part of the course for Rocky IV, a race that will take place in June.
Anyway, around 2pm, we are all herded downstairs at Dillworth Plaza. Fergus Tanaka, one of the organizers, is on the bullhorn. He tells us that just as the movie 12 monkeys begins with Bruce Willis underground, so the race will. We have to run to someplace in the concourse between City hall and the El station.
And just like that we are off. running. sprinting. Half a city block away there is a volunteer handing out the manifests. Total chaos. People are screaming. Civilians stand back mouths agape as the 120 of us bum rush down this underground passage.
I grabbed 2 manifests by accident. I can’t find anyone to give another two. Rob, John, Lief are nowhere to be seen. So I start sprinting again. Halfway back to Dilworth Plaza to unlock my bike, I see someone moving the other direction. I slapped my second manifest into his chest without slowing down.
I really wonder (hope?) that guy was an entrant.
I get back upstairs and unlock my bike. About a minute later Robb, who gambled and lost on who to follow, shows up.
The manifests tells us that there are 3 check points and 3 tasks that need to be completed before we can do the final checkpoint/task. One requires going to Eastern State Penn(ESP), the next to Penn Treaty Park, the 3rd Memorial Hall in Fairmount Park. (I don’t even read the bottom of the paper that tells us that we will find out the location of the finish after one more task.)
After I have Rob and the other two New Yorkers with me, I tell them we are going to ESP. I gun it like I don’t remember ever doing before. It feels great. I feel great. I’m racing. Then halfway down the parkway, I look down at my pulserate monitor and I am already at close to 90% of my max.
This is going to be the longest 2 hours I have ever spent on a bicycle.
At the ESP, I am handed a Fed Ex envelope with a sticker on it that tells us to go to 900 S Broad and find a bug by a fence, then bring it to 12th and Arch. We take Fairmount ave to Broad, and then Broad all the way down.
Before City Hall, there is an asian guy asking us where 12th and Arch is. I totally don’t understand why he’s asking but I tell him where to turn. It doesn’t make sense to us until far later then we messed this guy up by not telling him to follow us. We don’t see him again for the rest of that day. I wonder how he finished.
Broad is predictably gnarly from City Hall down to 900 s Broad. Upon arrival at the block, we spend a few minutes looking around an abandoned lot, before we cross the street to CAPA. CAPA is where we should have started looking. It appears in the movie for one shot right before Bruce Willis and Madelaine Stowe go to hide out at Divine Lorraine hotel, and Bruce Willis pulls his teeth out. I digress. A few minutes later, we still can’t find these bugs. Then I see them, right on the other side of a big spiked fence, tons of little plastic bugs. I call to everyone else, hoping someone will bring my bike over. Nobody does. I hop the fence, grab some bugs and hand them off, hope back over, sprint across Broad, get my bike and we are off again.
I make the executive choice to get off Broad. At Bainbridge, we turn down to 11th because its a straight shot to Arch street. Unfortunately, it has trolly tracks. I warn everyone from NYC with me repeatedly to watch the tracks. 2 stops later, I will get my tire caught in a 15 trolley track at 39th and Girard and eat shit.
Ironic.
We make it to 12th and Arch, Get our manifests stamped. We are on the east side of town, so I pick Penn Treaty Park next.
We roll up to 13th and out to Spring Garden then down to Delaware avenue. I don’t even consider taking everyone down the wrong way on 12th, there is way too much police presence due to the Philly Flower show.
When we get to the park, I have a serious crisis of confidence that I have some how screwed the gang that is depending on me for directions and misunderstood or misread the directions on the manifest. Then, I see the checkpoint guys bikes and hear them whistle.
They send us to the heart of the Kensington, the neighborhood where my father grew up. The dodgey part of this ride is that we have to take Delaware ave to Aramingo. This is a route I am familiar with in an auto, never not on a bike. It feels like a highway for about two uncomfortably long blocks. Then we are in Port Richmond until we hit Allegheny and head west to the El tracks.
There is a payphone underneath the El station. It has a 12 monkeys logo spray painted on it and a phone number written in paint marker. Write the ### down and off we go. Back into Center City to the Wannamaker building across the street from City Hall
There is some debate about going up to 4th or 5th street and taking a straight shot . But part of me thinks that North 4th is not ready for prime time. I’m getting a little scattered, and I am not sure so we go like a block in this direction before I say, spin it, we are following the El.
In retrospect, 4th or 5th might have been a little more direct. I haven’t looked at a map yet.
Kennsington to Front street to the Polo grounds, to northern Liberties/2nd street is all fairly clear. We burn thru it. I hear John and Robb making jokes about The Blues Brothers and The French Connection. If I’m in the lead, does that make Popeye Doyle or Elwood Blues?
I’d like to say that I only have brain cycles for keeping my legs moving, planning the route and telling everyone to turn. Weird pop culture references pop into my head when I am riding. Often times, its that song ‘Ghostbusters’ by Ray Parker Jr. Why? No idea.
At this point, again, another judgement call. To get to Wannamakers, Market is the most direct way. And also the most congested. I guess if no one is going that fast, no one will get hit. Or hit that hard. So we go up Market. A gang of folks are sitting on the Planters across from City Hall. I have no idea who is manning the checkpoint. A girl whistles at me, takes me sheet and marks us finished task two.
Its at this point that I drink a ton of gatorade and it totally doesn’t help. I’m starting to zoink.
Who you gonna call?
The third and final checkpoint is at Memorial Hall. I had a feeling that this place would be involved because in the movie, 12 monkeys, They shot exteriors here for Madelaine Stowe’s lectures that are supposed to take place in Baltimore. I know the building’s exact location because its on the way to the Mann Music Center and on the route I used to take to get out to St. Joe’s University. Like Delaware ave to Aramingo ave, its a route I’ve only taken previously by car.
This means that I know the path, but I don’t really ‘know’ it the way you know a path from riding it on a bicycle. IE when the fuel used to get you to the top of a hill is not gasoline but…well…you.
Back down the parkway for the second time we go.
This time we go past the art museum. And the back way around Lemon Hill on Sedgely Drive. There is a collective groan when we hit the first hit Lemon Hill. This is the easiest way up Lemon Hill. The other side that faces boat house row might as well be a brick wall. I used to have to sprint it before crew practice. The Art Museum steps are a cake walk by comparison.
We get to Girard ave, cross the bridge, and make the first hard turn, underneath the railroad bridge. Down one small hill, and then up a very long one. The zoinking reaches its apex here.
We roll right by a Police SUV into what appears to be some kind of collegiate bike club crit. There are kids in Penn and Princeton kit dashing here and there on expensive looking bikes with gears. This has the potential to be not good.
At the top of the hill, Robb and this other guy, Randi have blown by the turn that I didn’t get a chance to prepare them for. Another hard right, and a left and we are a half block from Memorial hall. And we ride thru the wrong way of what may be the start or finish above mentioned crit race. At Memorial hall, there is another pair of folks with envelope waiting for us. I don’t even stop or get off my bike as I read the note to go to the zoo and take a Philadelphia Zoo emblem etching with the crayon and paper inside the envelope.
The only problem is that the instructions say ‘39th and Girard’ and I know full well that the entrance is on 34th and Girard, and yet I still take everyone out of our way, because I am not thinking straight. before I correct the problem, my wheel gets caught in a trolley track and hit the ground hard. I cut my knee and get road rash on shoulder. Endorphins are wonderful, I barely feel it.
We get our etching and then head to 46th and market. The mother of all bumps is 34th right above Mantua. Next we turn on Powelton and take it all the way to 44th and market.
The signoff point is at the top of a hill in the parking lot of a shopping market. There are about 50 dudes. Its very bright. They are yelling at us to run up the hill. There are PBR cans everywhere.
Because I didn’t read the whole manifest, I think that this is the end. But we still have one more task.
We have to go to the Met theater. This is the abandoned theater in the movie where Bruce Willis beats a man to death with his bare (bear?) hands. I kind of feel like his victim at this point. Powelton ave, to Spring Garden to Broad street to Broad and Poplar. At the Met, we roll half a block west find the checkpoint, and get our last envelope.
At this point, I get another wind. I am a few blocks ahead of the group, so I take it easy and drink up some gatorade. This wind dies down though when we get to the Ben Franklin bridge, where we have to find the location of the finish. We get to the top of the bridge and we can not find it for what feels like 15 minutes. Then we find it.
We get it. and we go to 5th and Poplar, hand in our stuff. Rob gives me the honor of being the first in our group marked down for time for the good job I did navigating. Total bullshit. The others did a much better job pulling.
The official tells us that we placed in the high 20s or low 30s. This seems impressive given that over 100 people started the race. We later find out that only about 40 entrants finished.
Whatever. It was very fun. I’ll be doing another one someday soon, to be sure.
Epilogue:
The bar formerly known as the W&J is basically the finish line. After handing in our envelopes, We go in and immediately start drinking. I get the first round. When its Robb’s turn, he’s like did I just buy a round for less then $5?
‘Welcome to Philly!’ I reply. It really is a miracle that any work gets done in this town for how cheap it is to get your drink on.
We eat at the Standard Tap, have another round and then I took Robb et al back to the Chinatown bus depot.
Its was a great day.
Post-Epilogue:
All the Erin Express buses were out on Saturday. Full on amateur irish drinking fest were in effect at several of the watering holes we passed during the ride. I guess since I was wearing an irish national team cycling jersey, I was part of the concept.
Anyway, I drop the guys off and then take the El back to Upper Darby. I live at the top of the first very big hill on West Chester Pike. On my way up the hill, which is not fun under normal circumstances, let alone if you’ve had a few and its been a pretty intense day, I ride past two irish americans of a much more recent vintage then me.(ie my families been here since the 1860s, these dudes arrival, from their accents, I would put at the October before last.)
They’ve had a few. I’ve had a few. They start hoping up and down point at the road.
“They’res a pothole there. A pothole there.”
There are no potholes. I just keep pushing up the hill, yelling ‘Pogue Mahone, Bitches!‘
the end.