official website: http://www.barkatthemon.com
BARK AT THE MON!
OCTOBER 20, 2007. PITTSBURGH!
An Ozzy themed alleycat. Race and fun class, come to ride or come to hang. Everyone will have something to do. All of it wraps up at the Rock Room in Polish Hill for food and refreshments.
Meet at “The Wall” in Oakland, across from “The O,” corner of Forbes and Bouquet St.
Registration begins at 5pm, race promptly at 6pm.
Race class – Be ready for anything! No complaining, if you can’t or don’t want to ride your bike all over town enter the fun class.
Fun class – Be ready for fun! More social, fewer miles.
All neccesary items will be provided. And the new Bike-Pgh Bike Maps will be handed out with your registration.
We have not determined what it will cost to race, but it will be $5 or less.
T-shirts will be available for purchase.
VOLUNTEERS! We could use a few more.
FAQ
- Is this a fixed gear only race? Not at all! We love geared, mountain, tall & chopper bikes.
- Where the hell was that graffiti? Brad Q says:
Maybe the instructions weren’t so good, but if you take the trail to its very end towards Etna, it ends on railroad ballast and immediately to your left…
Results
It was a perfect fall afternoon as racers gathered… ok, I’ll just skip ahead to the good bits:
Race
- Steve K
- Jason M
- Mark Clowney
- Chris somethingorother
- Justin F
- Claire
- J. Lo
- Nick L
- Tall Rob
- Aaron
- Andy G
- Ken K
- Jake with the hats
Fun
- Team Suzi and Casey
- Matt-stache
- Scott B & Anna-Lena
- Keith
- Ray
It actually was a beautiful day. And a beautiful race. The first “checkpoint” was Station Square, which is where everyone actually got their manifests. It was madness, which figures since it’s where I was working. Luckily Rachel Ding was with me and took care of all the hard work while I took pictures.
Everyone rolled in and grabbed their envelopes for fun or race rides and took off; the race people looking more hurried and worried.
A few riders decided Rachel and I were way cooler than the race so they just hung around until we got the “all-clear” call from Brad. Jonah, Josh, Ian, Rachel & I rode to the Rock Room via the Strip trail & Heron. As we got to the top of the hill an excited Brad and Erok thought they were watching the winners… but it was just us. So we all locked up and chatted waiting for someone to show up.
Finally some folks appeared and started locking up at the stop sign down the street. Clearly they were not aware that the finish line was when you handed Brad your envelope. We verbally berated them until they came up to the bar and we saw it was Matt, Casey & Susie, all racing in the fun category. Technically Matt crossed the finish line first, but only because Susie and Casey were still busy messing with their bike locks. And it turns out the gals had to help Matt find the Rock Room, so he graciously conceded.
Next Scott Bricker of Bike Pittsburgh fame showed to take third in the fun category.
Dan Goldberg finished next and we thought we had our race winner, but it turns out he lost his manifest climbing over railroad tracks and so had skipped the last few stops.
We’d been waiting outside for half an hour or so so I went inside. Some civilian bystanders–well, mostly Tall Scott and Hallie (of Boca Chica)–were hanging out in a booth with Casey so I joined them.
Finally the mighty mighty Steve Kurpiewski took first place in the race category. He was followed closely by Jason Mills (who claims he could have won if not for a poor decision–oh, and running over Eric when Eric turned in front of him), Mark Clowney and Chris Cornbread. Eric finished quick but forgot to do a grave rubbing and was DQ’ed.
Once a quorum was present, the awards were bestowed. Steve got a trophy, sexy arm tassles, and his choice of prizes. What else would you take other than the Bark at the Moon LP? The Race & Fun classes were intermingled, so Casey got a shot at some hot pink fenders (courtesy of Planet Bike, I believe). Chris’s face fell when they were snatched since they would have gone with his bike’s color scheme: bright & mismatched. Chris: I don’t want to promise anything, but Casey’s bikes don’t have fender mounts so maybe you can swap her something. Or she might just duct tape them on to spite you.
Blah blah blah… everyone got drunk.
I headed out shortly after to go to Gooski’s to meet some friends including Casey’s Chicago buddy. But the $3 cover (and the fact that I only had $1 in my pocket) sent us back to The Rock Room. I can’t figure out what happened while we were gone for 15 minutes, but everyone was absolutely annihilated. What I thought was play-acting really was “I have to hold on to this pillar so I don’t fall over” drunk. This crew eventually picked up all dozen of its members and headed down to Oakland for a wall / S. Oakland party adventure. Jeff G, Casey and I headed to for indian food.
On the ride over we saw Steve K and Jon Lomax. Their night would or already had involved outdoor drinking, shirtless one-handed boombox carrying riding & falling, party-going and couch-bleeding. As Jason “Born to Run” Mills says:
I think the highlight of the night was the random house party we went to. Here’s a good quote:
Some girl: “Your friend is bleeding all over my couch.”
Me: “Yeah, I know. That’s Steve! Everybody needs a Steve!”
Inside Indian Garden we ran into Jake. Then we ran into plates full of Indian food and got fantastically sleepy.
Jeff peeled off while Casey and I went down Bates and back to the Southside.
It was a great race… good job Erok & Brad!
Photos
MORE!
- Sample route from Justin
- Your stuff! Email me your write-ups, corrections, photos, etc.
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October 11th, 2007 at 1:15 pm[…] out the latest info for the Bark at the Mon alleycat! Come race and get one of those snappy new Bike Pittsburgh […]