Mon, 02 Mar 2009

Monster Track X
I recently competed in Monster Track X. For those that don't know about Monster Track, it's considered by some to be the premier brakeless fixed-gear alley-cat in the world. It usually draws competitors from as far away as Japan and Germany. This year there were a few competitors from Kyoto and Copenhagen that came to try their skills on the streets of NYC. This was my first year racing in Monster Track. In 2007 I wasn't very proficient at riding brakeless, so I deferred entry. Last year's event was "cancelled" due to concerns over a tragedy that occurred in a recent Chicago alley-cat. Despite being cancelled an alley-cat was run anyway, but with a fraction of the competitors and the interest that was present in previous years and I deferred entry out of respect to the original organizer's desire to cancel it.

This year's Monster Track promised to be well attended and brought some stiff competition. It was very cold and started very late, which wasn't surprising as these particular organizers are the people that seemed to have been responsible for the concept of "messenger time" (starting 3 hours late). The race started shortly before darkness, and the manifest was entirely street addresses (which favors the messenger's memory and not Gabe's desk job). I lost a lot of time looking up intersections, and had a hard time seeing street numbers in the dark (eyes, not so great and I refuse glasses usually). I came in 49th overall. No close calls, didn't really end up too tired either which means I should have pushed it, but I was constantly afraid I would have been racing along in the wrong direction, so I'd stop to consult the map (which means you've already lost). Top 20 racers got to do a 2nd manifest, which brought their total to 37 miles, while my single manifest finish was only 20ish miles. Below is Crihs's winning MT manifest.

I'd also like to note that Alex rocked and won the Monster Track Gold Sprints (roller races) over Andrew LaCorte and Jody Pogue. Although the finals were marred by some bracketing/elimination inconsistencies, Jody and Alex beat some stiff competition for sure.

posted at: 11:29 | path: /blog | permanent link to this entry