Cranksgiving 2011

Last year's Cranksgiving was my first alleycat race.

It's a great ride, draws some urban cyclists, some cool kids (basically defined as those who ride fixies without a helmet while smoking cigarettes on their way to a coffee shop), some commuters, and unlike any other alleycat I know of, some roadies.

It's a food bank drive for St. Peter's food bank, and it hauled in over a ton of food and other necessities.

One rider managed 469 pounds on a bike with a B.O.B. trailer.

And you see the coolest bikes. I saw this guy last year with is Christmas-lit trailer and I thought it was Brian Gallmeyer giving his Christmas lights a ride.

There's bikes like the Puglsey, with big cushy tires in case you're trying to ride across a scene from Frank Herbert's Dune. I rode this bike in front of the Broadway Cafe, sort of. Jones has SPD pedals, I ride in Brooks running shoes, so there was a definite power disconnect. But I had to look down and check: did he have a suspension fork? The tires are that spongy, it feels like you're on springs.

Surley actually came out with a successor, the Moonlander, with tires almost an inch bigger, in case anyone wants a bike with tires that double as pontoons.

And track bikes built to favor aerodynamics over reality, innocent of brakes. Brakes are for stopping, as one Cool Kid told me. But I'd never, before Cranksgiving 2011, seen anyone riding around with a tiny front wheel to put their head even further down. It was like a short wheelbase recumbent and a fixie had a love child.

If you're unfamiliar, the race consists of a list of ten grocery stores, and a bunch of things the food bank needs. The first one to get to all ten stores and back with an item from each store wins. Fastest male, fastest female, and then there are team categories. And heaviest load, which as I say was 469 lbs by one rider.

Last year Corinna and I did all ten stores but we weren't even in the hunt as far as time. And we got back to the finish line after the kegs were dead soldiers. Boulevard donated a couple of kegs, bless their hearts, and this year I got back in time to consume some complimentary Pale Ale.

Smart promotional thinking, really. Cyclists, as a group, seem to be foodies and booze hounds, and quality beer appeals to both these vices.

I might have had a few too many Boulevard Pales since they were free and I'd ridden hard and relatively long. I only hit two stores because I wanted to get back for the after party (I grabbed nine items at the second store, not to compete but to fulfill the mission for St. Peter's), but I'd ridden over ten miles to the start and had over ten to get home after.

The temperature had been so high when we left the house, I dumped far too much baggage. Rain suit? Not in the forecast. Lobster claw mittens, overkill. But I left myself with only one long-sleeved shirt, jersey gloves and no balaclava.

Mistake. The temperature dropped about thirty degrees in the hour it took me to get home, leaving me with no quarter. 68ºF is a world away from 38ºF.

Joel won the fastest overall, and hammed it up and made the sort of inappropriate jokes that endears him to us all.

I think the girl who won the fastest female, though, was stoker on a tandem captained by a guy, so there might be a smidge of controversy there. Depends on how much stock you put in a Y chromosome, I guess. Personally, the love of my life had to be certifiably female to compete in the Olympics (they do a test, true story), and she's faster than me hands down.

Like I say, you see lots of bikes. Even scooters that must have been ridden by preschoolers.

And it's a bunch of freaks, no matter how you slice it.

I just should have anticipated the possible weather scenarios better.

On the way home, I spotted a bonfire at the Switzer Community Garden and wanted to stop in to socialize. But I was pretty whipped, buzzing with free Boulevard Pale and I'd left far too much warm gear at home to make room for groceries.

Besides the precipitous temperature drop, the wind that had gusted out of the south in the morning was bearing down ferociously out of the northwest, so I had headwind going both ways.