Things are back to normal at the HOP compound and we'll be filling you in with news of what we're going to have on offer shortly. But because you probably don't really care about that here a long essay on what life is like at the blunt end of an Al**ycat:
One of the most stressful parts of organising an al**ycat is finding people prepared to man your checkpoints who are reliable enough to turn up on the correct night at the correct time and successfully station themselves at the correct place. Then you have to hope that they'll not get bored and head back to the pub early, leaving the slower rookie racers circling an empty block for two hours, bottom lip quivering, getting more and more tearful before riding home alone in shame, maybe never to race again. These days I seem to be a pretty regular checkpoint monkey as, to be honest, I'm too old/scared/lazy to race anymore. There are alternatives to manned checkpoints like getting numbers from phone boxes, names from buzzers, prices from restaurants etc. but they can go wrong. There's a slim chance some of the racers may already know some of the info they're supposed to get, the sign or whatever could get moved or changed or the organiser could simply bugger it up, I once did a race where one checkpoint was to get the time of a church clock that had been stopped for months but I hadn't realised each of the four clock faces was stopped at a completely different time. There's also the risk that some of the more 'charming' racers can get info from other riders going a different route and thus miss out some checkpoints ( what!? couriers cheating? hard to believe I know, but it happens ). I once tried to make an unmanned Halloween al**ycat in Glasgow more personal by putting up stencils or stickers at the checkpoints. I had to ride around at work all day with paint and stencils in my bag stopping to spray or stick them up when I was in the area. Doing Graffiti in broad daylight is pretty stressful and more so if you couriering at the time, can you imagine how happy your controller would be if they ask you where you are, only to be told you're being arrested for defacing public property? I wasn't, but it was a risk. Another downside is that after you've done a couple of stencils your bag is stinking of spray paint so every time you open it in a reception everyone gets blasted with fumes and thinks you've been abusing solvents in the stairwell, which just contributes to the general public's view that messengers are in fact, all scum. But it was worth it because five years later some of those checkpoints are still there.
For 5 years Glasgow drivers have been looking at a street sign of a tiny Angus telling them to Pump up the ValiumUnmanned al**ycats work fine but having real live people involved makes for a better race. Riders can find out information from the checkpoint staff like how many have been through before them, which direction they were heading etc. they can work out from these snippets that their hated rival is in fact going a completely different route so it's no worry that they haven't seen them. Flagging rookies can get a few words of encouragement or a hint as to the best route to the next checkpoint and the very drunk can be told their face is grey and maybe they should have a drink of water.
One type of al**ycat that can't be done without people is the Treasure Hunt style one where it's required to perform tasks at each checkpoint. Usually it's no problem finding volunteers for these as the whole thing is just a street party spread out into small groups... small groups of very drunk people. One of the funnest parts of this kind of race is watching the few people who are so competitive they can't relax and just enjoy themselves. I think I've witnessed the most intense dooking for apples ever and there's very few sights more enjoyable than watching a grown man trying to steer an infants tricycle around cones with his raceface on.
While the Treasure Hunt race is a less intimidating, all inclusive social event that is good for the Messenger Community, the true spirit of the Al**ycat is a back to basics manifest race where the only tasks the riders have to perform are picking the best route and going fast. Unfortunately these are the most boring checkpoints to man as all you have to do is sign manifests as sweaty couriers rampage through. If you're lucky one of the racers might say 'Thank You' but they're more likely to snap at you for not signing their manifest quickly enough*, a welcome sight for checkpointers at this style of race is the guy who's going for DFL cos they've usually got beer and time to shoot the breeze about stuff like what type of handlebars will be 'in' next season, a downside to hanging out with DFLers is they may be naked. I recently manned a checkpoint like this on my own at the Great British Summer Al**ycat ( for the record, everyone was polite but winner Ricky was the only one who actually said thank you ) and somehow managed to forget to pack any booze so it was looking pretty grim, especially when the rain started. Fortunately for me the guy who's flat I was standing outside of stuck his head out of the window to chat about what exactly the fuck I was doing there. I was tempted to say I was a Marshall of an illegal street race at which his doorstep was a checkpoint and he should feel free to call the police anytime. This would a. have shortened the time I had to spend standing alone, beerless in the rain and b. made me look rock'n'roll when I came back to the pub after being shut down by the cops, but it turned out the guy was sound and seemed genuinely interested in having an Al**ycat explained to him, or as I put it 'Bicycle Scavenger Hunt'. I did also neglect to mention that despite it being wet and dark most of the field were riding brakeless bikes with no lights at speeds even they themselves wouldn't consider safe... while drunk. Despite forgetting the beer I managed to remember the H.O.P. rubber stamp to speed up the manifest ratification process and add that professional touch to the riders sheets** I also planned to use it to keep track of how many racers had been through the checkpoint but it would appear that I had also forgotten paper, there wasn't even one scabby daysheet in the bottom of my bag ( I blame the introduction of PDAs for this situation ) so I had to use my arm to keep track of the numbers.
Stamping my arm worked for the first ten or so riders but then it became hard to count them all without knowing whether I'd counted some of the stamps twice. So while I thought it looked pretty cool it was in fact a completely inefficient system which wasn't helped by the fact that despite being in touch with Tom ( the organiser ) and Justa & Dave at one of the other checkpoints no one was quite sure how many people were racing. Estimates ranged from 23 to 29 so I hung about til 26 ( I think, but that arm stamping system really was crap ) had gone through, racers always go missing so you have to decide an acceptable cut off time and just leave or you'll be there all night. I gave it another 20 minutes then decided if there were riders still out there "Fuck 'em!". One of the racers that went missing at The Great British Summer was BBQ Mike who paid his entry fee, lined up at the start then decided at the last minute he was only going to do the checkpoints that were in a straight line between the pub at the start and the pub at the finish. The rest of the field were a mix of experienced 'catters' both messenger and civilian so I was at the checkpoint for less than two hours which is ideal, I don't get too bored, no stragglers get abandoned and all the volunteers miss the minimum amount of pub time. And to think a couple of weeks earlier at "Faster Pussycat Kill, Kill" I was involved in a checkpoint that was manned by transvestite couriers from different cities that involved getting my pubes waxed by girls.
Hmmm ...maybe that's the checkpoint I should've written about. Oh well, too late now!
*rudeness to checkpoint staff should be an instant DQ in my opinion and I like to instigate a strict queuing system if riders turn up all at once, just to test the patience of the people who take it too seriously.
**It was worth it because at the recent London Calling photo exhibition one of the shots was a close up of Tom Crowe's hand clutching all the completed manifests, and there right slap, bang in the middle, a nice clear HOP logo.
