Saturday found me in the garage for most of the day setting up my Ferrous & Rig single speeds for the off season winter riding that lays ahead. Later in the afternoon I dropped the wrenches in order to make my way into downtown Pittsburgh to attend my first Ally Cat. Being an out of towner of some sort I parked at one of the Trek Concept stores and rode the Mendota over to the start. Here I was given a starting time worksheet which had me adding minutes and sandbags as penalties for having a licenses & gears but thankfully my bike which tipped the scales at over 27 pounds didn't cost me anymore time than the 4 minute penalty already accrued. I hooked up with a few friends Blockhead (Chris-mechanic at the Robinson Store), Mike Henninger & Cory Lev. The idea was to hit all five of the "checkpoints" on the manifest to gather the required "pins" on our badges while also "buying" the items they had for sale at the checkpoints. Now this gets a little confusing but as I understood we used "monopoly money" which was provided to purchase items for $5 which then could be brought back to the start and sold back for more money. Of cour
se the farther out and harder it was then the checkpoints item was worth much more when sold back. You where not however allowed to buy more than one item from the checkpoint. This meant that you had to buy and then return to the selling point before you could purchase another item from that checkpoint. Therefore the idea of riding back and forth for the 2 hour limit was the name of the game. The time penalty was dealt out at the start so those with out penalties left first (with a head start) and those with penalties where held up for a later start according to their worksheets.
I really had a blast weaving in & out of traffic with the other 3 guys and much of the ride was a sprint from checkpoint to checkpoint so those from the city and with experience dodging traffic would most likely take home the honors of the winner. I made all 5 checkpoints and back to a couple more before we cashed in for a second time and I then called it a night. Since I was in contention for the series win in Oh
io at the OMBC Series and the last race was the following morning I needed to leave something in my legs.
My thoughts on my first Ally Cat.... well this one was well organized and quit fun if I must say so myself. Different for sure from what I'm used to but I'm very glad to have taken the time meet the eclectic group that calls themselves "Ally Catters"
*stork
