Bookworm Alleycat Info and Registration

Wales' first ever alleycat race is taking place in Swansea on 3rd October 2009 at 3pm. This thing is going to be bonkers, there will be 5 checkpoints, all at libraries, where you will need to get a book you bring stamped. The checkpoints will be spread far and wide, both in the city centre and the suburbs, up hills and down hills, along main roads and back roads. This race has something for everyone, whether you are used to the hills of Bristol or the crazy traffic of London you will be in with a good chance of winning some awesome prizes. After the main race there are gonna be longest skid and trackstand competitions before heading off to the road where poet Dylan Thomas was born for a hill climb challenge. To wind down (or up) after a hard days riding there will be an after party playing everyones favourite fixie videos and shit loads of great music. Check out all the info below, sign up to race and then pop over to all of our sponsors websites!

CHECK OUT THE CHECKPOINTS HERE

Please register to race below so we have an idea of numbers in advance. There are plenty of sofas, spare beds and floors to sleep on so if you are coming from out of town and wanna stay the night say so in the message box and we'll hook you up. Boxes with an * need to be filled in.

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We have shed loads of great sponsors for the race, these guys have all put their time and money into supporting the fixed gear scene and you should all support them by remembering who they are and buying off them. Click on each of the adverts below check out their websites.

For more info about all our great sponsors click here.

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Six Pack Tour Tshirts Available now!

From Exist Clothing, Swansea.

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New emergency wheel

Jt very kindly loaned me one of his spare back wheels today. I broke yet another hub (Third one so far) the other night whilst climbing a hill. It's time I invested in a rich man's hub and hooked myself up with a Phil Wood.

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Alleycat News - 18/08/09

Hey y'all, we have some more confirmed sponsors for the alleycat, check them out:

Tokyo Fixed Gear
Hunting Lodge
Bike Food
Hub Jub

and don't forget the others:

Charlie The Bikemonger
Schmoos
Exist Clothing
Skullcandy
14 Bike Co.
Hell Yeah!
Velo Solo
JOL Straps
Ison Distribution
Re-Cycle

To be kept up to date with alleycat news and other sutff join us on Twitter.

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53 Miles and 3 Sore Bums

This is a week late, I've been busy organising alleycat stuff, so instead of blabbing on for ages it'll be mostly photos with captions. Exposition: Kerry, Owen and me (the one and only Ty) are trying to cycle further and further each week in preperation for cycling to Paris next year. This trip was 47 miles (53 for me), we took in Gorseinon, Llanelli, Pembrey, Burry Port and Kidwelly...

Bike route 273881 - powered by Bikemap

Owen had spotted some bike parts in the window of an old shop in Gorseinon so we went there first, we were shocked to find a Penny Farthing hung from the ceiling and loads of really old Raleigh signs on the walls. We spoke to the dude there for a while, he was as deaf as a door post but judging by this it will be worth going back for a longer chat!

We hit the Millennium Coastal Path, I'm not sure which part of 'cycle track' they don't understand but most of this thing is gravel, the nice parts are really nice but riding 700x23's on a gritty track is not ideal.


This very use(less)ful map (didn't) showed us exactly where we'd been and exactly where we were going, Owen tried explaining to me with the aid of, and I quote, the "gun show", he's very helpful like that. Just after this I busted a textbook backward circle and an old dude on a road bike in all the gear stopped and clearly wanted to talk to us, he didn't though.

Burry Port has the absolute worst example of a skate park that I have ever seen and I have seen a lot of shit skate parks, unfortunately the useless bastards at Swansea council won't even cough up for an embarrassment like this!
Kerry was off like a rocket at times, later on in the day I spotted a slow worm on the path, said it was a snake and she did a great bit of classic Merckx acceleration, haha, GIRLS!

Amelia Earhart landed in Burry port after flying over the Atlantic way back when, there is a plaque commemorating her journey and this classic small town sign showing just how far away it really is from anything exciting.

We got to Kidwelly Castle, it was quite expensive to get in to so we just sat on a bench debating whether we wanted to hit the massive 12 or so mountain miles to Carmarthen, we decided it was too late to go any further. A classic Chevy Chase style American car pulled into the car park and this dude got out wearing sandals, a t-shirt and the brightest damned Speedo's ever, they were maybe even older than the castle.


First stop on the journey back was the Co-Op, in the car park we very much enjoyed looking at "Sue Per Snax", a crappy burger bar whose name is only topped by "Wots Cookin' To" in Clydach Market. For this picture my art direction was "you look in the bin and I will sit here like a king on a throne", I think Owen captured my vision perfectly.
This is where things got weird, we were about to find that the gravel track was quite a luxury earlier on. Cycle Route 4 goes through some private farm land in the Pembrey area, we had lost our way earlier and ended up on the road but this time we were determined to take the path. I've not been on a cycle path before where you have to descend a set of steps, go through a secure gate and come face to face with a herd of bloodthirsty cows. Me and Owen though that the "path" went right around the herd so we decided to have a race on the bovine velodrome, half way round we came up against a hurdle, namely a great big pool of slurry composed of shit and water, we turned around and raced back, our spirits and dreams shattered.


This cow was freaking Kerry out so we had to leave, there is something far more scary about a single cow than a whole load of the buggers don't you think?

Now this may look idilic but we were concerned about rapists and murderers at this point, we felt like we were in the middle of nowhere, we hadn't seen another human for a long time and all 3 of out iPhones were refusing to find the network. We kept going for what seemed like yonks, then the "SNAKE!" incident happened, Me and Owen took off in pursuit of a shaken but not stired Kerry...

...Something was wrong, gravel seemed badly thought out, steps and cows was a bit mental but an uphill stretch of 'cycle path' made out of sand was something else...

...Then the inevitable happened, we were on the beach...

Again the iPhones we hating us...

Even the 3Gs could not save us now!

So we just had to turn around and go back, at a crossroads we went right on to another gravel track and into the woods, we were sure this was Pembrey Country Park so all was well at last, we even started pulling some skidz.

Kerry's Charge Plug has been ringing, we had thought it was her bell but it turned out that all along it had been her back brake cable (she rides singlespeed cause she is a big girls blouse, ha!) pinging against the frame, luckily girls are an inventive, multitasking, weird bunch of people so she had a plan...

...Stick it down with a brightly coloured plaster, sweeeeet.
Back in Burry Port the bunting, brass band and general buzz across the water attracted us, we went over there to find the end of a fishing competition. Any other vegan would have walked away in disgust but not me, I love animals so much that seeing a squashed squirrel is as good as seeing a bear and seeing a big dead fish is better than seeing no fish so I had a quick look, made a few "I can smell fish, close your legs, love" jokes to myself then we headed off on the final stretch. The wind was behind us at last and we flew the last however many miles. The End.

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Alleycat News - 12/08/09

We've been working on the alleycat for a few days now, all the checkpoints are libraries and the name is the "Bookworm Alleycat". It is for fixed gear riders only: no geared bikes, no singlespeeds, no BMX, and no complaining about this! The date we are gunning for is Saturday 3rd October, so anyone from far away can come and not have to worry about work the next day, there will be plenty of floors for people to sleep on if they fancy a whole weekend in sunny Swansea.

No more details are gonna be released yet but stay tuned, all posts related to the race will be consolidated and easily reachable by clicking the button over there >>>

We already have some awesome sponsors donating some great prizes, more news on those soon, check out everyone that has confirmed so far:

Charlie The Bikemonger
Schmoos
Exist Clothing
Skullcandy
14 Bike Co.
Hell Yeah!
Velo Solo
JOL Straps
Ison Distribution
Re-Cycle

That is all for now...

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Performance, baby.

SOOOOOOOOOOOO GOOD!!!

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The Immortal Class: Bike Messengers and the Cult of Human Power

Has anyone out the read this book? Is it any good?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Immortal-Class-Messengers-Human-Power/dp/0375504281

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Alleycat Race

I've started work on Wales' first ever alleycat, so far all I have is a name, concept and a pencilled in date of September 27th. MORE INFO TO FOLLOW SOOOOOOOON...

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Fixed Gear Wales' Irish Correspondent...

Rebecca, who is from Wales but now lives in Ireland has just built herself a new fixie for her birthday, it's a real beauty, check out the specs:

Frame: Pake 49cm
Forks: Pake
Bars: Nitto
Stem: Unbranded
Crankset: Brick Lane Bikes 48t
Wheels: Weinmann Deep Vs and Hubs (17t cog)
Seat: Grunge
Chain: Pink KMC
Seatpost: Oval
Pedals: MKS
Cages: Brick Lane Bikes
Straps: Mt. Christophe

I think the term "sweet whip" is called for, hopefully she can bring it back over with her one day or we will make a trip over to Ireland for a ride :-)

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The Gower Explorers

On Saturday Kerry, Owen and me hit the Gower for a 35 mile ride or as I call it "the 35 mile vodka sweat-out torture session", actually it wasn't that bad, ha.
We started out from Kerry and Owen's pad in Gowerton after he had emptied her bag of the full set of spare clothes, bath towel and the kitchen sink, it was a really cool ride, lots of little but long hills to get the blood pumping and a couple of scary hill bombs including one where I gave up trying to skid and just went hell for leather instead which was both awesome and probably safer. We headed for Rhosilli, which is waaaaaay over towards the end of the Gower and a really beautiful spot, I found out that they fry their chips separately from any fish and shit so I went wild and gobbled down a full feast (see pic) which I was sure would be for the best but judging by the wall I hit on the hill back up and out of the area I'm not so sure now, It's a pretty bad feeling when you can barely turn your peddles innit. We were only nearly half way at this point so there was no point in feeling sorry for myself and I soldiered on.
I think I have run out of story, it wasn't the most exciting trip ever but it was great; the real story is that Kerry is planning a 60 mile round trip to Kidwelly this weekend which is gonna be a real killer but seeing as I'm 'never drinking again' at least my sweat will smell like roses and not like Smirnoff this time, ding ding!

Bike route 264999 - powered by Bikemap

Kerry fingering her sensitive eyes and me trying to work out which part I'm meant to sit on


The "shall we go left or straight on?" meeting

Me gobbling up chips and beans with a bap and some pop

Kerry with her health food, clearly green with envy
The whole gang posing in front of Worms Head

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