Socks In Sandals

New Belgium Brewery took their Urban Assault Bike Event to Seattle for the first time last weekend. Annajo was my teammate for team Cutters (from old 80’s movie). Other ‘rival teams’ consisted of Jack and Clem with their brothers - we actually stayed together for the most part.

The event consisted of 5 known checkpoints and 3 mystery check points. You had to figure out the puzzle at the check-in to find the first mystery check point, and then solve another clue at that check point to find the other… rinse and repeat.

Knowing the first checkpoint and the 5 others the day before the race, we hopped on the scooters and plotted our course. It was a great day to be cruising around on the scooters. But then my mp3 throttle cable snapped. So, we didn’t get to check out the whole course, but got the hill part mapped out. Spent some time waiting for a toe instead. Hurray AAA.

The race kicked off at 9:00 am and since we got an average score on the impossible pre-race test, we started in wave 2 of 3 - so 2.5 minutes behind the lead! We weren’t in it to win it though - just was there for bikes and beer.

At each checkpoint, a whimsical obstacle had to be completed before moving on as well as 2 riddles to be sorted out. Mad props to Freed for standing by with New Belgium beer knowledge, and Christian for… well trying to Google the random local coffee shop. That one was impossible, but we ‘overheard’ the answer!

To sum up the day - we all had a BLAST! Total riding distance was around 20 miles encompassing Fremont, Capital Hill, Greenlake, and Ballard. Couple hills in the course indeed, the biggest being Denny Way.

Filed under: Events, Road Bike on May 19th, 2008