Urban Assault Ride
So a week ago Sunday, while Heather was still here, a friend and I rocked the Urban Assault Ride here in Mpls. She had discovered it back in June, so we'd been looking forward to it for a long time (though it didn't mean we'd been doing any hardcore training or, for that matter, actually completing the quiz that would have given us a higher starting location!).
The race involved riding to five checkpoints and completing various obstacle courses at each, as well as making it to three mystery checkpoints, clues to which were give at the previous mystery checkpoint (we got the first clue in our registration packet). The obstacle courses included things like biking limbo; a bigwheel course; mini-bikes; and a newspaper toss/catch. At each checkpoint, we were given a bead to hang on our necklace. Checkpoints ranged from the flagship REI store in Richfield to downtown Minneapolis; I think we ended up figuring that we rode about 23 miles altogether (although the two of us only made it to five of the checkpoints during the three-hour limit). Unbelievably, the team that won (in the men's division) finished the entire thing in just an hour and 39 minutes!
OH. I almost forgot. We were slowed down by one tiny detail: a massive spike through my rear tire, within the first mile! How this thing managed to puncture both walls of my tire, I don't know, but we were close to the first checkpoint, and in line there, met two very nice boys who had a spare tube and wouldn't even let us pay them for it! One of them even replaced the tube for me, though when I went back across the street to BP to inflate it, I discovered he'd gotten my wheel on all wonky and had to fix it myself. That's how I ended up covered in grease, as demonstrated here.
Overall, however, it was a fantastic time and we both had a blast. Next year, we hope to make all the checkpoints--and to come up with creative costumes! (And come to think of it, maybe next year I won't run nine miles before the race starts... I was exhausted!)
More pictures are here:
2 comments:
That race sounds so cool! It reminds me a little bit about this city race I saw once (but never actually did), where you have to take public transit, and do challenges at the different checkpoints.
you are so hard core in those pics! this race sounds like so much fun. though i probably would do the race ern is referring to before i would do a bike race. me being lazy and unfit and all. hehe.
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