pillage 4 alleycat

so about 2 weekends ago i got to be a checkpoint at a halloween alleycat race… unfortunately, on the saturday it was originally set for there was a typhoon storm, so it got pushed to sunday, which greatly diminished the turnout. supposedly a whole bunch of crazy fixie riders were going to be there, but i guess the word didn’t get out that it had been moved to the next day. sunday was a totally beautiful sunny day! i’d heard a bunch about setagaya park before, and how tons of good riders go out there to hang out and tear it up, but i’d never been there so i was thrilled at the opportunity to go check it out! since it was a halloween race, there were costumes! as a checkpoint i had to stand on a street corner with a bag of candy in my bear suit, and wait for people to ride up to me and say “trick or treat”, then i’d give them a piece of candy.

for those of you who don’t know, at this type of race, when it starts you get a list of points to go to and collect something. you can go in any order, you just want to hit the most places and collect the most stuff in the shortest amount of time. it is mostly a bike messenger scavenger hunt thing because they know the streets really well. i could never run a race like that in tokyo because this town has no logical street layout or urban planning. ever since edo, tokyo just keeps burning down and they randomly build on top of it.

lets see photos!

this guy had the right idea… all you need is a toy gun, a gas mask, a sweet camera/lens/flash setup and a bike! thats a good halloween race

skid contest

this is pissumo (pista+sumo), also called footdown, basically everyone stands in a circle, with 2 people in the center trying to trackstand the longest. (you can also try to knock the opponent off the bike as well).. pretty entertaining