St. patrick's day alleycat - march 17. 2005

I did a alleycat last nite. with a little irish gleam in my eye. and it was a
great way to break in the orange one - my first long ride on it.

this was my second alleycat...and a bit more sedate that my first. me and greg did
one of sam's last summer with my friend alexis and a bunch of other folks. it was
a 4hr fast paced cruise all through town, and included a track standing contest,
dodgeball, dance reveolution challenge at the arcade - and up and down at least 5
or 6 parking garages. sweet. it was great.

it started at 9:30pm behind BSS toomey. it was 2.5hrs of riding through the city -
I got home at 12am. so freakin fun. I loved it. it was a small group, all were
friendly and I was ready to put some miles on the bike through the city.

brian, the guy in charge, got us together and said there was no manifest - cuz uh,
he got lazy. ha. he gave us the first checkpoint address to ride to and said: GO.

1st location was 1200 block of west oltorf - we were to go to the backyard and the
girl standing there at the fence would stamp our hand and tell us the second
checkpoint. I am not a on-the-johnny-spot navigation girl....so I quickly jumped
on the wheels of a couple guys and said - hi, I'm megan, I'm going to be following
you. and they said ok! they were both dressed in green knickers, vests, knee socks
and golf like hats. luck of the irish!

2nd checkpoint was in east austin on 11th street - the 1600 block at a church. wow
- that is a nice area. I had no idea - and great big vacant streets to ride on. we
met and brian and rita were there. we waited for everyone to get there. brian
handed out waterballons to haul around and throw at any vehicle with a "W" sticker
( extra points if it was a hummer) and gave us our instructions for the 3rd
checkpoint.

we grouped up with a few of the other guys here - and all were off to west 5th
past lamar. so back down 11th. through SXSW downtown - damn there were lots of
folks out. at the checkpoint, we had to find a rock with papers under it and
answer the question on the paper. (in fact, the checkpoint was the new upcoming
location of Empire bikes - nice)

we pointed our ragged irish bike gang to south congress, past SO-HO to the old
porno theatre at the 4th checkpoint.

everyone was just standing around cuz. uh - brian forgot to tape the instructions
to the building. ha. someone called him and he told us to get to the dog and duck.
we all waited for everyone to show so no one would be lost. we did lose one guy -
he never showed at the theatre so we left a note. then we charged down congress
through downtown, where I bagged my "W" extra point deadon. we congregated at dog
and duck to add up points. the guy on the PINK fixie won I believe. he promptly
said: ok cool....i gotta get to bed now.

good times. I said my goodbyes - they said the next one is easter. here comes
peter cottontail.....