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Alleycat bicycle racing hits streets of Hangzhou
By Laura Imkamp |
October 18, 2011, Tuesday
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Print Edition
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IT started in Canada in the 1980s, and last Saturday, almost exactly 22 years later, the first official Alleycat hit Hangzhou.
To put it simply, an Alleycat is an informal street race for cyclists. Rules vary but generally, as in this case, riders are given checkpoints throughout the city. They can hit the checkpoints in any order as long as they stop by each one before heading to the finish point.
It's as much about street smarts as it is about speed, and it's particularly popular among bike messengers and fixed gear riders in Europe and North America.
But Saturday's race attracted 93 bikers on all sorts of two-wheeled builds - including Hangzhou's famous public bikes.
"I saw some awesome pictures (in That's Zhejiang) about this tempting public bike category," says Jakob Schmidt, a German who's only lived in Hangzhou for a month. "'I can do that,' I thought. So I did it."
And even though the traffic took some getting used to, Schmidt says "it was a true pleasure to race down the street and ignore all traffic lights."
That kind of risk is another thing Alleycat is known for (all of Saturday's participants had to sign a waiver before taking part) and even though some riders had a few run-ins with cars, no one was seriously hurt. Plus the half-priced drinks for cyclists made bruises much more bearable.
"It was the perfect setting for a race," says Daniels Langeberg, an Australian living in Shanghai who crashed three times. This was his first time taking part in an Alleycat, and his first time ever in Hangzhou.
"The weather was perfect, the locals were really helpful and completely open to a bunch of people riding around on crazy-looking bikes - even when you crashed into them."
Although Hangzhou's roads were a bit challenging for out-of-towners like Langeberg and others who came from cities like Suzhou in Jiangsu Province and Ningbo in Zhejiang Province, organizer Kevin Sundeen says he thinks the city is the best in China for riding bicycles.
"For one, you can bike on every road in a bike lane," says the American who's been living in Hangzhou for two years. "In Shanghai, there are so many roads you can't bike on, (police) yell at you, it's one way ... I like Shanghai but sometimes it can be such a pain."
Hangzhou native Eric Shi, who lives in Ningbo, says the same thing. He came back to his hometown just for this race.
"I think it's great," he says. "There are so many people here and everybody is so friendly."
And it's a great way to get a fast-growing community together. According to Sundeen, there are almost 400 fixed gear bikers in Hangzhou now - a big number considering that up until about six months ago, Sundeen says, he very rarely saw other fixie riders on the roads.
"Now I see at least two or three fixed-gear people riding by every week, which is not a lot but it's more than it has been in the past."
And this is just the first of more such events Sundeen plans to put together. He says he's hoping to use this as a platform not only to organize races and rides, but also to get more bikers throughout the city to mingle.
The event came across as mostly as a way to expose urban biking subculture, which is just "a really cool community," Langeberg says.
"I felt happy and proud to be part of what was going on in Hangzhou," he adds. "It's something that you don't get to do every day."
To put it simply, an Alleycat is an informal street race for cyclists. Rules vary but generally, as in this case, riders are given checkpoints throughout the city. They can hit the checkpoints in any order as long as they stop by each one before heading to the finish point.
It's as much about street smarts as it is about speed, and it's particularly popular among bike messengers and fixed gear riders in Europe and North America.
But Saturday's race attracted 93 bikers on all sorts of two-wheeled builds - including Hangzhou's famous public bikes.
"I saw some awesome pictures (in That's Zhejiang) about this tempting public bike category," says Jakob Schmidt, a German who's only lived in Hangzhou for a month. "'I can do that,' I thought. So I did it."
And even though the traffic took some getting used to, Schmidt says "it was a true pleasure to race down the street and ignore all traffic lights."
That kind of risk is another thing Alleycat is known for (all of Saturday's participants had to sign a waiver before taking part) and even though some riders had a few run-ins with cars, no one was seriously hurt. Plus the half-priced drinks for cyclists made bruises much more bearable.
"It was the perfect setting for a race," says Daniels Langeberg, an Australian living in Shanghai who crashed three times. This was his first time taking part in an Alleycat, and his first time ever in Hangzhou.
"The weather was perfect, the locals were really helpful and completely open to a bunch of people riding around on crazy-looking bikes - even when you crashed into them."
Although Hangzhou's roads were a bit challenging for out-of-towners like Langeberg and others who came from cities like Suzhou in Jiangsu Province and Ningbo in Zhejiang Province, organizer Kevin Sundeen says he thinks the city is the best in China for riding bicycles.
"For one, you can bike on every road in a bike lane," says the American who's been living in Hangzhou for two years. "In Shanghai, there are so many roads you can't bike on, (police) yell at you, it's one way ... I like Shanghai but sometimes it can be such a pain."
Hangzhou native Eric Shi, who lives in Ningbo, says the same thing. He came back to his hometown just for this race.
"I think it's great," he says. "There are so many people here and everybody is so friendly."
And it's a great way to get a fast-growing community together. According to Sundeen, there are almost 400 fixed gear bikers in Hangzhou now - a big number considering that up until about six months ago, Sundeen says, he very rarely saw other fixie riders on the roads.
"Now I see at least two or three fixed-gear people riding by every week, which is not a lot but it's more than it has been in the past."
And this is just the first of more such events Sundeen plans to put together. He says he's hoping to use this as a platform not only to organize races and rides, but also to get more bikers throughout the city to mingle.
The event came across as mostly as a way to expose urban biking subculture, which is just "a really cool community," Langeberg says.
"I felt happy and proud to be part of what was going on in Hangzhou," he adds. "It's something that you don't get to do every day."
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