Rumours of a race in Vancouver began to circulate during the Cycle Messenger World Championships'96. Photocopied pamphlets of some crazy poster made their rounds, while Toronto couriers seemed to promise the impossible. A human powered rollercoaster on a crazy figure eight track, totally sponsored by the cigarette maker Dunhill.
But it was the dog's honest truth. In the grand tradition of the six-day race and Barnum and Bailey Circus, the Toronto Alley Cats were crash landing in Vancouver. They were going to to build a velodrome right out of a professional track rideržs nightmare.
The master plan was simple. Build a huge ramp in a warehouse in downtown Vancouver. Pick nine cities to host illegal alley cat races and their winners would be sent to the big kahuna race in British Columbia. Invite the Vancouver couriers to come race the course. Have a bunch of bands play, put on a great race and everyone have a good time. Funny how sometimes things donžt always come up the way you planned.
The whole craziness started when marketing experts at Saatchi & Saatchi, a bigger than life advertising company made the stunning discovery that couriers smoke a lot and a lot of couriers in Vancouver smoke Dunhills.
When the cigarette maker got hold of this interesting bit of information they wanted to do an event that involved Vancouver couriers. Somehow, word of AlleyCat races had made their way up the corporate ladder and Dunhill wanted to get involved. But they had no idea what an AlleyCat race was. So Saatchi approached Saatchi who approached John from Jet Fuel, who approached Sue from Sony who introduced them all to Andrew from Batcave. The deal was done after the Dunhill execs saw the master plan on the back of brown paper bag.
The brown bag concept was brought to life by Toronto engineer John Concelloti. The final design was a masterpiece even after taking into account the fifteen foot cielings and the five support poles running the length of 1170 William St the site of the race in Vancouver. Now that the plans for the track were completed the second stage of the event could take place.
The qualifying races would be held October 5th in the nine cities picked to host the illegal street races. San Francisco, Boston, Bremen, Berlin, London, Calgary, Washington, Montreal and Toronto were to be the sites. For the uninformed, AlleyCats are illegal bike races that take in the entire city as their race course.
Because of time restrictions the Europeans couldn't put on a proper AlleyCat race, so their participants had to be picked by the city's representatives. Bremen sent Lars Urban, winner of Cycle Messenger World Championship '95. Berlin gave their ticket to Crissima Pearce of Munich, Sprint champion of CMWC '96. London sent John Elliot, winner of many Alley Cats held in England earlier that summer.
North America races were held a week after the 5th. Washington sent Eric Roman, Montreal's winner was Fred Paquette and SF's fastest was Tobias Chapman. The mighty Tim Critchlind, he of the bouncy bike flew across the rockies from Calgary to attend. After a few weeks of trying to make contact with someone in Boston, all attempst were cut off. It seemed couriers in Boston don't have phones. Toronto sent a contingent of five racers. Keith McDonald, Kevin X, Joe Dias, Kevin Lehmna and Laura Hopcroft.
On Friday October 19th the ramp builders landed in Vancouver. The third part f the plan could now begin. The suppirt truck met them on time and the lumber was delivered as planned. They had enough money to be taken care of comfortably while they worked for free to build the ramp. That was until the Vancouver building inspectors wanted the track earthquaked proofed. This cost the team three thousand dollars and it all came out of their lunch money. So much for being comfortable. Then of course there was the fifteen hundred dollars to get the engineer's stamp on the plan.
But nothing would deter the builders from completeing their work. They would finish the ramp, or die trying. And they almost did die. A quarter of the supporting beams were in place when one decided to fall over. Can you say domino effect? Screws ripped out and lashings zinged across the room like shrapnel. The whole thing came crashing down on Greg Moore, the head carpenter, head. But in a miracle move he tucked himself into the framework and tons of wood missed him.
Soon after the wood began to speak to another of the carpenters and then the legend of the Ramp builders of Or with their weapons the Sawzall of Cincinatti and the mighty Hammer of Eastwing, the bluntest cutting utensil known to man rose from minds with too much time on their hands.
Working twelve hour days for nine days straight, they worked in a state of exhaustion every night, just to get up and do it all over the next day. They may have lost their mind and their sense of smell, but they finsihed a job that would have killed most men. But they weren't done yet. They still had to tear the damn thing down once the event was all said and done.
Part four of the plan was problably the hardest part of all. Getting the Vancouver couriers to come out and play. That was because the Vancouver couriers were put off by the newspaper ads put out by Saatchi & Saatchi. Nice pictures, but a little lacking in information.
This all changed when the out of town couriers showed up and began to inform them what they were missing out on. When the Vancouver couriers went to check out the track, their reaction was all the same. They would walk in, their eyes would grow wide with excitement and they would ask to give it a try.
The word travelled fast and by the time registration ended Wednesday October 30th, more then half of the eighty-eight racers who had signed up for the human powered rollercoaster were from Vancouver. Other racers had come in from Toronto, Seattle, San Francisco and Boston.
The last piece of planking was placed on Monday October 28th in a ceremony not unlike that of the last spike. Each carpenter took one screw and one after another zipped it into the wood. Then the designer, John Conselloti and finally Johnny Jetfuel. The track was officially opened and that night, the ramp hummed with the sound of bike tires on plywood.
The program of the event went sometihng like this. The Qualifiers began on October 30th at 2 p.m. There were lots of rules but only two had to be followed. No cutting off other racers and if you crashed you were disqualified. Two racers were on the track at the same time. They were given five laps, four to warm up and the fifth was timed. The fastest lap time was placed by Lars Urban at 11:64 seconds. The fastest woman was Crissima Pearce of Munich who placed 26th overall. Only sixty four of the eighty-eight racers advanced to the next round. At 6 p.m. the DJ's started and then at 8 p.m. the bands came on and for the rest of the niht it was just one big rock and roll race.
The second day of racing started at 4 p.m. Sixteen semi-final races were held. Four racers on the course, first one over the line would advance to the next round. The quarter-finals consisted of four elimination races of twenty laps. Second verse same as the first.
Of the out-of-towners only Lars Urban from Bremen and Joe Diaz of Toronto qualified for the finalfinal race as well as Chris Holden and Ron Haws from Vancouver. Crissima Pearce was the victor of the woman's competition. it was an easy win because her opponent Jody Kreiter of SF wiped out and was disqualified.
At midnight on October 31st the fifty lap final began. From the onset it was Lars's race. He quickly outdistanced his closest rival and easily came up the winner. The real race was for second between Diaz of Toronto and Holden of Vancouver. Haws was quickly left behind and lapped by the three other racers. In the end it was Joe Diaz in second and Chris Holden third.
But there were two winners of the AlleyCat Scramble in Vancouver. The first was lars Urban of Bremen Germany and the second was the Jetfuel Ramp Builders who won their race against time to build the course. The courier from Bremen may have won his race, but the real stars of the event were the ramp builders who constructed the course in nine days.
The only thing that actually went according to plan was putting on a race, having bands playing and evreyone having a good time. The racing was exciting and the event was a blast. The best time of the entire ordeal was seeing people racing around the track with huge shit eating grins on their faces. Cyclists who if left to their own desires would never have gotten off the human powered rollercoaster.
With the grace of Dunhill this event will happen again and who knows there could be a gang of ramp builders and out of town couriers coming to a warehouse near you. With any hope, Vancouver was the first stop on the human powered rollercoaster tour.