Count us among those who have never been enamored with the Tour de France. Even before it became an event pitting the skills of rogue chemists trying to come up with new performance enhancers against those of chemists trying to catch them we weren't glued to the tube wathcing spandex-clad men zip through provincial Gaul. That's not to slight their athletic ability, just a statement of fact.
This weekend, though, New York hosted a different, more appealing bike race. It's called an "alleycat" and is designed to mimic the skills needed to be a top bike messenger in a city that's filled with thousands of them. 20 checkpoints were spread across Staten Island and each participant needed to navigate their own course through them, get their manifest signed and move on toward the finish. It's every man for himself, there are no teams that work their asses off so that one member gets to compete for a yellow jersey, and no routes lined with Frenchmen. And instead of blood doping drugs, the competitors rely on a kick of a different nature.
The competitors had a deadline and a mission: Get their manifests signed or stamped at various spots around the island. “Real bike racing is a rich man’s sport,” said Mike Dee, a messenger and an organizer of the race, called the Staten Island Invasion. “This is like the bike race for the rest of us — people who like to drink a beer in the mornings.”
It was the kind of race for which Pete Lang, a 25-year-old messenger, warmed up by smoking a cigarette.
NASCAR, another sport that's never captured my fancy, could learn something from these guys. Stick 40-odd drivers in cabs, have them pick up fares around the city for six hours and get judged on earnings and number of trips, though, and you've got yourself something that I'd watch.
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