NEWCASTLE ALLEYCAT MAY 16TH 2011

Monday night saw the return of the alleycat to Newcastle, the first of 2011. The plan was simple, meet at the Tyne for 7pm, £2.50 fee to race, 6 checkpoints, 35 minutes to race, winner takes all. Each racer was given a manifest to document the locations of the checkpoints and the 4 digit code that was at each checkpoint, as they were unmanned they took abit of searching for at times.
Over a distance of roughly 10miles the checkpoints were as follows
- Sage (10 Points)
- Ride (Dentons) cycles (15 Points)
- Life Centre (15 Points)
- Leazes Park (20 Points)
- Armstrong Bridge (30 Points)
- Tanners Pub (10 Points)

With an extra 10 points up for grabs for the first rider back, the different weightings of each checkpoint and the ridiculous wind on Monday it was set to be a good'un.

So we set off, you may notice I'm not in this photo, not thinking I'd be able to get all checkpoints I tried my luck doing pretty much the reverse route to everyone else hoping that I'd get a tail wind the whole time.

The route was good, town was pretty empty so red lights/junctions weren't really an issue and my trick with the wind seemed to work, riders finished at the Tyne as follows

- Matt (+10 Points)

- Steve

- Tom (Me)

- Jun

- Mark

- Phil

- Barry (-10 Points late penalty)

And so it was results time. With everyone's points tallied up and £15 for the winner they came in as follows

1st Phil

2nd Tom (Me)

3rd Steve

4th tied Matt/Barry

6th Jun

7th Mark

Just 15points, Ride cycles, came between me and Phil, with at least 5minutes between our finish times I probably should have gone for all 6 checkpoints. There's always next time though. TO THE PUB!

Hopefully there will be another race within the next few months. Cheers to Jun and Fee for the photos.