I think we're totally going to win! (Madison Urban Assault)

4 "casual" bikers decided to sign up for Urban Assault Ride in Madison.  Basically, this is a "race" where teams of 2 bike to 7 locations around town and do various challenges. You have 3 hours to do this race.   While we jokingly decided we could "totally win this" race we really just thought we'd get it done in the time limit. 

Things started out great.  You start out by running en masse to your bike. We had figured out the 1st mystery checkpoint (by Blue Moon on Atwood), rode over & got our 1st bead and the clue to the 2nd mystery checkpoint.  2nd checkpoint ended up being the children's museum (clue was a cow picture) so we rode over, got the next bead and headed to checkpoint 3 near campus. Here we had to do our first challenge - put together a shape puzzle.  Because we are super brilliant we finished this really quick and then started the trek out to the West side.  And this is where is all went a little awry.  

We had this brilliant plan of riding in a circle and knocking out all the west side checkpoints one by one and returning to Olin park victorious to enjoy our Roman Candle pizza and New Belgium beer. Now I know the is the Madison Beer Blog but aside from Wisconsin I think Colorado has great microbreweries.  So I don't mind celebrating them here especially since I just got back from a Colorado trip and Fat Tire makes me nostalgic. 

Anyway - back to the tale.  We sort of knew the general area where we were supposed to go to reach Saris (in Fitchburgh) - but none of us felt super secure so we collectively took many wrong turns.  We ended up getting lost in the Allied Drive neighborhood, called each other "Magellan" repeatedly, had to backtrack then took the wrong bike path, were saved by a nice lady who shook her head at our ability to get lost on a bike trail  - but finally made it to Saris. 

There we had to do a "paperboy" challenge where one person rides and throws newspapers and the other catches them in a box.  We really stunk at this so we got sent to the penalty box and lost more time.  Finally we were back on the road, hit REI where the human wheelbarrow challenge claimed a victim (Amanda's Ray Bans and her back suffered from a tremendous spill).  Realizing there was no way we could make out last 2 checkpoints we knocked out one more and were so late getting back that they were cleaning up the big wheel challenge at the end. 

We are not so sure what happened.  We think there was a time warp out there on the west side.  This why I generally choose to stay on the Isthmus.  West side = confusing and scary and time warpy.  But it was a beautiful day to ride around Madison, we had a blast and despite not finishing in the time allotment, they still gave us our beer at the end.  

What we learned from this experience:

- Plan ahead (having a general directional idea not good enough)
- Maybe ditch the cruisers - as loyal as I am to Pee-Wee Herman bike it just didn't cut it for speed
- Costumes and head to toe Lycra suits seem to help
- Practice riding tiny bikes, walking on cans, being a human bowling ball  - or bring $ for bribes!
- Get more than 2.5 hours of sleep
- It is super important to be with awesome friends in case you do get lost or caught in a time warp
- Amanda should grow a moustache

New Belgium Beer options at the finish:

Fat Tire - I love this Amber Beer and it was served nice and cold - great drink after a race.  (Amy liked this one too)

Ranger IPA - super hoppy.  Good but only if you like hoppy beers.  (I prefer Hopalicious)

1554 - A dark, rich ale that Rachael liked. 

Photo collection: