Soon we have the 3rd mini alleycat in our year long series. The first few alleycats have been quite successful, especially with the weather.

General gist of these races – Each race will be around 10 miles long, they may be longer and shorter depending on what fits.
There are no fancy arse prizes, each rider puts a pound into a ‘pot’ and the winner gets all.
At each checkpoint a letter is painted on the floor, I will hand out a piece of paper and a pen before the race starts for you to write down each of these. It is an anagram but you don’t have to work it out, it’s just an easy way to prove you’ve stopped at each checkpoint.

This race will be next weekend – Sunday the 15th of May. Meet at around 10:30am and aim to start around 11ish

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Sign up here and see you there!

Man, it’s been sooo long since I posted up here, so my apologies for that.

What better way to get back into the swing of things though than for a bloody good cause. Tyron from The Foot Down and a couple of others (so far) are riding from Swansea to London to raise money for the many people affected by the disasters in Japan.

The 200 mile ride will take place over 2 days on 20th and 21st April 2011 and is strictly fixed gear only. If you want to ride all or some of it you are welcome to join, but you must be riding fixed.

If you can’t ride, or even if you can, then DONATE NOW over on the JustGiving page and help hit the £2000 target.

More info over on The Foot Down here

Coming up will be the second event in our series of races. If you had ridden the last event you will have an idea of what’s coming up.
Otherwise – Each race will be around 10 miles long, they may be longer and shorter depending on what fits.
There are no fancy arse prizes, each rider puts a pound into a ‘pot’ and the winner gets all.
At each checkpoint a letter is painted on the floor, I will hand out a piece of paper and a pen before the race starts for you to write down each of these. It is an anagram but you don’t have to work it out, it’s just an easy way to prove you’ve stopped at each checkpoint.

This race will be on Sunday the 13th of March. Meet at around 10:30am and aim to start around 11ish

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Sign up here and see you there!

Looking back on the last alleycat it seemed to be a success. Clean, simple racing, winner gets all. Looking at the maps I had saved on google maps while trying to come up with a few themes for the last one, the idea of a series of evens came out. As the title suggests they will all be fairly short – nobody enjoys 20 miles in the freezing cold or pissing down rain.

Each alleycat will be around 10 miles long. The idea is to have one every other month so that it allows time for events in other areas.

First race of the series – ‘Alfie’ (Railway Alleycat) Sunday 16th of January

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Sign up here and see you there!

Alright then people – yes, it’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything and I apologise… it’s been a busy couple of months.

Anyway, what better way to get the wheels rolling again, as it were, then by announcing the first Fixed Gear Cardiff Christmas party.

Not quite your standard party affair, but more of a ride taking in a few of Cardiff’s finest drinkeries – route to be decided on the fly!

Meet at 2pm at the Pen & Wig and feel free to don a Christmas hat, Santa beard or equally naff festive attire.

Click here for details of the event on Facebook and see you next Sunday!

Oz has come up with a genius idea, a cheeky little alleycat around Cardiff that involves pubs. What’s not to like? The evenings are closing in, it’s getting difficult to ride so this is a perfect tonic to our autumn and winter blues…

Sunday November 14th, 11am – 15 miles or so, with an entry fee of 50p to £1. Not too hard.

Checkpoints as follows:

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As Autumn weekends go, this one was beautiful. The sky was almost cloudless and the wind was fairly steady.

Three of us headed down to Swansea for the much vaunted Owlycat put on by The Foot Down. Tyron promised this alleycat would be epic and he wasn’t wrong!

At 25 miles, and promising some big bastard hills, we needed to form a plan. We got there early, grabbed a bite to eat and armed with the Bikemap route route loaded into the phone (check out RMaps for Android) we followed it in the car.

It took us a good hour and a half and took in some huge hills that even the car had issues with. Afterwards we actually wondered whether it was such a good idea – yes, we now knew which way to go, but was it worth shitting ourselves up so badly?

The start of the race was classic Le Mans style, and once on our bikes it seemed like we’d got ourselves off to a good start. The only rider in front of us was Graham (G-bitch) from Bristol.

The first few miles along Oystermouth road were nice and flat with heavy Swansea traffic as the only problem. Then came hill 1, nothing serious just a short sharp kick but this was just a warm up for the next which had Gareth and Tim walking. The shame.

Down the other side and we were into Caswell for the first, off-the-beaten-track checkpoint and to our surprise a load of other riders! A last minute change of route had meant we’d climbed that first hill for no reason.

Still, it was good practice for the climb out of Caswell which was even worse. Now most riders were in sight of each other but even on his 66 inch gear Tim started lagging behind. At the top we were held up at a junction which allowed Sion to overtake.

After a long, straight and slightly windy drag past the airport, Sion was still up front, no doubt so was Graham so it looked like the race was on for third.

We nailed the next few checkpoints with the Cardiff group now back together and it stayed that way until we were heading back into Swansea for the finish. One incident with a bus caused a some arm waving and swearing but nothing too serious.

At the final checkpoint Oz still had something left in the tank while Garth and Tim were empty shells of human beings, jelly for legs and unable to talk just grunt and dribble.

It was agreed that the group could break and Oz was sprinting off to get some glory for Cardiff.  Steady climbing was becoming a drag but rounding a corner he caught sight of Sion ahead, walking up the final incline to the finish. It was like hitting a wall but he pushed on and stayed on the bike to snatch 1st place from Sion (we found out later that Graham had got lost and done an extra 5 or so miles).

A couple of minutes later Tim rounded the corner with Garth on his tail – both grunted their way up and crossed the line to take 3rd and 4th. It wasn’t long before the rest of the riders made it in all looking like they’d pushed themselves to the limit.

Back down to SA1 for the track stand comp and unsurprisingly young Jake from Bristol won again. Instead of the usual two hands, one hand, no hands until you fall Kerry dropped a “right hand on back wheel” in the mix. That was Oz out. Tim still standing for a few more seconds before the inevitable tap out.

A massive thanks to Tyron at The Foot Down for putting it all together and the sponsors for giving up all the merch -plenty of goodies for everyone and even some special stuff just for this race.

For full placings, more photos and a video, head over to The Foot Down (coming soon).

The Foot Down’s first alleycat, The “OwlyCat”, takes place on October 16th and promises to be an absolute corker.

The race is 25 miles hitting 5 checkpoints along a set route, a map of which is available on The Foot Down now to make sure that out-of-towers have plenty of time to familiarise themselves with it. Because of the set route local riders will have far less advantage than normal, the secret knowledge of backroads will be of no advantage here, the strongest rider will win.

As well as the race there will be the usual longest skid, trackstand and footdown comps followed by the prize giving and piss up.

It goes without saying that Cardiff will be bringing home gold on this event after narrowly missing it at the Scenic Sprints last time… And whatever happens, by fair means or foul, Tyron will not be winning!

As usual, the guys in Swansea have demonstrated their typical hospitality and have offered out of town riders somewhere to stay the night with locals for a day of hangover busting riding on the Sunday if they want.

Head on over to The Foot Down for more info and a cheeky little map showing you what the terrain profile’s gonna be like.

Just a reminder that Cardiff’s October Critical Mass will be taking place this Saturday (2nd) starting as usual at 11am by the Museum steps. Please show your support you lovely bikers.

Stolen Bike Cardiff is a great web site has been set up by Dafydd Meurig documenting, as the name suggests, bikes that have been stolen in Cardiff.

If you’ve had your bike stolen in the past, you know what it feels like when you think there’s no hope of getting it back. Hopefully now there’s a better chance of seeing your whip again with more people keeping their eyes peeled for some little oik popping wheelies on your property.

If your bike is stolen, email the site with the details (where and when it was stolen, description of the bike and photos if possible) at stolencardiff@gmail.com.

Please help spread the word – the more people that know about the site, the more effective it’ll be.