The last Sunday of September I did the Urban Assault bike race with my friend Tigger and her friends! We had a BLAST! It was such fun. It was about a 25 mile course, that was a bit like the "amazing race". We had 8 checkpoints to make along the route that went all over Long Beach. You could pick whatever route you wanted to take, however some of the major streets that are heavy traffic were off limits. This made it a lot of creative thinking to get from point to point. At each check point there was an activity that must be completed. Some of them were; riding a bmx bike with your partner on the back on the pegs, pushing your partner 1/2 way down a football field and back in a wheelbarrow, a word problem to solve, bounce up and down a hill on a large bouncy balloon, bean bag toss, riding a "big wheel" on a closed course, and we also had two mystery stops we were given clues to figure out their location. At each check point we were given a little bead to put on a chain for our completion of that checkpoint. At the end of the race we had to show all of our 8 beads. It was such fun, and I realized how much those little beads meant to us. I am now wearing ours as a necklace as they are soo significant!
At the end we came in at 2 hours and 26 minutes, and were 5th place in our co-ed category. It was fun, fun, fun, and well worth it all. It was a beautiful day, and afterwards we were fed Chipotle burritos, and beer and had door prizes. The entire event started, and ended at Timmon's Subaru in Long beach, and there were about 75 couples total that participated in the event. It was such fun, and I will certainly be sure to do this race again next year, and see who else wants to do it as well.
Be on the lookout if this race comes to your city, you should sign up and do it. It is really for the normal working person, and not for professional bikers, so that is great. It is more about having fun, than competing against all the other bikers. It is also designed to get you out and biking all over your city, places that you would normally drive your car, to make you think that biking is a great way of transportation around your city. I think this is great! I love to do this as much as I can normally, but it certainly makes you think more about it. The event was also very environmentally conscious, with no paper fliers, no plastic bags, and all bottles, glasses, etc were recycled! What a great event.
Check out the website for urban assault if you would like to find more about it, or see any more pictures; http://www.urbanassaultrace.com/
