Leslie and I just came from the very first Alleycat Race in Fort Bonifacio. What is an Alleycat Race? This race was originally organized by a community of messengers in Toronto, Canada on October 30, 1989. In this informal bicycle race, simple rules are given. Each participant or the team must go to organizer’s predetermined checkpoints. There is no one single route to each checkpoint. Each participant must study his route and find the fastest way to reach each checkpoint. However, this unsanctioned race at times can be very dangerous as experienced by a death of a participant in Chicago last February 2008.
With the introduction of the First Alleycat Race in the Philippines, we mustered enough self-confidence and decided to join. Two things prompted us: we are familiar with Fort Bonifacio since this is usually our route going home aside from being a regular visitor of High Street and we love to bike. Also, we are definitely joining not to win (since we believe we don’t stand a chance) but just for the experience since this will be our first race, ever. In alleycat races the emphasis is on taking part and less on competition — this is indeed a race made for us ;).
Past 6am we registered (free registration) under Executive Category (not in Open Category) in the Fort under the Bike Café Team. Intimidating were the other participants, their skin already sun-baked by constant cycling and their calve muscles bulging from constant pedaling. Our aim then — as long as we are not last — Alleycat racers refer to them as DFL or dead fucking last.
The race will traverse most areas in Fort Bonifacio. We need to follow the traffic rules and no counter-flow. The entire race is composed of 15 checkpoints (some are task checkpoints) and must be finished in two hours – from 8am to 10am.
As soon as the race kit was given, we studied our route. We practically knew each and every checkpoint. Based on our analysis (the banker in me taking over), the route we will be taking will be the most efficient and less tiring since we know that there are lesser uphills in said routes. The starting point was in Federation Drive (formerly Dencio’s near NBC Tent) and the go signal was fired exactly at 8am. Our nightmare started — we need to run from the starting line and go around half of Bonifacio High Street before we can ride our bike. We did not factor this in the equation, we were dead last in this segment ;(. It took us 20 minutes just to go around High Street and my legs were already numb ;). We practically walked the entire length since running is really not our cup of tea. Finally, we reached our bikes (thank God) – the last two bikes in the waiting zone since everybody was already on their way to the checkpoints.
Even though panting and half dying (and I though my heart will give way
), we reached our 1st checkpoint – 11th Avenue (near Fully Booked). After this, we went one check point to the next:
2nd - Market Market (near the playground)
3rd – Water Filtration Plant (back of International School)
4th – Bonifacio Triangle
5th – St. Michael Archangel Church
6th - The British School
7th - SpeedZone
8th – Bonifacio Technology Center
9th – Padre Burgos Circle (Steel Tree Sculpture) TASK CHECKPOINT. In this segment, there was a challenge, count the total number of trees in the rotunda – got it right at 105.
10th – Adidas Sports Camp - TASK CHECKPOINT. Another challenge, Rubik’s cube and you need to align one color. Good thing my wife, Leslie, was with me. She did it in less than a minute. I should have thrown in the towel if I was asked to do this ;).
11th – One McKinley Rotunda (near McDonald’s)
12th – 23rd Street (near Fairways Tower)
13th – Seibu
14th - McKinley Business Park (back of Essensa)
15th - 25th Street (near Somo – South of Market)
After finishing the race, we again parked our bikes in the designated drop-off point and started running – no, walking
again to the finish line. When we dropped off our bike there were very few bikes still and we knew that we finished in very good time. We reached the finish line and checked in at 9:16:23 seconds and garnered 100 points since we found all the checkpoints and did all the tasks. Our hopes went up, at first we just want to finish the race, when we learned our time – we realized that we can actually be winners.
Perhaps it was due to diminishing oxygen in our brain that we thought that we can win ;). There were six winners (3 on each category). The fastest time in the Open Category was 8:55. These guys were really fast since half of their time we were still running towards our bike ;). In the Executive Category, the 2nd runner up finished around 9:11am. Me and Leslie looked at each other and if only we can run perhaps we got the medal and the cash prize
;). We realized that the medal was within striking distance, perhaps next year — we need to practice running first ;). Our consolation, we were asked to pose for some pictures since we were the only husband and wife team.
The entire race was fun and I recommend this to new and veteran bikers. At least in this race, not only sheer pedaling power is key. Familiarity of the place, ability to read maps, strategy formulation count a lot as well.
See you next year.
As reflected in my heart rate monitor, 85% was considered hard or reaching 75% to 80% of my heartbeat. While around 11% was maxinum reaching over 85%. These were during the time that we were running or pedaling uphill. Our route reached 11.6 kms with maximum speed of 16.7 kms/hr. Eventhough we did not win any price we burned 1,123 kcal — pwede na…
The red marks represent the running phase while the yellow highlight represents the checkpoints 1 to 15.

Our Bike Cafe Team number — Number 40.

Our only guide to traverse the entire route. We followed a circular route.
