Alleycat ! Yeah ! Wooo ! Hoorah ! . . . Yes, it was ALL fun and games at the 2010 Guangzhou Alleycat.  The series of events took place over the weekend of January 15, 16 and 17 in Guangzhou, China.  Rather than try and write an official review, I’ll leave that to the event organizers and instead retell the adventures that I was able to be a part of.  Trains, Planes, Bikes, Beer and Parties : LET’S DO THIS !

For the first time ever in China I (and my teamates) decided to really ‘ dish out ‘ and spend extra the money on a train ticket that had a bed . . I know . . super baller . . But it was a million times better than the hard seater I normally take, so totally worth it in the end.  There were 4 of us that took the train from Shanghai (Jeff Liu, Drew Bates, Andy How and I), while Jue Hou and Mattias Erlandsson flew down in style.

Naturally we had a little party on the train with a bunch of beers and a laptop.  I mean really, how else are you going to kill 16 hours on a train packed so tight that you can feel the guy next to you breathing ?  Obviously we didn’t take any pictures because we were too concerned with finishing all of the beers and Ramen Noodles we bought before we got onto the train . . . so it was pretty fun.  We managed to get a really good nights sleep (unfortunately for me my giant body couldn’t fit between the wall and the bed railing), and arrived in Guangzhou the next morning around 10 am, ready to cycle.

As mentioned, we arrived shortly after 10am, assembled our bikes on the train platform, then strapped on all of our bags and headed into town to find a hotel.  Andy, the Guangzhou local, assured us that the hotel we were going to was close by . . Liar.  One hour later after bolting through downtown Guangzhou we managed to find the same hotel that Jaeky (from Hangzhou) and Hand Works were staying at.  At the same time, Mattias and Jue were enjoying their full body massages at beautiful hotels a little further outside of town.  The room we rented for the weekend was ok, something like 300 RMB per night (for 3 people).  Pretty clean, lots of space for our bikes, so we thought it was great.

We basically dropped off our stuff, then went for lunch where we met up with Mattias and Jue, and about 15 other Chinese Fixed Gear riders from other parts of China.  Really fun, met lots of really cool people.  By this point it was clear that the only foreign faces I would be looking at all weekend were Mattias, Drew, and my own reflection . . Literally, there are NO foreigners in Guangzhou – a nice change of pace compared to the growing laowai population here in Shanghai.

In the afternoon we decided to just ride around Guangzhou. WOW. The city is beautiful.  Since it’s near Hong Kong, the weather is amazing.  It was about 25 degrees celcius all weekend, I just wore shorts and a white beater each day.  Andy attempted to show us around to some of the checkpoints, but after realizing how damn far most of them were we gave up and went out for dinner at one of the local sponsored checkpoints, which was a restaurant owned by a local rider.

Super cool, very Chinese, very fun.  That night we took it pretty easy, and just went for a big bike ride with everyone that came down to Guangzhou for the race – about 70 people in all. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again : The guys from the South of China are FUCKINGINCREDIBLE at fixie tricks.  Move over Wonka, Johnson, and all Japanese riders – the Chinese guys are on the rise.  Below are a few snaps from local Guangzhou photographer Kai Wang :

It also happens that the #1 breakdancer in China, #1 bmx rider in Asia, and the #1 skateboarder in China are all from Guangzhou . . I mean, just sayin’ . . . I got to meet them all too- very cool.  Will stay in touch with them through e-mail.  They are working on a collaboration video together, so I’m pretty pumped to see that when it comes out !

We woke up around 8 am, and hit the road by 9am.  We thought it would be a good idea to do our ‘route’ that we had planned on a map before the race.  Since it is a totally new city to us, there are WAY more cars, and lots of hills – we had our work cut out for us.  So we rode around for about 4 hours until we had to show up to register for the race.  This race was a little different than most alleycat style bike races – same style in most senses, but you had to do it in teams of 3.  That means that all 3 of you have to be at each checkpoint to get your stamps, and all 3 of you have to show up at the end together.  Naturally, we decided to make the only foreigner team, and called ourselves ‘ BEARD ‘ since we all had one.  The Chinese guys were laughing pretty hard when we showed up to register – but little did they know we arrived to compete.

The race started at about 1:30, on the North side of the big river that runs through Guangzhou.  The race had 10 checkpoints, on both sides of the river – it was much longer than the race we had in Shanghai . . This is where my memory gets kind of foggy .  .

I don’t think I have pedaled that fast EVER.  Drew, my team mate from England, had a little device on his bike to track our distance and speed – turns out the route (well, the one we took) was about 40 KM . . We had an average speed of about 26 KM/h, with a top speed of 58 KM/h when we bolted down the big bridge over the river . .yes, flying through dirty Guangzhou traffic, brakeless (for me at least). . . Well . . .  WE WON !!!!!! WOOO !!!!!! 1st place !!!!!!!! haha. I’m still super amped, as I’m sure you can tell.

We did the whole race in 1hr and 13 min, beating all the local riders. When the second place team showed up (who are all local bike courriers), they almost shit themselves. One guy actually got so angry he threw his bike and his bag.  That’s how intense the competition was.  O man.  So many stories from the race, I’ll remember it forever – the ‘ super human hammerfest ‘ as we call call it coming from Mattias, combined with the psycho ratio of Drew’s bike (something like 46 x 11) and my extremely loud Chinese voice to move cars out of our way.  Below are the official results :

Non-Local :
1. Beard/Shanghai——(Tyler Bowa, Mattias Erlandsson, Drew Bates)
2. Phenom Cycles/Shanghai——(Jeff Liu, Jue Hou, AndyHow)
3. Hang On/Hong Kong——(Robert,Kenneth,Gary）

Overall :
1. Beard/Shanghai——(Tyler Bowa, Mattias Erlandsson, Drew Bates)
2. On9-2/Guangzhou——(Homie,Jimmy,CAI TOU)
3. Phenom Cycles/Shanghai——(Jeff Liu, Jue Hou, AndyHow)

Pretty much after the race I was useless : so tired I could barely walk, and Mattias was in bad shape (he’s old and his knees were killing).  The trick competition started around 5pm, and since none of us can really compete with the Chinese guys, we turned it into a drinking competition between ourselves . . also kind of our own personal celebration.

We continued with that idea until the after party / awards ceremony which started at 10 pm . .

The after party was at this really cool old factory that had been converted into an art space / small bar.   Props to the organizers of the event (Kevin, Harrison, Hugo, Homie, Jimmy) – they had a nice rack of prizes waiting for the winners, along with beers for everyone that competed ! My team ended up winning 6 t-shirts, 2 bike frames, and 1 carbon wheel.  The other Shanghai team ended up winning 3 shirts and 1 frame . . Amazing.  3 frames, 9 shirts, and a carbon wheel – not bad at all !  Too bad all the frames are way too small for any of us, so we’re going try out best to make sure that some riders in Shanghai get the chance to use them.  The carbon wheel we will all share, and trade it off every week . . Or at least that’s the plan anyways.

After the awards ceremony we went back to the hotel to clean ourselves up, and get ready to hit the best club in Guangzhou, according to B Boy Andy How.

Well, you get the idea . . .

Let’s see . . We got home at about 8 am . . So we woke up around 2 pm, checked out, and went for lunch.  Then we just hung out by the river all day since it’s so nice.

Drew, Mattias and Jue took the plan home, while 3 of us (me, Jeff, and Andy) took the train back to Shanghai.  Let me tell you, I have never run so fast in my life with so many things on my shoulder through a Chinese train station.  Seriously, Bolt, move over – there’s a new world’s fastest man.  Drew left his bike with us, so combined with our winning prizes we had to carry 7 bikes, 6 bags, a box with a carbon wheel, and some food between the 3 of us.  Goodbye security check : we started hauling things over the gates . . Did I mention when we arrived at the station we had 3 minutes to buy tickets, get through the station (which is like a maze), an board the train ? Heroic.

Needless to say I slept 15 hours straight on the train. I definitely need the rest.  Again, there are no photos from the train ride – go figure.

All in all the weekend was incredible.  Guangzhou is definitely a beautiful city, and I recommend anyone to go check it out.  Thanks again to all the organizers from Guangzhou, you guys did a great job !  Look forward to seeing you all at the Hangzhou Alleycat in March

- Tyler Bowa