Urban Bike Adventure

It was a chilly morning when I woke up and let the dogs out as I thought, "Man, if it's this cold at the beginning of September, how cold will it be for my Ironman in October next year?" Never fear, IMLOU is more than a year away and I had more important things to worry about this morning - like getting to Bicycle Sport to get a new battery for my long-dead bike computer, making a quick detour before heading downtown to get a long-sleeve shirt for the race since all I had brought was a tank top, and convincing myself that, despite the cool breeze in the air and having biked no more than 10.7 miles in the past year or more, I could actively compete in this downtown bike race. Ah yes, the Urban Bike Adventure. This would be mine and Alicia's third consecutive year doing this race, and typically find ourselves early-registrants due to the good times that we've had in the past. Not to mention that some friends of ours, Bill and Lisa (aka Team Nowax), have also competed in the race the past three years and we've since had a friendly little competition going on with these two. 2012 was only the second year that the race was held in Louisville, so it proved to be rather small. I'd say 20-30 teams of 2-4 people. The size, mixed with mine and Alicia's competitive nature, meant that we took home a second place overall win, as well as the first-place female-only team win in 2012. Last year the race was A LOT larger, and looked to be inundated with more kids and families, however, the distance that we had to bike (going from Downtown to Cherokee Park to Germantown and back to 4th Street Live again) must have scared some folks off because for 2014, we were back down to maybe 20-30 teams tops. Shortly after arriving and signing in we met up with Bill and Lisa to get in our annual "smack talk." They finished before us last year, so today's race was to be the tie-breaker for our two teams. The premise of the race: Each team gets a sheet of clues, which you have to decipher and then bike around town collecting photographic proof that you have either visited or achieved each challenge. A few examples of this years race were to convince random strangers to 1) strike the Heisman trophy pose, 2) play "war" with Alicia and I, 3) give either one of us a piggy-back ride, and 4) engage in a fake kung-fu fight. Beyond this, the challenges that my team-mate and I had to conquer were to take pictures at various locations around town such as The Brown Hotel, The Lincoln statue on the Riverfront, the Desert Storm memorial in Jeffersonville and Vernon Lanes Bowling Alley just to name a few. We also had to take video of us singing the Big Mac theme song in front of an actual McDonald's restaurant. Good times. Most of these challenges we took care of right away, as the folks we passed on the street were more than accommodating to our strange requests. This means we knocked out half the list before even getting a mile down the road. Our Achilles heel during the first part of the race was trying to figure out where the Desert Storm Memorial was. Neither of us had heard of it, and Google wasn't much help (yes, you can use any source to help figure out the clues). So we continued to head to the places we were sure of, hoping that we weren't unknowingly passing by this memorial in the interim. And this is where Alicia and I differ on strategy. She likes to hurriedly figure out the clues and haul-ass to the site regardless of if we know for sure where everything else is. I like to calmly take my time, figure it all out, and logistically plan where we should bike so that we're not constantly back-tracking. After making our way to the Big Four Bridge for a ridiculous cookie challenge (after each of us carrying a golf ball on a tee held in our hands for probably 50 feet, either of us had to get an Oreo from our forehead to our mouth without using our hands - just as hard as it sounds, BTW), we peddled to Jeffersonville to get a pic with a candy store before heading back to the 'Ville and up River Road to Frankfort Ave. and over to Story Ave. to "strike" a pose in front of Vernon Lanes. It was only here, after getting some much-needed and kind assistance from another team, that we found out that the memorial is, in fact, in Jeffersonville. So guess who's going across the Big Four Bridge for the second time that day? At this point we had only biked 6 miles, so it wasn't that big of a deal, but the fact that we were still trying to beat Bill and Lisa, coupled with the hills that we would have to bike up, yet again, on both sides of the bridge, tarnished my momentum just a bit. As I made my way onto the Louisville side of the bridge I saw that our frenemies had just begun the "cookie challenge." Not knowing if they had already made their way over to Indiana or not, I hauled butt up the curved structure for my second Jeffersonville visit. By the time Alicia caught up with me just 30-45 seconds later I had still not figured out where this place was. To top it off, while looking around I spot Bill coming off the bridge with Lisa falling in not far behind. Luckily, the four of us put our heads together and biked along the Jeffersonville waterfront to eventually find, salute, and photograph our respective teams in front of the memorial. Making our way back, Bill and Lisa thought we were kidding when we said we had already gotten our picture at the candy store, so their surprise when we made our way back onto the bridge was an astounding "Oh!" With only one more monument to visit, Alicia and I were feeling pretty good that we would win back both our title, and bragging rights, from Team Nowax. Making our way back across the bridge, Alicia spotted our target and we quickly made our way over to a statue of Abraham Lincoln for one last click and then back to Fourth Street Live. Still not knowing for sure where Bill and Lisa were in their quest, we maneuvered our way through downtown traffic trying not to get hit, and found ourselves pulling up to the Sports and Social Club in no time. We got checked in and showed our lovely photos to the official, then stuck around outside to cheer Team Nowax in. When it was all said and done all of us agreed it was a great time. We all enjoyed the race being smaller again this year, and as the weather warmed up and the "catching up" commenced over the unhealthiest of lunches, it turned out to be a great day for an awesome race. Alicia and I ended up coming in 6th overall, while Bill and Lisa took home a 10th place win. Regardless of place or finishing time, this is a really fun race that combines some of my favorite ways to spend a weekend afternoon: biking, racing, laughter, friendly competition, and memories. Until next year....