Southampton Alleycat

On Tuesday (10th of February) there has been an alleycat in Southampton. After my last races, all in London, finally I could race in a city that I know quite well. I was super excited, but also not super confident. It is hard to race when you don't know your opponents.

At the Guild Hall at 19:30 there was 10 of us, mostly form Southampton, but with a big group from Bournemouth (http://www.thehubcycleworks.co.uk/). Paul, the organizer, had done a good job at keeping the race simple but exciting. The checkpoints were to be done in sequence, as we got the address of the second one only once we reached the first one, and so on. On one hand this removed the issue of having to decide the order ourselves (one less variable). On the other hand maybe it made it a bit more easy for the outoftowners, who could easily follow the leader.

The list of checkpoints was the following:
1-Big black anchor on High st.
2-Saint Mary's stadium
3-N4 Cafe on Canute road 4-Red Funnel pier
5-Eastgate st. Car Park
6-Starbucks at Marlands shopping Ctr.
7-Central Train Station

8-The Hub cycleworks (http://www.thehubcycleworks.co.uk/)

9-Court of Justice
10-Skate ramp in Hoglands Park
11-FINISH @ Guild Hall

The beginning was quite fast, but smooth. No major problems finding the route, nor the check points. Unfortunately though, at the 5th checkpoint I looked for a car park on East st, instead of Eastgate st! I probably lost about 5 minutes asking around and ended up calling Paul. By the time I found the parking lot I was well behind everybody else! Inside me I knew that there where not many chances anymore, but I did my best. I was alone so I was more free in choosing the trajectories and I think I did a pretty good job: when I arrived at the 10th checkpoint the leading group was just sprinting off towards the finish line! Just a couple more checkpoints and I would have reached them!In the end I arrived 5th, first of the Southampton people, but behind the crew from Bournemouth: they managed to follow Rich, who would have arrived 2nd if he did not have to go back to the first checkpoint, which he missed the first time around.

Overall classification:
1st-Felix Speller 2nd-Jacob Smith
3rd-Ben Ramshaw
4th-Dan Armstrong
5th-Me
6th-Rich Le-Vallee
7th-Jack Buckley
8th-Ashley Robertson
9th-
DNF-Ben Hames ... unlucky man! He got a puncture almost at the start of the race!

Thanks to Paul and Leyton for organizing the event, to the Bournemotuh Crew for coming and racing so well, to everybody for the good spirit, and to The Hub for the sponsorship!

See you all next time!

Here is my track through the race. Unfortunately I started the recording only after the first checkpoint, so the track misses the super fast first part of the race.