Tuesday, November 20, 2012

TurkeyMan 2012. IT's On.

Noteworthy news for the evening: I got my garage shop/workbench as clean and organized as its been in ages.  All that means is that you can see to surface of the workbench and I moved and straightened up a bunch of tools on my pegboard.  World changing? Nope.  Life Altering? Not really .  . .  Quite satisfying?  Yep.

Now to get ready to wax skis

 In other news:

  • It's -2 F (-19 C)  outside at the moment 
  • Top secret operation "Turkey Launch" is well underway.  More details in the near future.
  • TurkeyMan 2012 is official ON, it's looking like there might be a record turnout.
For those who don't know (but actually want to know)  TurkeyMan is a Thanksgiving weekend anti-race of sorts I've put on for friends and friends of friends the past couple years.

It all begins with a social sourdough pancake/waffle brunch before a sort of competitive, human powered (bike, ski, run, there have even been kicksled participants) "race" in the woods near our house.
The event is loosely based on the urban alleycat race format in that their several checkpoints set up in the nearby forest and participants need to visit and document (photograph) their completion of each checkpoints instructions.  There is no prescribed route and checkpoints can be completed in any order people like.

In general is don't care too much for cycle racing.  I generally subscribe to something along the lines of Surly's  philosophy   of "when people race bikes we all lose."  I firmly believe that should one find oneself at a cycle-racing themed event one should do one's best to take it about as far from seriously as possible. 

In curating the events various checkpoints I do my best to keep things fun and interesting.  Requiring everyone to document their completion of each check point results in a lot of hilarious post-race photos.

Here are a few checkpoint photos from the inaugural event:













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2 comments:

  1. AnonymousNovember 21, 2012 at 8:49 PM

    First, wonderful photos. It's all too much fun.

    Second, I didn't realize that Surly had a philosophy. You don't feel the pull of being the one "non-loser". It's that racing?

    Third, now that Surly has a philosophy, extrapolating some Bike Snob theories about the death of (fixed gear) cultures, is this the death of Surly. Hope not. I still want some Rabbit Hole/Knards for my Pugs.

    It was sunny and 70deg today in NM. We went riding at White Mesa. Hope the snow conditions are good for the TurkeyMan.

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  2. bikewriderNovember 22, 2012 at 12:09 AM

    First, I extrapolated the Surly philosophy from the blog posts I linked to . . . maybe a case of 'the views expressed here are those of the individuals and do not necessarily represent those of Surly (Selling out since 1998).

    Second, I figured they'd jumped the shark when Allman's retired school teacher parents bought themselves a couple of Ogres. Although I do have to admit that they look pretty sweet.

    Third, BSNYC postulated recently that fat bikes are poised to be the new hipster accessory as crossbikes begin to fall out of favor.
    My bet would be that you can anticipate Rabbit Holes being around for a while, and likely showing up in a variety of bright colors before too long.

    4deg and sunny when I was riding around Campbell Airstrip trails this afternoon.

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