NACCC 2017 & Pre-Event

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PRE RIDE

The summer is as always an exciting time, work slows down, people find themselves with some free time, and everyone can make some excuses to skip town for a bit. This year two of my favorite events – Minneapolis’s “All City Championships” and The North American Cycle Courier Championships coincided within the same two weeks in the blissful late august Midwest. We arrived to mpls on a thursday built our bikes up and started what would turn out to be a pretty wild trip. ACC consists of 3 days of events – SK After dark (alleycat) Bike Jerks Bandit Cx and the Main Shindig on Saturday. Being the pre-event for NACCC many people were brought to mpls for their first time, and once seeing how those fools got down they will likely make it a yearly stop just like myself. After the weekend of events, the few if any hours of sleep, and stupid inside jokes already making the rounds through the group – about 20 of us geared up and started the Pre- ride to Milwaukee, WI which would be a 4 day 3 night 380mi~ adventure through the middle of Wisconsin. A few of us had done the reverse of this ride a few years back when the NACCC was in MPLS, and woah what a trip it was retracing our steps 3 years later. The scenery of WI is Beautiful- rolling hills for days, cows, bluffs, tunnels, and my favorite the rails to trail. Jeff Oneil did a fantastic job routing us and keeping the group together oh and of course telling us how many mile to go every 5 min. We finally rolled into Milwuakee and were greeted by everyone at Cafe with free beers and friends.  Turns out that same weekended was the Harley Davidson 115th anniversary so the streets of Mke were swarmed with two wheel Vehicles of all sorts, it was rad. After a long ride no way better to sooth the tired muscles with  an out of towner alleycat and Karaoke party which is exactly what we did.  The NACCC organizers somehow scored an entire elementary school campus to use as the course for the main race which we spent many an hour at over the next few days. Siting atop a small hill in the Hay-market district, they provided a challenging course with elevation sharp turns gravel and alley ways. By far my favorite course to date.

Just wanna say thanksthanksthanks to all of the Organizers for giving us one hell of a Mess vacation and congrats to Allan Shaw for taking home the NACCC overall win, against all odds we could say.  I wish i had the words to describe how fuckin’ insane and fun the whole trip was but I just can’t, guess you’ll just have to see for yourself…

-Sean

ACC 12

NACCC

MASH X SLOW SQUAD SF 2017

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SURF RAT ALLEYCAT

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MASH X SCVDO

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I’ve always been a fan of street races as well as outlaw cross races, so last year when Vito and Stephano from SCVDO Genova invited me to the 1st iteration of their race RESPUBLICA I jumped the chance. I was not disappointed as the route ripped you through downtown Genova then up through the hills on some sketchy dirt single track, back down to the city center then back out to the dirt! A ripping race thrown by a rad crew SCVDO RESPUBLICA is a great format that I hope I see more of in years to come! This year they road their fully loaded tracks bikes UP from LA to SF! Once they got here and recovered a bit I was stoked to show them my SF just like they showed me their favorite parts of Genoa. We spent a rad day ripping around, drinking tons of espresso and getting loose! Long Live Brakeless Mixed Terrain Alley Cats!
– Chas

Monster Track 2016

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In a few days hundreds of racers will converge on the streets of Manhattan to once again battle it out for the glory that is a Monstertrack Win. Monster Track is the Epitome of an Alley Cat. Brakeless Trackbikes only make this race the real deal. One race to rule them all if you will. It’s got style. It’s got History. It pits you against the Jungle of a city, some of the quickest witted street racers in the world, and all of the drama that comes along with that. People get their feelings hurt. People Get lost. People Quit. And some of the fastest few will make it to the last manifest. But regardless of win or lose everyone will have a damn good time. So to tide you over until the chaos ensues once more – Here’s a few photos from Last years race and surrounding events. -Sean

Brice

Stoked Johnny & Hiromi

King Kog

Registration Party

Party Boiz

Nico Jammin’ out the Karaoke

Cooper’s Zine release @ Deluxe Cycles

PEZ

Willow

BLACK LABEL BIKE CLUB

The Ace Bar

Pre-race jitters @ the Ace

OG’s

The line for Registration @ Tompkins Sq Park

The Colombos

Podium
1st – 2nd – 3rd – 4th

shut up n roll

WTF podium announcement

WTF Podium hype

all the way from Barcelona!

a few words from Brandon Lockfoot and a Moment of silence for BMX Dave

5th place Goat trackbike prize

Victor announcing men’s podium and awarding chris with the winners challace

Re-Load Prize Bag

BONUS FEATURES SCREENING SF +

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Come out Thursday night! Rain or shine. Alleycat + Screening. Will be a good time!

Westside Invite 2016

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Westside invite is the west coast’s flavor of messenger summer camp. Originating in Portland over 10 years ago this years event made its way down the coast to San Diego where Courier Collective hosted messengers from Vancouver to Mexico and everything in between for 4 days of events, hot and sunny beaches, and hills…way more hills than I think any of us expected. As always It was nice to have an excuse to lay on the beach all day and sleep in way too late, but Joven and the dudes over at CC really killed it. Both the main Alleycat, coffee cat, and Out of towner race were ripping! There was a day committed solely to a group ride which ended at the beach complete with all the track bike shenanigans loved by all. I took first in the skid comp. NBD. The main race was a work simulation – which tested everyone’s wits and speed In the San Diego’s hot downtown streets, not to mention, during a Pirates game. Chas took home 1st place with the one and only fully completed manifest with just 2 min before the cut-off . Oakland won the bid for Westside Invite 2017  – so you already know where you’ll be next summer. Thanks again San Diego for the good times and sunburn. – Sean

Fred Marshall

Courier Collective HQ

Joven

“don’t touch the money”

yard sale

Looking out for each other

right before we got kicked out

Group Ride

Coffee Cat winner

YOT

Lifes a Beach

sometimes ya’ just gotta wazz

Tree’s Bag

Chas turning in the winning manifest

Steady Coolin

KOOK

Winners Circle

NACCC 2016 – NEW YORK CITY

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The dust has finally settled. Sleep somewhat caught up on and work life resuming its normal flow. Realization sinks in of how truly rad and well organized the New York City NACCC really was. The week had everything you could have wished for in a championship. I’m talking everything – bandit cx, track day, warehouse partys, bagels, bands, sprints, footdown, killer qualifier, weather, 4am bars, cheap coffee and an incredibly challenging main race. New York, being a reasonable place to venture to, attracted couriers from all over the North Americas and many contingencies from over seas. NACCC brings together people from all the stems of messenger work. Its truly something special to have all your favorite people from all over the world in one spot…all on vacation (mostly).  Though there were Alley Cats and side events daily, the main race took place on 10/9 (Messenger Appreciation Day) and 60 or so qualifiers tricked themselves into delivering fake packages for 3 hours in less than ideal conditions for no money at all in hopes of being deemed the fastest, quickest witted, most professional courier in North America. Work simulation races are like no other, It takes more than just bike handling and speed, it takes concentration and focus..well legs don’t hurt either. This year Christina Peck (SF), who has displayed these traits countless times in multiple cycling disciplines, took home all the gravy- spanking the competition placing First Woman and First overall. Nico (chi) presented next level “Perpetual Professionalism™” raced in a collard shirt completely buttoned, took home the Men’s championship title. Standing in line at checkpoints with these two- you would have never known how badly they were beating you. The industry is only growing and the individuals in the industry are only getting faster. Events like these are extremely important and well just a damn good time. See y’all in MKE! – Sean

The start of the main race – it had just stopped raining. it was go time.

A rider from NYC’s own Samurai Messenger – Being professional probably- at the pbma/redbull checkpoint

OG

Fuego, a messenger from Paris, properly using a v rare halfskie mail bin.

The manifest was double sided, and the jobs had no value printed. Racers had to use a rate sheet to determine if the job was worth their precious time.

“this is a funny looking cheesesteak” – me

Racer getting after it in the Cargo Race

Chas took home another top 10 and king of track this time around!

Unloading all the packages for the main race. Volunteers and participants alike helped restock packages from checkpoint to checkpoint to keep the jobs flowing.

THE CHAMPION

Words: Sean

Photos : John Daniel Reiss

CLIF CYKELSCRAMBLE 2016

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Saturday was the second year Clif threw an event called CykelScramble (pronounced sickle for sure, so there is room to grow there) in San Rafael. They took over the Marin County Fairgrounds and built this crazy race course with wall rides, tables, spines, rock gardens, swinging sand bags, logs, and on down the list. Teams of four signed up to race one bike in a relay.
The event brought out a diverse/rad group of Bay Area locals of all ages, all hopped up on bicycles. OG Marin clunkers, BMX shredders, pro XC and even DH racers like Rat Boy. And us for some reason.

Some people got weird and that was nice.
We did the green screen thing, not for the day’s events, but for what you, the viewer can now do to these photos. Please send to info@mashsf.com and we will make a new post.
 Dylan, Brandon, Jean, and Matt did not know what they where getting in for when they agreed to get in the van at 7:30 that morning.


The course was pretty challenging, so the conditions made for some highs and lows.
Stoked to have Matt Reyes out for the day. He could have competed on his FG no question. We chose a 26-inch BMX for the relay race. A full squish XC bike ended up being the winning format.

Down, but not out
E.T.
Someone got knocked out cold, but came around and was okay.

Matt spine tap crossing
Jake with the spine transfer
Matt shot some fake polaroids

Rad to see generations out there being stoked on being stoked.
The race started with a wheelbarrow stretch. We came in mid-pack.
Matt and Brandon had clean bike handoffs.

Guy is rad

Guy, Cubby,  Jake, and Danny raced on 20-inch bmx bikes, and crushed it, and got a little crushed. Sixth in the Roasters for the day.
Banked berm
Brandon in the rocks
The Bruce Lee style Ninja team had some rippers on it. Look them up on the Cykel Scramble site.
Jean got blood on the outside

Cubby

Cubby about to shoot out of the vert wall ride.
These dudes won, but we both lost for costume originality.

New track drops this fall. See you next year!

MM

All City Championships 11

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All City Championships in its 11th year is the bread and butter of the Minneapolis alleycats. This year the championships were scored as an omnium. There was four days of events – Sk Afterdark, Bandit Cx, Match Sprints, and the Main alleycat. Minneapolis gets down in all the right ways during the summer and Jeff Frane does a fantastic job putting together this event. I Took home first out of town which freakin’ rules because last time I came to this event i ended up in the hospital. Thanks for all the love, brunch, and hospitality. Stay Spicy my friends. – Sean