Hustle and Flow in Photos

Here are a few more we managed to find online...thanks to their respective photographers:


-Dave pinn'n it...photo by Alex Buell


-The event organizer Jamie with the Gship boys in the background....photo by Alex Buell


-Mike charg'n hard!...photo by Max Breslow.

Some great shots from Bryan Culbertson as well. His site is all fancy-like and wouldn't let us snag photos from there. Head over and check it out!

Hustled and Flowed!

The Ghostship Collective had a strong showing this past weekend, claiming 1st Place Honors at NYCMTB's Hustle and Flow Relay Mountain Bike Race! The team of Doug Jenne, Mike Stock, Anthony Vecca, Dave Blachura and Erik Zukowski destroyed the competition, putting nearly a minute over the second fastest team!!! Doug also set some course records, 3:57 for the seeding run on the XC leg???!!!! The next fastest time was a full minute behind Doug's...insanity! Let's not forget Dave's fastest Super-D run at 2:24. Sick! Great job guys!


-Time Killers...


-Doug kill'n it...


-Mike takin' it to the dirt...


-Dave, Can-One-Hander...whaaaaat???

(Anyone have photos of Erik? Send us some!)

All in all a good time defending our title from the previous year. Thanks to Jamie Bogner and NYCMTB for putting the race together and making it so much fun!
We got some great press from Mountain Bike Action Magazine Online:
"The Ghostship Clothing team from Connecticut repeated their domination of the team category, breaking their own course record by a whopping 19 seconds." "Notable performances included the team XC leg ridden by Doug Jenne (Ghostship Clothing, whose under-4-minute-time broke the previous course record by over a minute."

First Alleycat?

Remember your first alleycat? People have been asking how we got mixed up with the Scorchers lately and Matt recounted his story a couple of times. Then we stumbled on this entry over at Fyxomatosis:

2001.

I can remember parts of my first alleycat.

I'd heard from another courier during the week that there was a 'race'.

The next day I got a scrap piece of paper which have rough details of the event.

Meet at the Duke of York, Friday 7pm.

Pretty Boy wore a blonde wig. I didn't know him, but I'd sold him a pair of handlebars, and he was one of the riders who could REALLY ride back then. He was one of the VERY few brakeless couriers. So few that you could name them all in the same breath.

I rode my carbon Giant MCM team mountain bike. I had niteriders blaring for the occasion thinking it'd help.

I'd never heard of the first checkpoint in Camden (well I had but couldn't understand the organiser so just followed wheels)

It was the first time I'd really split an intersection, while trying to hold the wheel of a pack of 20 motley riders doing the same. Drafting wheels in the dark, darting across streeting, dodging potholes.

Horns honked, in the darkness oncoming headlights stole my vision, and my heart had never raced so hard.

After a number of checkpoints, and tasks at each, including telling funny stories, drawing pictures on oneself, shots of brandy, climbing fences it was the home stretch.

Marco and Andrea were talking tactics in Italian so I couldn't understand them as we hurled up City rd together in the dark. I figured they were planning on dropping me so I thwarted them by punching the last climb up to Essex rd and left them in my wake.

Riding into traffic never felt so good....

I hugged Cuba at the end, a euphoric sense of arrival came over me from living through my first alleycat.

Young, dumb, and feelin' invincible. I wouldn't change a thing.

There were no forums, websites or the like to promote these 'races'. It was word of mouth and ultimately this meant a BIG race was 20-30 people, and only couriers.

Even couriers didn't know about them unless they hung out at the 'spot' or knew other couriers that knew couriers that knew. Know what I mean?

There was maybe a handful of events over that summer. Not one every other week.

Alleycats weren't even a blip on the radar.

Ahhhhhhhh.....memories...