Lordmcfuzz Races his H.A.R.V. In Rat City

It's Saturday morning and I'm the only one signed up to participate in phase one of today's activities. Phase one is to ride in the Allston Rat Race from the start. The other phases of today's mission are found at Operation Common Rat Race On Wheels I woke up late and quickly checked the bbs and posted that I was running late just in case someone also woke up this morning and decided to fly with me today. I started my mission at the door of my fort with the first destination in the opposite direction of the race.

This first objection was to say hi and feed some feline friends of an old-school pilot. They were away for the weekend and I said yes to checking on these fine and derpy kitties. After which I stopped in the Davis constellation to stuff my face full of savory pastry molecules from Diesel. Little did I know that I probably should have stowed away some of these high-caloric items for later in addition to the ones that I consumed. I played my Somervillian part by flying my H.A.R.V. through the system with my beard long, wearing a stickered bombed set of shields with my mirrored day star glasses, an iced latte in hand, and some groove playing.

Once at the fort, opened a little late I made some mission pins, one for myself, one for the archive, and a few for the other pilots signed up for phase 2 of today. No other pilots showed up so I launched at the scheduled time to the rat race starting point(The Speedway).

The Allston Rat Race is part ally cat race and part community event. It is put on by Commonwheel bicycle collective, a nonprofit community organization that often runs open shops to help people learn and fix their bikes. This event is their annual fundraiser. With the tag line of "A race that is not a race" it mainly is made of up self-guided laps around Allston with hourly bonus stops that consist of fun activities and challenges. The lap portion of this race had participants going to 3 different Allston locations that had a balloon and a unique hole puncher that you would punch your manifest card with before going back to the start location to get your 4th and final punch of the lap. The first and last hours were just reserved for flying laps and the event went from 10am to 8pm.

The 'ceremonial' first lap started almost a half hour late, which is right in line with most cyclist events and group rides. It became clear that it was moving too slowly and after figuring out what the first location looked like, I determined that I could figure out the rest. The checkpoints were located: just outside the Shakespearean amphitheater, the Harvard waste flats (nicknamed wasteland), and the triangle park on Holton. I took a very roundabout way to the wasteland and had a hard time finding it that first lap, something I would not do again as I saw people already there that were still waiting to get punched at the first checkpoint when I left. Finding the triangle park one was really easy.

On my second lap, I decided to reverse the order of checkpoints thinking It could be either faster or more comfortable to fly. It was not, but I did learn what would be my primary flight path for the rest of the event with the experimental route.

The route that I ended up flying was

1. From the Speedway, travel down service road next to and onto Soldiers Field Rd


2. Take a port into the parking lot to get to the first checkpoint which sported a circle hole punch


3. Cross Soldiers Field Rd at the pulsar onto Everett st


4. Traverse through the next Pulsar and take a port onto Raymond St


5. Starboard onto Appian Way


6. Continued to the Triangle Park Checkpoint which sported a star hole punch


7. Continued down Franklin Street to take a port onto Bradbury Street


8. Zig zag my way across to Coolidge Road


9. Crossed N Harvard Street into the wormhole


10. Took the wormhole to its end at Science Drive where I went starboard


11. Found the wormhole to the final checkpoint that sported a heart hole punch


12. Turning around on the wormhole, a curb hop back onto Science Drive to academy way


13. Starboard turn onto western that took me back to the Speedway for my lap completing square hole punch

I was proud that this route did not go the wrong way on any one-way streets.

I was flying at a fairly comfortable warp speed of 15 to 17. I was passing a fair amount of participants and celebrating our collective efforts with my sonic disruptor. After a few laps my personal goal of flying a century today was turning into racing this ship and trying to get as many laps and hit up all the bonus stops for the bare minimum effort there. I soon figured out that it took me about 15 minutes to complete a lap and my lap distance was about 3.1 light years. It felt so good to complete my first manifest card that tracked my first 10 laps.

The bonus stops were

1. Lawn games with bike parts. Run by PQ. I threw a tire onto someone and flew away


2. Bike Art and Lunch. I drew my ship in chalk in the middle of the street; had some pizza and purchased a Gatorade, this was probably my longest stop


3. Mini bike crits. You race around a park on a child's ship. I picked the smallest one with the smallest cranks and I lost to hopefully a future scul pilot


4. Throwing Darts at the Silhouette Lounge. I threw three darts and flew away


5. Visiting PQ at the BU Cycle kitchen. A hug was given and I flew away


6. SCUL petting zoo. See the above-linked mission. I flew summer in a circle, handed my dead class 2 sonic disruptor to Bane for zoobs and flew away


7. Water gun fight at hooker park. I got squirted by Galen, soaked my cap and flew away


8. Pump track with the kids ships. I pumped a kids ship and then flew away

The Day Star was long and hot. Quickly I realized I needed a no-think plan on how to survive this long race. Every complete lap I decided I needed to take a short break and drink at least half a water bottle. After lunch, I added the requirement to include a snack bar. I survived on off-brand Nutrigran bars. I did not care that it was blueberry, a flavor I despise in these types of bars.

Lap after lap, It's a lot of the same sights and the same streets. The monotony was broken up by figuring out how to fit in a bonus stop in my route and seeing where I see some other participants that are also racing. These fixie-flying messengers were surprisingly trying to keep up with the lap pace I was setting. At light year 70 on my day, my class 2 sonic disrupter ran out of zoobs. I think I had it playing too loud for too long. The mental game of this race got a lot harder after that. As noted above I was able to hand it off to Bane Thunderwolf to potentially charge it as I continued to race.

In the last hour of the race, I was planning out my efforts to give it my all and get the last laps in. I was completing laps between 18 and 20 minutes which meant I could possibly get 3 last laps in if I did not gas myself out. Bane and the phase three crew were able to hang out at the speedway to hand me my class 2 sonic disruptor back to me and the life support that it provided let me power through those last three laps. I completed 29 laps at around 1950. For each lap I had to dismount and remount my ship a minimum of 4 times, which is more than once per light year traveled! My energy levels were completely spent and I spent a fair amount of time lying on the ground sipping water. After that, I spent a fair amount of time sitting and nibbling on a burrito.

I sadly did not podium. One participant somehow lapped me and completed 30 laps to take the most lap award. I took home the "most unique bike" award. After a nice rest, I started my flight home but I stopped by a 'driveway distress call' populated by PQ and deadblow. They offered me some stories and a recovery pickle. Upon reaching my landing pad, by flight computer read out to me that I flew 111.9 light years.

I offered a medal of patronage to Bane for saving me in that last hour of racing with charging my sonic disruptor.