Austin Urban Assault

Last Sunday, Mike teamed up with a coworker (Ken Simpson) to compete in the 2008 Austin Urban Assault. This is a bike race around Austin in which you must reach 8 known checkpoints (Pease Park, Stratford Rowing Dock, Jo's Coffee Shop on S. Congress, etc) and 4 mystery checkpoints. You can do them in any order you want, but you must hit all 12. At each checkpoint, when you complete the challenge, you get a bead. At the finish, you must show all 12 beads to finish.

The first mystery checkpoint was a guy standing in the middle of 43rd street holding a sign saying "The closest bike shop to this:









Well, you have to know that the mural is at 24th and Guadalupe. And that the closest bike shop is Austin Bikes at 21st and Guadalupe. At that checkpoint was a clue that was written in latin with the last sentence of the clue that translated to "reptile fossil" There were 4 letters of the clue highlighted "ASNC" After calling a few friends and Lindsay, we were able to determine it was the Austin Nature and Science Center. That was on our way to the rowing dock, so stopping there we found our last clue. It was a word jumble "SINE RAPUUT" Again we called our friends and Lindsay. Finally Ken and I figured it out to be PURE AUSTIN, a fitness club at 5th and Lamar. If you weren't from Austin, I have no idea how you would figure this out. All we had to do there was pick up the single bead.

The mystery checkpoints were just clues. The other 8 checkpoints were small challenges including scooping up bottlecaps with oven mits, riding mini bikes around cones, doing a human wheelbarrow, etc. You can see a good video of the race here:

http://www.videosomething.com/listing.asp?id=485

We eneded up finishing 127th out of 500+ teams at a time of 3 hours and 18 minutes. Not too shabby. Seems like all the people that finished before us were running red lights and going against the flow of traffic. Bunch o cheaters. We're gonna go at it again next year.