Urban Iditarod
From www.ChopStork.com
March 5, 2005
The Urban Iditarod is apparently an annual race in San Francisco. We just heard about it this year (thanks Herbert). Replace the dogs with people, the sled with a shopping cart, and Alaska with San Francisco, and there you go. Here's a little chronicle of our adventures. Feel free to add your own stories.
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Our team - the Incredibeagles and LABraDORKS.
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Get it together
To race a shopping cart around San Francisco, you need a shopping cart. We found ourselves this one. They'll pick it up for us too - how nice of them. "Where did you guys get your cart?" Uh...one, two, three, fo', fiiiiiifth. No, we did not take the cart from Longs Drugs. We simply picked it up off the street to return it. Yes, we called that number. No, it didn't work. Now what mods to make?
The key to successful execution is good planning. A before and after. Done.
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Wolfson the engineer tested some configurations for our gravity deployed outriggers:
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Game Day
Final version was somewhere between the first and third. Put it together the night before, and woke up early Saturday to make some final preps to the cart. The first running of our sled (large file).
The LABraDORKS (Laura, A.J., Rebecca, Luke, Zach, Eli, DP, Wolfson) met up with the Incredibeagles (Johanna, Brittany, Ulrike) at the starting point. The team, united at last.
Note the outriggers in action. In case this happens. Or this. Whew, we can practice squirt bottling with peace of mind. Wolfson needed the practice. This is why we wear eye protection, kids.
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We tested our beer cooling mechanism and brakes and made some last minute additions. "The Gausian distribution is the most important equation in statistics," says Eli in all seriousness. Meanwhile, none of the engineers could remember Bernoulli's equation. It's P + (1/2)*(dens)*V^2 + (dens)*g*y = constant.
The girls would prefer head. Pressure head, velocity head, elevation head. Cuz they're environmental scientists...you know, hydrology, runoff water, blah blah blah. P/((dens)*g) + V^2/(2*g) + y = constant. What did you think I meant, sicko? By the way, if you ever need dry ice look here.
While we were prepping, Renee Richardson from the KFOG morning show interviewed us. They even played it on the radio Monday morning. Here's the interview - It's mostly Luke, with a hint of DP, Brittany, Jo, Laura, and maybe others. And a good time we had.
To the starting line. Carbo load 200cc. Safety first.
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And we're off. The hills were tough. Checkpoint one- replenish fluids and untangle cart. And off again. More hills?! There were a couple more checkpoints in there somewhere. Word was that this year the cops had another gig to be at and insisted we get a move on.
Some of us decided there was too much running, so we told the reporter about it. You'll see that on CNN soon. Actual story; our quote didn't make it, but Jo and Ulrike's did. Maybe it's clear to you already, but they were not among those who thought there was too much running. About 30 seconds after that interview, the po-pos caught up to the slow people: "Keep up with the crowd!" Damn, gotta run again.
Washington Square
We got a longer break at Washington Square. Turns out dry ice sticks to things. Like beer. And ears.
No WAY; the hot dog team had hot dogs in their cart! We dug into our own refreshments; Yukon Gold is good.
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Bonus checkpoint.
We got an extra pitstop. And the bunny rabbit showed up - double bonus.
A.J. tried to interview Wolfson, but got distracted. The soldiers of fortune continue on ...
The last stop before Fort Mason.
What?! The bag-o-wine is unopened?! Well open it. Luke fed us. Refreshing.
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On the way to this stop, snoopy's left ear had fallen off. Good thing our tools are duct taped to the sled. We are the LABraDORKS after all. All better now.
And off again to the final stop...
Fort Mason. No more running.
Turns out The Incredibles is a hugely popular movie, because people were lined up to take pictures with the Incredibeagles. Literally. Wait, let us check our hair. Ok, who's next. Next year our sled is going to be a kissing booth and we're charging $2.
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Luke tested Newton with Peterman and scissors:
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That experiment was inconclusive, so he theorized about antigravity with colleagues.
The Bunny Poem, by A.J. Maher:
Bunnies are cute and fuzzy.
The man inside the bunny
was not so cute and fuzzy.
He was scary and bald.
I borrowed the cute and fuzzy bunny head
to hop like a little bunny.
The not so fuzzy baldy
got mad and took it from me.
Bunnies are cute and fuzzy,
but the man inside was fussy.
Peterman talked to some girls. Then the doorbell rang.
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Related Stuff On The Web
Full gallery of our Urban Iditarod pictures.
A slideshow from www.joereifer.com (12MB file). Guess who's first.
Tribe.net has a couple posts with a few pictures.
The KFOG interview
"Urban Iditarod Races Through City Streets" from SF State's Golden Gate [X]Press
If you find any articles, put 'em up here.
