10 Years of UAR: Josephine

The stories keep rolling in! The latest entry in the 10 Years of Urban Assault Ride contest that we'll feature comes from Josephine. Tell us your story and maybe you'll find it featured on our blog soon, and if it's our Grand Prize winner, maybe you'll it featured in Bicycle Times Magazine!!! Enter today!

Team "We Go Both Ways...(over passes that is)” was back to defend our title. Started off great - were  first to multiple stops, found the 2nd mystery checkpoint and got to the finish line ~15min before the next team! So what went wrong?

#1: Second to last stop = South College Pool. Objective = jump in & grab 3 different cans of New Belgium beer. Jumped in, searched around, found 3, DONE! Got out then realized that I couldn't see...haven't been swimming in a while, but apparently if you wear contacts you're not supposed to open your eyes underwater...SO off we went to the finish blind as a bat – thank god for Kim! 

LESSON #1: If you wear contacts don't open your eyes underwater if you want to see later

#2: You earn a bead for your chain at every checkpoint. I decided that it's faster to put the beads in your mouth as you go...at the finish I gracefully spit out the beads & reach down for our chain - it's gone. Time doesn't stop until all beads are on your chain, SO now I'm running around yelling "I need a chain, who has a chain!?" We're so early that the only people there are volunteers with no chains - FINALLY found one, got the beads on & clock in at 1hr 15min, hell yeah. BUT WAIT! We only have 7 beads & they're saying there should be 8...what? 

LESSON #2: Put on the beads as you go!

#3: I usually procrastinate, but I love UAR so I mapped out our route as soon as the checkpoints were posted. Unfortunately a checkpoint was added a week before that I never noticed & therefore didn't have on my list...turns out it was on our route & we rode RIGHT by it, BUT this was after the pool so I couldn't see, we missed the checkpoint & therefore missed a bead. We were told that missing a bead was a 10min penalty & it wouldn't be worth it to go back. 

LESSON #3: Double & TRIPLE check that you actually have ALL of the checkpoints on your map

#4: Thought we were in the clear & won since the next girls came in at 1hr 25min, 10min after our "official" time. So we're celebrating, drinking, having a grand old time till we learn that missing a bead is a 10 HOUR penalty, not 10 MINUTES - sad day. New official time: 11 hours & 15 minutes 

LESSON #4: READ the rules! 

SO in the end we destroyed the girls, but lost...still had a great time & learned some lessons along the way!

Thanks for sharing your story, Josephine!


Share YOUR story today, and register now to be a part of the next ten years of UAR memories!