"I wouldn't say it's even possible to make sure that mistakes won't happen again; that's why it's a mistake," Kilduff says. "But we'll definitely be more careful."
One thing's for sure, Foster adds: "We'll have no stops near the state mental ward ever again."
Jamie Peachey
Jamie Peachey
Sammy Black, Hannah Ruebbelke-Smith, and Terrence Murtagh.
Fixed-gear enthusiasts enjoy the simplicity of their bikes.
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The FixEd race after-party is in full swing atop a four-story parking structure in Old Town Scottsdale (spoke cards for the event bore a marked resemblance to the FedEx logo). The mugginess of the monsoon-season evening has dissipated, and more than 40 fixie cyclists are doing the post-race hangout thing. Some are pulling skid tricks and other stunts on their bikes.
The FixEd alleycat had consisted of two-person teams (with members being allowed to hit checkpoints separately). At one stop, riders had been handed a 12-inch plastic tube, baton-style, as they rode past. And at each of the seven other checkpoints, teams had been given a fluorescent-yellow ping-pong ball to put inside their tubes. Every ball had a playing card painted on it, and the team with the best hand (in addition to the top three teams across the finish line) received a prize at the end of the race.
Once Ryan Hales and Jesse Robles, the top-finishing men's pair, had accepted the prize of $50 and various fixie gear, then had their photograph taken with the other winners, Robles popped open a bottle of champagne and started spraying everybody.
After officiating over the winners' ceremony, Garrett O'Dell's perched on the open tailgate of his white BMW X5, a couple coolers full of Tecate, Coors, and other "road sodas" sitting next to him for everyone to share.
"Thank God!" he says. Between sips of a Stella Artois, he says he's "relieved" that there weren't any problems with the alleycat (the first since Race for the Cure).
O'Dell spent five weeks planning FixEd and took precautions against potential incidents. He kept checkpoints away from major thoroughfares and alongside side streets and the Scottsdale Greenbelt to avoid traffic. He picked stops that were in public parks, empty parking lots, and other "out-of-the-way spots." Checkpoints were plotted on Google Maps, and O'Dell answered scads of questions on AZfixed about locations of stops, to avoid confusion.
"I learned from someone else's unfortunate mistakes," he says.
But in addition to attention to precautionary detail, O'Dell issued a terse warning to riders just before the start of FixEd, underneath the Mill Avenue Bridge:
"Everybody rides at their own risk. This isn't a sanctioned race. I'm not insured. If you have a problem with that, I'll refund your money."
A kind of verbal waiver.
But as any attorney would tell you, few event organizers (no matter how unofficial) are immune from a lawsuit.
"I worry about it, yeah," O'Dell says about his liability potential. "But you can't live your life worrying about getting sued."
