Monstertrack is an alleycat race started by a New York City bike messenger, "Snake", in the year 2000. It is a race specifically for brakeless, fixed-gear bicycles. It has gradually grown in size because of the surging popularity of track bikes. Carlos "Diablo" and Victor "Freeway" work as bike messengers, race organizers, and alleycat racers. The two made the alleycat scene in New York more popular by extensively using the internet to spread the word about bike racing in New York and now Monstertrack is billed as the second largest alleycat in the nation, attracting racers from all over the US, Europe and Japan .^[1]

Cancellation of 2008 Monstertrack

Following the death of Matt Manger-Lynch, killed while participating in an alleycat in Chicago, the organizers of Monstertrack announced that the alleycat, scheduled as part of the Monstertrack event, had been cancelled. In their statement the organisers said:

As many of you know, Monster Track started as a race held for a small, close group of NYC bike messengers. It has now become an overwhelmingly all-inclusive event. This, on its face, may seem like a positive direction for a race but in the context of a solely track bike alleycat it brings many problems. First and foremost, the safety of the racers is compromised. We believe that this is not a tenable position for race organizers.

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controversy

This race, as any alleycat race, could be considered dangerous as it's in openroad. You can see YouTube videos showing the risks that are taking runner: running red lights,^[3] overtaking cars as they can,^[4][5] near missing cars, other bikes^[6] and pedestrian alike (and sometimes crashing into them!^[7]).

References