The Rules

Welcome to Pittsburgh's 1st Annual Pirate Bike Triathlon! Are you the fastest pirate? Prove it by planting your pirate flag.

The race is three distinct stages: biking, rafting and pillaging. Teams are strongly enouraged. There is no limit to team size, but keep in mind that prizes are awarded per team. So larger teams get less booty.

Biking

The objective of biking is to gather parts to build your raft. Each team will be given a map showing the location of pirate merchants and some pirate money. Riders can trade with any or all of the merchants, but bear in mind that they have different goods and different prices. A smart pirate shops around. The merchants will only be trading for an hour and a half.

The merchants will be located at these locations:


You can view the locations on Casey's excellent map (click to enlarge): small map

Here is an incomplete list of some supplies merchants may carry:

Rafting

Teams are also required to build a raft. The raft must be able to carry at least one team member and it needs to be propelled by poles or paddles--no walking in the water and pushing your raft! It should also be somewhat sturdy: you don't want to get your flag wet.

Teams can start building their rafts as soon as they wish, they do not need to wait until they have gathered all their supplies. There will be an additional half hour of raft building after the trading has stopped. The total time for rafting and biking is two hours. Note that rafts can only be built from supplied materials! No bringing your own balloons or buying an inflatable mattress.

At the end of the two hours, the rafts will launch in the order that they were completed.

Bonus prizes for raft style.

Pillaging

At the finish of the rafting course, the rafter--or rafters--must pull the raft completely on to shore. After the raft is secured, the rafter(s) can pass the flag to another team member for the pillaging stage. Note that as many people can particpate in the pillaging as completed the rafting--if two people rode the raft, two people can compete in this stage.

First, the pillagers must choose a pillaging item from the provided pile. These must be carried for the entire length of the stage. Some might even be useful.

Once the item is selected, the pillagers will travel the course to the treasure chests. If a chest is there you must pick one up! After selecting a treasure chest, the pillagers should return to the start.

Finally, the entire team will compete to see who can raise their flag the highest. The teams are confined to the local finishing area (no climbing up on the bridge) but are allowed to use the local surrounding, their pillaging item, items from inside the treasure chest, any items gathered for the rafting stage, or any items gathered by the pillager during the run to the chest and back.

The teams will only have 10 minutes from the time the first team arrives to raise their flag. At the end of this time, the height of the flag will determine the overall standings. If it's not obvious whose flag is the highest we'll measure as best we can. Measuring might take some time, so make sure your flag doesn't collapse before we get there! Measurements will be taken in the order of the stage finish--so fast finishers only have their keep flags precariously balanced for a short time.

Shindigging

And then we all get prizes!