Bicycles built for love

An alleycat of a very different sort took place in Somerville last Saturday, as 28-year-old cyclists Dan Pugatch and Heather DePersis turned a macho tradition into a celebration of their love for each other - and for bikes.

Alleycats mimic a messenger’s workday, with competitors dropping off packages or completing tasks at checkpoints, figuring out their own route. Unsanctioned, with no road closures, safety runs second to speed.

Boston has seen a pastry-themed alleycat, where riders gobbled sweets, and a horror-movie alleycat. But no one recalls a wedding-themed alleycat. So the race organized by Pugatch and DePersis may have been the first.

Pugatch, a mechanic at Broadway Bicycle School in Cambridge, met DePersis, a ladylike member of the tricked-out bike crew SCUL, in 2007. The couple won a contest sponsored by Green Boston Wedding that will pay for most of their November nuptials. But they couldn’t invite everyone. Hence Saturday’s race, which started at sundown in Davis Square and ended about an hour later, in Kendall Square, Cambridge.

“I want to bring the community together,’’ said Pugatch, who has raced in a number of alleycats. He wore white glasses and a pink-and-white hat he and DePersis made for a Bikes Not Bombs ride, stamped “Team Romanticles.’’

As darkness fell Saturday, a colorful group of 15 or 20 cyclists gathered in Davis Square. Most knew the couple through a local biking message board, various races, and parties. Few had worked as couriers.

Riders got laminated cards with a bridal scene to put in their spokes, and a list of six checkpoints. They included: DePersis’s last apartment before moving in with her betrothed; Pugatch’s two workplaces (he’s been a downtown courier in the past and now works part time for the delivery company Metro Pedal Power); and other favorite hangouts, including the Wine & Cheese Cask. At most stops, participants completed a wedding-themed task: signing a guestbook, removing a garter from a man’s leg.

Celebration or no celebration, the list included a request to wear helmets and to ride safely. Pugatch saw a guy go through a taxi window on his first alleycat; a knee injury forced him to sell the fixed single-gear bike, which is favored by messengers. A tattoo of the bike is on his shin.

About 20 minutes into the race, 25-year-old Eric Stratton of Allston and two friends raced up to the Somerville Library.

“Have you ever been to a wedding? Then you know the Chicken Dance,’’ said race monitor Elin Wilcox, 24, of Somerville.

The three riders dropped their bikes and pinched their hands into beaks, dancing along as the monitors da-da-da’d the famous Chicken Dance melody. Then the cyclists were off.

At another checkpoint, monitor Tom Edmonds, 30, himself engaged, decided to let riders go sans embarrassment.

“They’ll get plenty of pain and suffering when they’re planning their own wedding,’’ he said.

By 9:30 p.m., just about everyone had made it to Flat Top Johnny’s pool hall in Cambridge’s Kendall Square, chosen partly because it participates in a bike safety program Pugatch helps run. The riders stood outside, airing out and comparing notes.

“Apparently I was one of the few people who knew where the library was,’’ said Somerville resident Reed Hill, 28.

Zach Virgilio, 22, of Jamaica Plain, rode to the Cambridge Library and had to circle back. “I almost got sideswiped, I almost got doored, I almost hit a pedestrian. It was great!’’ he said.

The thrill of danger aside, one rider who fell at the library sustained the only injury (cut shin, bruised ribs) and still finished first among the women.

The groom-to-be gave out prizes - a helmet, bike maps, a box of R-rated chocolates - and then kissed his intended.

The pre-wedding alleycat is not the end of the bike festivities for them, however.

“I’m getting to the actual wedding by pedicab,’’ DePersis said. And parked on top of the cake, as a symbol of the couple’s love, will be a tiny, working, souped-up tandem bike.

“Match made in heaven,’’ said the bride’s friend Melissa Haeffner, 31. “Bike heaven.’’