<br>

i played my first ever round of 'real' golf yesterday. it was a company function at the golden gate park course. golf is not my game. the times i managed to connect it was anyone's guess where it was going to go. chipping went slightly better. it's a good thing we were playing best ball, or it would have been a long night. at one point, a guy who worked there (and had about a 2 second attention span at the cash register) came rolling up in a golf cart to help move us along because we were taking too long. claimed he would help us learn to 'play bad golf quickly', which included telling us everything we were doing wrong or non-traditionally. thanks guy, way to sell the newbies on the sport. i missed a putt just to take longer and piss him off. or at least that made for a good excuse...
of course at the end he wanted to present us with a plan to practice drills back at the office and schedule monthly office tournaments at his course. yeah, i see that happening. that guy needs to learn how to read an audience.

the course was super low-rent. $10 for city residents. the brodie mountain of golf courses.

golf is similar to bowling in that it is not just figuring out the technique, but also being able to predictably repeat the technique with controlled adjustments. i succeeded at neither. with bowling i have enough muscle memory from my childhood bowling league days to fake it. not so with golf. also with bowling there is more opportunity for repetition to learn it. not so out on the links. i guess that's why they invented driving ranges and putt putt. also like bowling, it is fine activity for drinking and socializing. luckily, many of use were similarly skilled and inclined to focus on the drinking and socializing.

couldn't ask for better weather. the park was gorgeous with the evening sun filtering through the eucalyptus. good to get a different perspective than my usual one from the saddle, alone in the early morning, sober.

<br> - linksman

posted by <br> at 12:59 PM | permalink | comments (1) | trackbacks (0)

monterey peninsula college
2005/09/25
cat b
7th/23
teammates: none

i was reasonably happy with my performance in this first 'real' race of the season. i had a good front row position at the start, but forgot that rod doesn't give a 10-second warning or anything. just 'have fun! {whistle}'. i only had one hand on the bars at the time, so i got a bad start and probably hit the first runup in around 15th place. i had banged my knee up a bit at dfl finals the previous day. after getting tangled in traffic at the top of the runup and scratching my thigh on someone's bike as i tried to remount, i decided to not take too many chances. i resigned myself to work on my pacing, try to be smooth, and work my way around people. my pacing seemed to be pretty good, as i was able get past half of the people in front of me before the race was over. the next two were < 0:30 up, so with a better start and fresher legs, i think maybe i could have gotten them too.

so i'm sitting in a pretty good position in b's. i feel like i'm in the race, but not sandbagging (1 and 2 finished almost 2:00 up). my average lap time was about 5:40, which would have put me around 21st/25 in the a's. not dfl, but close. and that's if i could maintain it for 3 more laps, which is doubtful. despite the heat i've been getting from some sectors (you know who you are) for not upgrading yet, i feel like i'm in my element in the b's. i'm looking forward to one more year of feeling competent and hopefully enjoying some top 10s and call-ups before throwing myself to the wolves in the a's.

i'm bummed to not be racing with some of my 'mates from the b's who upgraded (aron/isaias/eric). it was great to watch that red train stream on by though. i will be watching, learning and preparing myself to join it in due time. for now, someone's got to represent in the b's.

<br> - killer b

posted by <br> at 06:20 PM | permalink | comments (1) | trackbacks (1)

photo:julie [bigger]

cyclocross is a fall sport that i have come to love over the past several years. it satisfies my love of dirt from my mountain biking background, and provides an exciting, fast-paced, competitive environment that i have found addictive in its painfulness. it's a niche sport. it has it's own specific skill set and equipment. there are probably only a couple thousand people in the country at any given time who would label themselves active cyclocross racers. it's huge in europe though, in proportion to the popularity of cycling in general. going into my third season, i'm starting to consider myself a cyclocross racer more than a mountain biker. teammates who have been into it for longer say that is a common pattern.

the regular 'cross season starts in late september. there are local races on saturday and sunday most weekends into january. locally, they start out hot and dusty, and transition with the season to chilly and muddy. dfl, a local san francisco 'team' 'organizes' a pre-season race series called the urban outlaw cyclocrossdress series. (quotes indicate loosely defined terms.) basically they set up renegade cyclocross courses in public parks around san francisco and hold races. they charge $5 to race, but it's free if you opt to crossdress. so a dress from the goodwill pays for itself in one race. there is a best-dressed award at the end of the series. the courses are rough around the edges to say the least. non-optimal clothing increases the degree of difficulty. it is run auhorization- and insurace-free. because sometimes it is easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission. the effect is 50 some odd crossdressed bikers descend on a given park for a frantic, 45-minute hammer-fest, and then go away. hopefully before anyone complains.

participants range from first-timers to elite professionals. pokey to superfast. pot-smoking anarchist messengers to hyper-regimented bike racer geeks. with me falling somewhere in the middle on all scales. newbies are tentative and get lapped multiple times by the leaders. i usually get lapped once by the leaders and lap a few at the tail. from a race-organiztion point of view, it's a fast and loose nightmare. yet somehow everyone seems to play nice and does't get hurt. at least no too much.

this wacky urban phenomenon is how i got introduced to cyclocross in the first place. it is one of those uniquely san francisco things that makes me appreciate living in this city that can seem expensive and difficult sometimes. it takes racing, which can get so serious and negatively competitive, and turns it on it's head by adding elements of absurdity and chaos. and much hilarity ensues.

so i do the series. i try to appreciate the cultural aspects of it and not worry about my results too much, which can be hard for a racer-type. i and the other participants with aspirations of racing the real season risk an injury or a too-early peak to our fitness by starting to race early before the long season. so i realize that it might not be the best move towards realizing my potential in the 'real' races. but i also realize that i'm not really genetically programmed to become an elite bike racer, so i balance the risk with the fun of the series and the appreciation i have for it as a phenomenon.

here's what matt smith from the sfweekly had to say about it last year during the 10th anniversary series, with a political spin.

<br> - slut

posted by <br> at 12:58 PM | permalink | comments (2) | trackbacks (1)

[bigger]

it's a couple months old actually, and a lot dirtier. white bikes dirty easy when summer fog makes for a wet bridge in the mornings.

custom measured and handbuilt frame by sycip in santa rosa, whose team i race with. 853 steel with reynolds carbon seatstays.

rides like butter. my old bike is a couple sizes too small, so was quick in tight traffic but i really had to stay on top of it when thigs got faster. it had the tendency to shimmy at speed and when riding no handed. this one holds a line through fast corners like it's on rails (excuse the cliché). it's way stiffer at the bottom bracket, but the carbon fork, stays, seatpost, and bars take the edge off. and it fits me way better. me like.

<br> - bikeophile

posted by <br> at 12:12 PM | permalink | comments (2) | trackbacks (0)

this is a photo of the inside of my eye taken by my optometrist and then emailed to me. the interweb at work!

she told me it's healthy.

<br> - seer

posted by <br> at 09:42 AM | permalink | comments (0) | trackbacks (0)

we went to a memorial on saturday for todd wilson. it was a lovely service for a lovely man. todd grew up going to the same church in troy, ny as i did. about a decade older, he was my junior high youth group leader in what seems like a different lifetime.

he moved to san francisco. when i first came to reconnoiter in the late 90s, he was a great host and evangelist of san francisco. he wouldn't let me pay for anything. he took me on a bike ride up the railroad grade on mt. tam because i told him i liked mountain biking. he was a bike commuter, but not really a biker. mt. tam is a little bigger than market street. but no big whoop.

when i decided to move here, i asked him if i might crash at his place for a bit while i looked for an apartment (in 2000, the worst possible time to look for an apartment in san francisco). he and his partner chris welcomed me without hesitation. they were scheduled to be out of town when i arrived. he sent me a house key in the mail with the only request being that i water the plants (i think i overwatered a cactus, sorry!). he was pivitol in making my move to the left coast that much more manageable. when i didn't really know many people here at all, he opened himself and his home up to me. all in his smiling, open, completely non-mental, non-judgemental way. when you're with todd, everything is going to be just fine.

that same year, when i didn't go home for holidays, he invited me to his intimate family xmas eve dinner. good company and a gourmet dinner (thanks to chris) during a decidedly blue period of my life, during the bluest time of the year if you don't have a place to go. for all these things i will be forever indebted to him. of course he would have never seen it that way.

he was a talented dba and passionate independent film maker. i also have him to thank for my imdb entry. he made films that reinforced his ability to be exactly who he was. respectfully, positively, and unapologetically a gay man.

even though we did not remain close as my life in san francisco took root, he was, without a doubt, a person who i was just happy to know was in the world. i think the last time i saw him was last winter sometime. both commuting up market street on bikes. traffic, darkness and the general chaos of the daily commute made it so i did not get to say hello, and i'm not sure he saw me, but his 6'6" frame pedaling his upright commuter bike was unmistakable. maybe i noticed he had a cough. he died of lung cancer at the age of 42 and will be sorely missed.

when i found out from my family that he had fallen ill, i wasn't sure exactly what to do. i knew that, with the life he lived, he was well supported. and given that, i didn't really feel close enough for it to seem natural for me to reach out. i don't know if i was worried about seeming more of a burden on him than a help. maybe that he might not feel comfortable accepting help from me. those are my insecurities on confronting mortality talking and i still feel a little guilty for that, yet as i heard updates, and went to the memorial, i saw just how strong a community he had built around himself, and how it helped him through his final days. so i'll let this be my little contribution.

<br> (ix) - cafe patron

posted by <br> at 11:07 AM | permalink | comments (0) | trackbacks (0)