San Francisco:
I got into San Francisco late, late at night (by my body clock anyway), and famished. After paying a not-so-outrageous price for my ticket, and then $100 to put my bike on the plane (one way!), they could at LEAST feed me more than some orange juice and a bag of pretzels! I hadn't eaten anything else in 12 hours. We stormed a burrito joint as they were closing, lugged my bike box up the 3 flights of stairs to Shane's apartment, and unpacked the bike. By the time we got the bike put back together and I'd dug my pajamas out of my duffel bag, I'd been up for over 24 hours.Even so, I woke up at 5:00 with Shane the next morning, and by 6:00 we were riding through Golden Gate Park on the way to his office. I'd planned on getting some coffee and prancing through the city while he was working, but the coffee shops didn't open till 7, and a quick check in with my sense of direction told me that if I wandered off by myself, I might never find my way back. I finally found some coffee, which was SPECTACULAR for about an hour, but then I crashed a little bit and spent the afternoon sullenly waiting for Shane to go to meetings so I could play with his computer.
When Shane finished his work for the day we took our bikes back out to run some errands in the city. He took me on something called "The Wiggle", which apparently gets its name because it "wiggles" around all the big hills in San Francisco. So we "wiggled" down to one bike shop looking for a new saddle for Shane and more CO2 cartridges for me. I was standing in the middle of the shop waiting for Shane to pump up his tires when an employee came over to me. "That's a really nice bike!" he said. "That's great that they made it in your size. It seems to fit you perfectly."
"Thanks!!!" I said. I had ridden crappy bikes for so long and taken so much shit for it, that it was one of the greatest complements I'd ever received. I beamed like the fat chick who comes back skinny and beautiful after summer vacation and now all the boys want to date her.
Shane didn't find a saddle he liked there, though, so we "wiggled" on down to another bike shop. Shane is used to riding in the city, and he has cleats on his shoes that are easier to clip into than mine. We hit every single red light in the city of San Francisco, and at every single one he left me to eat his dust. Once I finally got clipped in I would have to stand up and sprint my guts out to catch up to him, only to stop in a ridiculously hard gear at the next stop light. I hated San Francisco. Plus, Shane's a guy, so he's got more explosive power. And he's doping. Well, sort of anyway, he's got a legal prescription for a drug that's been banned as performance enhancing anyway.
Leaving the second bike shop, proud new owners of a saddle, some CO2 cartridges, and various Clif products, we were in a bit of a time crunch to get back to Shane's apartment. "Is it okay of we don't take The Wiggle?" he asked. I'd already been dropped at dozens of lights, I was not going to admit that I was apprehensive about San Francisco hills. Shane takes his bike everywhere in the city and he's always talking about these crazy hills he has to climb over a million bajillion times a week. He's also always talking about how he's doing speed work and getting up to about 30 mph on the flats. I believe that maybe his bike computer needs adjusting, but I believed him about the hills. "Don't worry, there's only one hill," Shane promised. I agreed but thought, Only one hill, but how many "bumps?" What's NOT a hill in San Francisco, Shane?! So he took me on one of those 4-lane roads that goes directly under the freeway for several miles, and I thought I was going to die. I almost got run over about a million times in the narrow little lanes filled with glass and all kinds of pointy shit. And I still hadn't faced The Hill. When we finally hit The Hill, I clicked down to a mini gear a little too soon and dropped back before we even started, and Shane pulled on ahead. We went up one block, and then another, and then... it was over. (The hill in the picture is not the hill we climbed)."That was IT?! That was the hill?!" I asked? People in San Francisco exaggerate. Shane exaggerates. I mean, it was steep...ish, but it wasn't anything I couldn't find at home. And then we didn't hit any more hills the whole way back to Shane's apartment. I was almost disappointed.
For the rest of the day I was crabby and tired. We met up with our friend Kat and wandered around the city for the afternoon. I remembered why I don't like San Francisco. I always feel like I should like San Francisco, but I just don't. All cities have crazies, and in a sense it wouldn't be a city without them. But in San Francisco the lunatics seem to be running the asylum. I think it has to do with all the fogginess that's around all the time. Seriously, how can someone stay sane in that kind of murkiness?!
We went out for sushi for dinner and I had a seat facing the window. Suddenly all these bikers started going by. First they were the bike messenger types and the hardcore roadies and "one less car/un coche menos" types, then the real characters started coming through: people on BMX bikes, people on hybrids with tires that were 90% flat, people on tall bikes (this was a new one for me), people in costumes, people on kids' frames that they had somehow fit large tires on to, 
people with sound systems on fenders or in baskets on their bikes, hippie types on decrepit mountain bikes, and every minute or so, a police escort. This was Critical Mass, "Only in San Francisco" meets "Un Coche Menos". On the last Friday of every month bikers from all around San Francisco meet and ride around the city (on an undisclosed rout that changes from month to month). The sole purpose, as far as I could gather, was for bikes to take over the streets and make things miserable for the cars for about an hour and a half every month. Fuck you, motorists, Viva la bici!Shane was excited too. He's lived in the city for years and keeps forgetting to show up for Critical Mass. "See! I told you!" he said. "I bet they follow those roses we saw all over the city!" Shane's all into graffiti and he'd seen a girl tagging roses on signs all over the city in pink marker. He knew she was in the upper echalons of the San Francisco bike counterculture and was way more excited about his discovery than anyone else at the table. He avoids other riders socially, but he watches them all like a hawk.
Orientation:
Before we had to show up at the Cow Palace for orientation, Shane and I rode a couple of miles to Trader Joe's to get some lunch. When we came out my back tire was flat. What the fuck?! "Oh well, this way at least I'll get some practice changing tubes on this bike," I said. What I was thinking was, We're going to miss orientation because I got the first fucking flat of the summer. Why now?! I bet this is a sign. Fucking fabulous, Claire, now you're going to miss the ride. These things only happen to you.
Once I pumped up the tire, though, both of our bad moods went away. Neither of us had ever used a CO2 pump before. "Woooooow," said Shane. "That didn't even take a second!" He poked my tire, "And it's so haaaaaaard!"
"Lookit the nozzle of the pump! It's all frosty!" I squealed. "Oooooh! Look at the valve stem, it's all white and steaming! Cooooooooooool!" And it turns out that we weren't even that late anyway.
I love saying I went to the Cow Palace, Cow Palace, Cow Palace!
The first thing that they did when we got to the Cow Palace was to take our bikes away. They stuck a sticker with our rack number on our handlebars and a matching sticker on our shirts so we could find the bikes later. I tried not to be weirded out by the fact that the guy had put the sticker squarely on my boob. Everyone here is gay, Claire, I reminded myself. You are among friends. Of course not everyone who was involved with the ride was gay, but it was a ride to end AIDS, and we were in San Francisco, so... what do you expect? As soon as we walked down into the main area it was like walking into a magic fairyland and * Poof! * everything was rainbow. There were swishy, limp-wristed men hugging and kissing each other hello and tough,
confident-looking women with short hair and wide stances everywhere. Immediately, I didn't feel gay enough. I'm not really butch, and tend to be "straight-acting" (a new term I learned on my summer vacation), and I tend to feel pretty confident in most aspects of my life (except meeting women). But every once in awhile I'm surrounded by a whole bunch of homos I don't know doing a whole bunch of homo things that I don't do, and suddenly I'm self-conscious. I have too much hair. My pants don't have enough pockets. I don't have any visible tattoos, let alone rainbows or pink triangles. My voice is not deep and gruff. I fly miles under the gaydar. This is how I lost all my hair 2 years ago (a condition I'm still recovering from - see the picture to the right... if you don't know me well, let me tell you that I look ridiculous). Instantly I had a crush on every single woman I saw, and wanted to look like them so that they would look at me.
Except the lady with a mullet, an oversized t-shirt, and tapered knee-length jean shorts. I didn't much care what she thought of my hair. I didn't think much of hers.
We found Lorraine and her crew (who I will introduce later) and went in to watch the safety video. I thought that the safety video was going to be the most boring half hour of my life, but they managed to make it entertaining. After a few hollow thank yous, and several reminders of how important safety is to the success of the ride Lori Jean from the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center gave her schpiel. She was like a kindergarten teacher, but funny in that way that people are when they talk to adults like they're a kindergarten teacher. She held up hand-colored cards to illustrate her points with things like happy faces, sad faces, and a hot dogs ("no hot dogs - the human kind") on them. Then the straight-laced cop came on to give his 2 cents. He reminded us that we were sharing the streets with motor vehicles, and should follow the same traffic rules such as:
~Coming to a complete stop at a Stop sign.
And the video cut to a whole group of drag queens on bicycles touching their stilettos to the pavement.
~Only passing on the left.
A woman with a dozen different colored zip-ties sticking off her helmet like a gay pride porcupine passes another rider.
~Always pull over to talk on your cell phone.
A muscle queen in the most FAAAbulous bike kit you've ever seen stands at the side of the road straddling his bike and flapping his wrists around like crazy as he tells some juicy gossip into his cell phone.
... and so on.
Leaving the Safety Video we got the first of several arm bands. This one orange, meaning that we had watched the video. Then we went to registration where they banded me again with a green arm band that was my ticket to special vegetarian meals, and a red(ish) arm band that meant I was riding for San Francisco.
We still weren't done accessorizing yet. We still needed our tent assignments, so we got on THAT line. Lorraine had forgotten to put us on the list for group tent assignments, so Shane and I got in the much longer line alone to get our tent. When we were alone Shane (who isn't good at keeping his voice down sometimes) asked, "Is she a lesbian?"
I gestured to the crowd full of short-haired women, "Which one, Shane?" A bunch of the people around us laughed.
"Lorraine's friend. The blond. With the short hair." Among Lorraine's group there was a woman whose name we hadn't caught yet who was very outspoken and charismatic. She was the type that whenever she was in a group, everyone's attention naturally turned to her, and she knew what to do with it. Meet Alisa (uh-LEE-sa).
"Yes, Shane. She is a lesbian."
"Well, sometimes you can't tell, you know. Sometimes they're just... soccer moms... with short hair." More chuckles from the people around us. Shane used to have better gaydar than I did. How do you live in the gayest city in the world and have your gaydar get worse?
On Day Two I would have my first real conversation with Alisa. It went like this.
Whole group: "Blah, blah, blah, conversation about stuff and things blah, blah, blah..."
Alisa to me: "Are you straight?" Matter-of-factly, just like that. Out of nowhere.
Me, a little taken aback, not knowing how to respond: "Uhhhhm... No. I'm not."
Alisa: "Oh, cuz I couldn't tell."
That conversation will give me a complex for the rest of my life.
After waiting for the better part of a year we finally got to the tables and got our tent assignment. "Can we be as close to G as possible?" I asked. Lorraine's crew was in G. The guy came back with P-23. The highest letter possible was Q. Oh well. They gave us two blue P-23 tags each, one to put on our bags, and one to put around our necks, an orange tag for our tent, and lots of little chains (the kind they use for cheap key rings) to attach them to our bags and ourselves.
And just when I thought that they couldn't hang more information off my body a woman called us over to her table. She had a whole bunch of chips with numbers on them. "Is this your first ride?" she asked us.
"Yep, we're virgins," I said. I just wanted to get out of here. Who was this woman and why wouldn't she leave me alone?
She handed each of us a chip with a 1 on it. "Put this on your necklace, and if you have any questions you can look for someone with a high number around their neck. They're the veterans." This did not seem like the cool thing to do, but I did it anyway.
Finally we found our bikes at the racks and put our numbers on before saying goodbye for the evening. They would stay in the Cow Palace waiting for us until tomorrow morning, when we would have to be back here at 5:30 in the morning for Opening Ceremonies and Day 1.
Once I pumped up the tire, though, both of our bad moods went away. Neither of us had ever used a CO2 pump before. "Woooooow," said Shane. "That didn't even take a second!" He poked my tire, "And it's so haaaaaaard!"
"Lookit the nozzle of the pump! It's all frosty!" I squealed. "Oooooh! Look at the valve stem, it's all white and steaming! Cooooooooooool!" And it turns out that we weren't even that late anyway.
I love saying I went to the Cow Palace, Cow Palace, Cow Palace! confident-looking women with short hair and wide stances everywhere. Immediately, I didn't feel gay enough. I'm not really butch, and tend to be "straight-acting" (a new term I learned on my summer vacation), and I tend to feel pretty confident in most aspects of my life (except meeting women). But every once in awhile I'm surrounded by a whole bunch of homos I don't know doing a whole bunch of homo things that I don't do, and suddenly I'm self-conscious. I have too much hair. My pants don't have enough pockets. I don't have any visible tattoos, let alone rainbows or pink triangles. My voice is not deep and gruff. I fly miles under the gaydar. This is how I lost all my hair 2 years ago (a condition I'm still recovering from - see the picture to the right... if you don't know me well, let me tell you that I look ridiculous). Instantly I had a crush on every single woman I saw, and wanted to look like them so that they would look at me.Except the lady with a mullet, an oversized t-shirt, and tapered knee-length jean shorts. I didn't much care what she thought of my hair. I didn't think much of hers.
We found Lorraine and her crew (who I will introduce later) and went in to watch the safety video. I thought that the safety video was going to be the most boring half hour of my life, but they managed to make it entertaining. After a few hollow thank yous, and several reminders of how important safety is to the success of the ride Lori Jean from the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center gave her schpiel. She was like a kindergarten teacher, but funny in that way that people are when they talk to adults like they're a kindergarten teacher. She held up hand-colored cards to illustrate her points with things like happy faces, sad faces, and a hot dogs ("no hot dogs - the human kind") on them. Then the straight-laced cop came on to give his 2 cents. He reminded us that we were sharing the streets with motor vehicles, and should follow the same traffic rules such as:
~Coming to a complete stop at a Stop sign.
And the video cut to a whole group of drag queens on bicycles touching their stilettos to the pavement.
~Only passing on the left.
A woman with a dozen different colored zip-ties sticking off her helmet like a gay pride porcupine passes another rider.
~Always pull over to talk on your cell phone.
A muscle queen in the most FAAAbulous bike kit you've ever seen stands at the side of the road straddling his bike and flapping his wrists around like crazy as he tells some juicy gossip into his cell phone.
... and so on.
Leaving the Safety Video we got the first of several arm bands. This one orange, meaning that we had watched the video. Then we went to registration where they banded me again with a green arm band that was my ticket to special vegetarian meals, and a red(ish) arm band that meant I was riding for San Francisco.We still weren't done accessorizing yet. We still needed our tent assignments, so we got on THAT line. Lorraine had forgotten to put us on the list for group tent assignments, so Shane and I got in the much longer line alone to get our tent. When we were alone Shane (who isn't good at keeping his voice down sometimes) asked, "Is she a lesbian?"
I gestured to the crowd full of short-haired women, "Which one, Shane?" A bunch of the people around us laughed.
"Lorraine's friend. The blond. With the short hair." Among Lorraine's group there was a woman whose name we hadn't caught yet who was very outspoken and charismatic. She was the type that whenever she was in a group, everyone's attention naturally turned to her, and she knew what to do with it. Meet Alisa (uh-LEE-sa).
"Yes, Shane. She is a lesbian."
"Well, sometimes you can't tell, you know. Sometimes they're just... soccer moms... with short hair." More chuckles from the people around us. Shane used to have better gaydar than I did. How do you live in the gayest city in the world and have your gaydar get worse?
On Day Two I would have my first real conversation with Alisa. It went like this.
Whole group: "Blah, blah, blah, conversation about stuff and things blah, blah, blah..."
Alisa to me: "Are you straight?" Matter-of-factly, just like that. Out of nowhere.
Me, a little taken aback, not knowing how to respond: "Uhhhhm... No. I'm not."
Alisa: "Oh, cuz I couldn't tell."
That conversation will give me a complex for the rest of my life.
After waiting for the better part of a year we finally got to the tables and got our tent assignment. "Can we be as close to G as possible?" I asked. Lorraine's crew was in G. The guy came back with P-23. The highest letter possible was Q. Oh well. They gave us two blue P-23 tags each, one to put on our bags, and one to put around our necks, an orange tag for our tent, and lots of little chains (the kind they use for cheap key rings) to attach them to our bags and ourselves.
And just when I thought that they couldn't hang more information off my body a woman called us over to her table. She had a whole bunch of chips with numbers on them. "Is this your first ride?" she asked us.
"Yep, we're virgins," I said. I just wanted to get out of here. Who was this woman and why wouldn't she leave me alone?
She handed each of us a chip with a 1 on it. "Put this on your necklace, and if you have any questions you can look for someone with a high number around their neck. They're the veterans." This did not seem like the cool thing to do, but I did it anyway.
Finally we found our bikes at the racks and put our numbers on before saying goodbye for the evening. They would stay in the Cow Palace waiting for us until tomorrow morning, when we would have to be back here at 5:30 in the morning for Opening Ceremonies and Day 1.
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6 comments:
Oh no, the post was too short. I got to the no one knows I'm a lesbian bit, thought this is a great read and went off to make myself a cuppa to enjoy with the rest of it. But you just stopped writing.
I need to know what happened in the end. Do you flourish into a bona fide dyke or do you find love with the mullet lady? Exciting.
Btw, there are a hell of a lot of bikes in the cow palace - how many of you were there on this ride? Looks like you had your very own critical mass.
I agree, I was left wanting more. I haven't even finished half of my oatmeal. Thanks for the postcard, you have lovely penmenship :)
I think next time you do this you need to bring a helmet cam and a mini-recorder.
Claire,
First off , thanks for the post card, if I had more I would have given more but sadly life happens. Second, reading this post reminds me a lot of what happended to me at NY State Swimming Championships 2 years ago...it'll make a good story for a long ride. Third, don't feel like you have to fit some stereotype, if you like your hair long and wearing pants with 6 pockets, and talking in an alto voice then do it. Who you are attracted to has nothing to do with what you find stylish, or how you like to carry yourself...besides women love confidence.
YES more is up! YEa.
It's coming, it's coming. There's so much to talk about, that I'm releasing it one day at a time. Don't worry, you'll have PLENTY to read. Just give me time to put it together and write it up.
Hee. Two of my very favorite things.
Could have written the part in the middle. I can show you how to lift weights improperly so that your anterior delts and pecs will get overdeveloped and you'll get that hunched-over, apish look of douche-bag wanna-be body-builders (and one more hyphen for fun-!). That'll make you look more butch for sure. And invest in some rugby jerseys and doc martens while you're at it.
This sounds like a really involved process. Fun, but a sacrifice in more ways than one for something your believe in. Good on ya, Claire.
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