Tag: Race

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I heard about Soil Saloon a while back – a renegade cyclocross race (held at a different secret location each time– this one involved 6 laps around a 1-2 mile “course” of narrow off-road dirt trails, with roots and rocks to dodge and mud and puddles to splash through … oh, and a local beer to drink after each lap). Some people have photos on flickr. A few of us dropped by at the end of a morning city ride to watch it– and then impulsively decided to join, even with our non-ideal bikes (I at least had my heavy touring bike, unlike my friends who had narrow-tire road bikes). ...

Today I did the Supermarket Street Sweep, a combination bike race with prizes (in the general Alleycat style) and mission to collect food for the SF Food Bank. 170 cyclists participated and collected about 7000 lbs of food. [you can skip past this text to the map and photos, if you want] Here’s how the race aspect works (I’d never done one before): A group of cyclists gather without knowing the route, and then a manifest sheet is handed out with a list of supermarkets around the city you have to visit and things you have to purchase for the food bank at each one (you have to bring back receipts as proof). The first stop was prescribed (in Daly City, the farthest-out location), but after that you were free to visit the supermarkets in any order and by any route, making the race a combination of raw speed and navigation (well, and teamwork if you have a team, allowing some members to run in at each stop and shop, while others hydrate, watch bikes, plan the route for the next leg, and so on). ...