Adults brought their children out to watch as if the carnival had just come to town. We rode past one house where an elderly gentleman was in frozen repose, his accordian in mid-squeeze and his jaw completely dropped. Pre-teen girls waved from their bedroom windows. We mounted steep hills, some on foot and some dogging it out, and careened down dangerous descents. I almost fell off my bike on one steep downhill, simply because there were so many bikes congregated at the bottom of the hill that I was nearly track-standing at a more than 45 degree angle, which is impossible.

There were several bike casualties along the way--blown tires, popped spokes, derailled chains, and a few tumbles caused by the careless carefree ways of so many bikes in motion together and bikers losing track of time and place, drawn into the wonder of all the events. More than once, my bike and Soyboy's "kissed" at the handlebars but always gently, making us laugh because of the sensation it brought on of dozing off somewhere where you shouldn't and waking just as your head drops.

But most of us made it through Eureka and Noe Valleys and the Castro, where we came upon a motorcyclist hemmed in by bicycles all around. The cyclists were getting a little surly and sadistic at that point, forcing the lone motorman to wheel his bike all the way back to the beginning of the intersection until they were good and ready to get out of the way. Meanwhile, some jokers yelled out the window: "You people are so lazy! Why don't you get off your bikes and walk for a change!" That's when I noticed the temperature had dropped and the sun was quite low. What had been a mad crush was becoming more and more diffused, with splinter groups doing their own thing. Soyboy and I decided to park the bikes and get some chow after all the excitement, and that's just what we did, newly annointed bike freaks and city geeks.

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