there's one day in september when the most important bike race in the world ceases to be the vuelta a espana and suddenly becomes the t-mobile international. it used to be called the san francisco grand prix, but this year they got a new sponsor and changed the name. we missed it last year because we were at a birthday party in the redwoods. this year, we were in town, and even though my band had played a rowdy rock show the night before, we set the alarm for the bright morning hours and hiked over russian hill to the meeting spot.
we met up with jay, mia, and all the rest of the regulars on the taylor street hill. there are two huge hills in the race, fillmore street, which is the steepest, and taylor street, the second steepest. i've ridden my bike up taylor street before. it was dangerously crazy. i had to stop half way and i was probably in third or fourth gear, huffing and puffing. it's prime viewing for the race because the pack goes by nice and slowly and you can yell at the riders individually as you spot them.
we picked "the hydrant" as our meeting spot. half way up taylor, there is a fire hydrant, and two years ago we saw a spectator run along side the race and dump a bottle of water on one of the rider's heads. the cops grabbed him, put him into a headlock, and ran him crotch-first into the fire hydrant. turns out the rider was the guy's brother. it also turns out that such encouragement is commonplace in professional cycling. i guess the cops didn't know that. maybe they don't watch OLN? the guy was later released and the disturbance charges were dropped.
i made small pins that read "venga venga venga" and i passed them around for all in our group to wear. i cheered for the italians (in italian, of course) from the saeco and acqua e sapone squads. after the riders went up taylor street a few times, we descended the hill, walked into north beach, and found an open table on the sidewalk in front of the rogue brewery. there is something remarkably european about sipping a stout and eating cheese and bread while the bike race zips by you, only ten feet away.
we watched the end of the race on the outskirts of north beach. we found a corner where the race goes by twice, once in one direction and once in the other. more yelling in italian and spanish. pavel padrnos and george hincapie were working hard on the front to reel in two riders who had, at one point, a four minute advantage. another guy who was out front for a long time was valerio agnoli, an italian who is only 19 years old. this is his first season as a pro, and he was obviously smiling at the end of the day when we cheered him on.
since traffic was a mess throughout all of downtown, we walked the majority of the distance home. it's a beautiful city for walking, especially on a cloudless sunday in september when everyone is buzzing from such an event. word on the street was that lance was out at the fillmore climb and in the VIP box at the finish. i saved a "venga" pin for the guy in case i ran into him. it is as yet unclaimed.
Posted by snackfight at September 14, 2004 03:42 PM