Soil Saloon

All played a major role in this most recent soil saloon.  A big thanks to the volunteers, photographers, racers, dancers and cheerer-on-ers that made this such a fantastic race.

Spaceman reports:

3rd time’s a charm.  3rd Soil Saloon was darn. fun.  As sunny as the city ever gets, as sweaty as bike racers ever get, and as drunk on keg beer and margaritas as revelers ever get, this soil saloon was truly a spectacle to behold, to abhor and to treasure all in one.

For those unfamiliar with the Soil Saloon, it is an enigmatic monthly(ish) event which combines the best aspects of bicycle racing, carousing, and merrymaking. There are challenging feats of strength, preposterous and rampant context-free silliness, blood, sweat, dirt and joy.

The third installment of SF’s Soil Saloon was no exception, seeing the return of the Bay Area’s darling Tequila Girls, sirens who slung Mexican hooch and danced away with the hearts of all competitors.  But it wasn’t enough to simply be a caballero, a don juan and dance well with the ladies while handling your  hooch.

Around every berm and switchback, unforeseen threats confronted the racers.  Hiding behind a log of massive caliber lurked genuine wild Banditos, who callously taxed the race’s shortcut by forcing margaritas down competitor’s throats, occasionally at their faces, and launching insults and taunts into their ears.  Racers suffered through these wild men, only to sprint toward a fate even wilder.

Guarding a mound of completely worthless dirt lurched the Lucha Pulgar wrestler, El Chupacadena Libre, a man who is as much manic as he is mysterious.  A man as much fuerte as he is fuego.  A man as much powerful as he is a pristine.  One by one the racers approached the Chupacadena.  Some fell, some wrastled, some emerged victorious, and most emerged laughing.   One of the most mysterious aspects of chupacadena is his lack of photographic documentation….

The race took the unwitting competitors on five laps of San Francisco County’s finest inner-city singletrack, but no winners would be rewarded without proof that they had the guts to face down the three aforementioned hazards. Wheels spun, dirt flew, blood oozed and cusses uttered, this truly was a Soil Saloon.   True proof of the quality of this race could be seen after the laps were counted, prizes were awarded, and few were the participants not wearing a complex sheen of Golden gate park soil and personal sweat all throughout their exposed skin.

The list of sponsors of this race grows steadily in numbers and generosity. One of this month’s title sponsors, Wilderness Trail Bikes (or, as the cognoscenti knows them, WTB) kicked down some stellar examples of their fine products, saddles and grips to connect you to your bike, tires to connect your bike to the trail, and other lovely goods to fine to mention in these lowly pages, for if we did, surely the entire populace of the greater bay area would issue a collective, “no faaaaiiir…”  Stay happy, y’all, there’s more soil saloon to come, even if WTB isn’t handing out the loot next month.

Speaking of happy, our other title sponsor Toronado, purveyor of fine ales and other infused imbibes, kicked down the 3 liter bottle of —-{?Sinder Claas Sander Clausen?}— , a rare and delicious 14% trophy that was shared among all and made  a fine sacrifice to Bacchus.

Thanks and salutations go also to Speakeasy- makers of fine beer,

Zeitgeist- slinger of fine booze,
the Bike Nut- orchestraters of fine bicycles,
and Mojo Bike Café- Championship Cycleators and Caffeineators.

Without all of you we’d just be four tipsy jerks in the park making everyone on a bike dismount and square dance.

A fine event, and stay tuned, cause I hear it won’t be the last.

~ by Lonesome Hank on April 21, 2008.

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