When the ancient Polynesians invented surfing, they often used a paddle to help them navigate. Fast-forward a few millennia, and Stand-Up Paddleboarding, or SUP, finds itself trendy again. Part of its increasing popularity is that standing upright allows surfers to spot waves more easily and thus catch more of them, multiplying the fun factor. Paddling back to the wave becomes less of a strain as well. The ability to cruise along on flat inland water, surveying the sights, is another advantage. Finally, it’s a good core workout. If you’re sold on the idea, schedule an intro SUP lesson, free with board and paddle rental, and you may find yourself riding the waves like a Polynesian king.More
Many of us remember coming home from our elementary schools with freshly glazed pinchpots, cups, or whatever else our young imaginations could conjure up. Saturday mornings at the Randall Museum can bring that memory back, or create a new one for the youngsters. Ceramics make great gifts — especially on Mothers' and Fathers' Day. Hop on board for the Randall's once-weekly class, and for $6 and two weeks to have your work fired and glazed, you'll have all the materials you need.More
December is almost over - the New Year is coming up and everyone is busy drying off from the rain or holiday shopping. Let's take a look at what's happened this month.
Perhaps you've tired of walloping your friends at Halo, or the appeal of spending every Saturday night calling Lyfts outside of DNA Lounge at 2:30 a.m. is rapidly diminishing.
PostedByMatt Smith
on Thu, Dec 16, 2010 at 2:30 PM
Wow. I feel like I could do this 12 hours a day, six days a week for the rest of my life.
Wow. I feel like I could do this 12 hours a day, six days a week for the rest of my life.
Bamboo Bike Workshop Turns Simple Outdoor Activity Into Indoor Labor Involving Fiberglass, Noxious Resin
A new workshop set up to encourage San Franciscans to make their own bicycles out of fiberglass, carbon fiber, resin, and bamboo, promises to turn an easy, straightforward, and healthful outdoor pastime into one involving backbreaking labor done in a confined space wafting with potentially pernicious fumes.
"You'll build your bike by joining bamboo tubes with fiberglass and carbon lugs," said a company report announcing the opening of the Post and Larkin workshop Friday evening. "Frames made in workshops and with kits are as strong as conventional frames."
Whereas taking up the hobby of cycling ordinarily involves spending $450 or so for a perfectly nice, durable, comfortable bike at a local shop, then immediately riding wherever you want to go, Bamboo Bike Studio will encourage people to spend around $1,000 for the privilege of toiling hours sawing bamboo into sections, wrapping the poles with fiberglass soaked in resin, then hanging the concoction with low-end parts.
PostedByMatt Baume
on Fri, Dec 10, 2010 at 8:25 AM
Got some cyclists on your holiday gift list? Well, you're in luck -- San Francisco's ever-expanding bike mania means that you've got a ton of great shopping options. We've put together this handy gift guide for your last-minute holiday needs, based on input from experts, recommendations from shops, and our own hope that someone will buy these things for us.
"What's a good gift for cyclists?" we asked Nate over at Mike's Bikes. "That's a big question every year," he said. It's hard to buy for cyclists, since their needs are so individualized and particular. Nate suggested starting with lights, which at $15 can make a good Secret-Santa item. Or you can go for the $500 model -- yes, that's right, five hundred -- which puts out almost as many lumens as a car headlight. (A lot.) Just try not to paralyze any deer.
PostedByMatt Smith
on Tue, Dec 7, 2010 at 11:35 AM
In the world of cycling, upright commuters sneer at lycra-wearing roadies, roadies dismiss power-meterless mountain bikers, and everyone loathes the fixie kids. They eschew things such as brakes and bikes that can coast on the premise they're somehow impure. They profess a love of velodrome racing, yet the one time I saw one of those chain-smoking waifs at the track, the poor fellow was an exhausted, bloodied mess within minutes.
A local videographer has pushed this tribe even farther off the cycling reservation with a piece showing him and his pals "bombing" -- which means riding far slower than braked bikes can, yet failing to stop for cross traffic -- down Potrero Hill while running stop signs.
PostedByMatt Baume
on Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 2:14 PM
I've only fallen off my bike once, and it was totally my fault: I was approaching an intersection standing up, then suddenly realized that red means stop and clenched the brakes as fast and hard as I could. Tumble, tumble, tumble.
In other words, I don't need any help falling off a bicycle, thank you very much. I'm perfectly capable of doing it without any help from fancy equipment.
PostedByPeter Jamison
on Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 1:15 PM
Easy parking is, more often than not, one of the advantages of using a bicycle as your primary form of transportation. But that's not always the case. San Francisco's Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival has become notorious for its lack of adequate bike parking. Even the office buildings of SOMA, filled with eco-preening white-collar workers who pedal to work rather than endure the indignities of Muni, sometimes suffer from a lack of adequate bike racks.
It seems there may be an answer on hand to such dilemmas. The Germans, famous for some very good and very bad big ideas, appear to have invented a sort of utility pole-crawling bike mantle that lifts the user's ride skyward, clearing space at ground level. (We're not really sure what would happen if two bikes were thus stacked on the same pole. Then again, we're journalists, not mechanical engineers.)
PostedByMatt Baume
on Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 8:45 AM
Hey, I have an idea. Let's convene a vertigo-sufferers convention in the Swiss Alps. Then we'll hold a family picnic in an Alaskan timberwolf preserve. And finally we can organize an ocean cruise to Kansas.
But first, let's hold the San Francisco Bike Expo at the Cow Palace. It's the perfect location! The bike lanes all around it are a half-finished hodgepodge of vanishing dotted lines, and there are hills on virtually every side! Not to mention, it's not even in San Francisco.
That's why we're relieved by the news that the city is finally getting a bikeshare pilot program. Not only that, but the program will be regional, so you can pick up a bike in San Jose and ride it to Land's End. By which point you would have calves like steel cables.
PostedByMatt Baume
on Fri, Oct 29, 2010 at 10:25 AM
First, it was a stinky marsh. Then it was a railroad. Now, Treat Street faces a new lease on life with a vision to transform it from a dilapidated, weirdly diagonal alleyway into a sparkling green bike corridor.
It would be a pretty amazing accomplishment: a smooth path that curves up from the Inner Mission, then skirts Showplace Square just south of SOMA and glides to Mission Bay. You could be forgiven for thinking of it as a sort of "Hipster Superhighway," though it would likely carry bicyclists from all walks of life.
And better yet, there's an opportunity to see a bunch this weekend.
For nearly 25 years, a man named Slimm Buick has been crafting bikes into works of art. You can catch a glimpse of him in Automorphosis, Harrod Blank's renowned art-car documentary, or just keep an eye out for him whenever you're in the East Bay.
As we were leaving the event, we spotted a bike chained to a rack that was pretty much the coolest thing in the world: a bike all decked out in fuzzy tiger fur, with a keen attention to detail that included a sweet tail and patches of fur adorning the hubs. The owner was nowhere in sight, so we scribbled a quick note to the effect of "awesome bike, can we interview you?" And the bike's creator, Dan Seneres, graciously sent us an e-mail a few days later.
Sub Pop recording artists 'clipping.' brought their brand of noise-driven experimental hip hop to the closing night of 2016's San Francisco Electronic Music Fest this past Sunday. The packed Brava Theater hosted an initially seated crowd that ended the night jumping and dancing against the front of the stage. The trio performed a set focused on their recently released Sci-Fi Horror concept album, 'Splendor & Misery', then delved into their dancier and more aggressive back catalogue, and recent single 'Wriggle'.
Opening performances included local experimental electronic duo 'Tujurikkuja' and computer music artist 'Madalyn Merkey.'"
