More Beer Pix - the H.B. Albert Memorial Beck’sts

Introduction

It was a little sad for me that, when researching my recent aquaculture post, I couldn’t consult my dad. It would have been a great conversation topic, and those weren’t always easy to come by. I say “weren’t” because my dad died last year. I’m now bumping into various anniversaries: of our last non-medical visit; of the unsuccessful surgery that was the beginning of the end; of the end itself; and, of the aftermath.

Now, I don’t cope with these anniversaries, nor did I cope with these events, by drinking beer. But, looking back, I can see the role that Beck’sting played in being supported through the gradual dénouement. Read on for some bittersweet memories, bitter beers, and fetching photos.

A note on the captions and other comments: throughout this post, I’ve included the initials of the Beck’ster and anybody who commented on his Beck’st. Where you see one letter only (e.g., “E—”) that’s somebody’s spouse, etc. And if you don’t know about Beck’sting, click here. For a follow-up gallery of Beck’sts click here.

Last time we hung out with Dad in a non-convalescent capacity– June 18, 2017

[All four brothers took the old man out for a Father’s Day dinner. We were together in Washington state for my nephew’s wedding. My dad, already in the throes of a losing battle with cancer, had made a heroic solo road trip—which we all knew would be his last—so he could attend.]

DA: This is a Boundary Bay Scotch Ale. You can tell H— is very impressed with my exquisite taste.

PCS: H— is looking dapper! Did you get him to drink a few brewskis?

DA: Very funny. I think he’s consumed a grand total of half a beer during his lifetime. He does look pretty baked in this photo, though. (Of course he’s not.)

BA: Well... it is a good picture of your Scotch Ale, Dana, but I’ve seen better of Dad! He was actually pretty chill for the time together, which was great.

Helping out post-surgery – September 6, 2017

PCS: Funkwerks Saison! Chillin’ with Dana....Gondo! [Gondo = Café Gondolier, a Boulder favorite.]

DA: Funkwerks Saison! Very good, out of Fort Collins. Chillin’ with Pete at the Gondo!

DW: I bet that Funkwerks is a hella lot better than the Mirror Pond that’s sitting in my fridge, which I have on good authority is meh.

JL: Gondo Bext! Double Gondo Bext! That’s got to be worth 50 points! Maybe more! How many plates of spag will Dana eat tonight? And why aren’t you there are on all you can eat night???? Or is Wednesday all you can eat night…? I thought it was Tuesday. What are you doing out there Dana????

DA: We missed spag spesh night by one night! So we had garlic twists, one plate of spag, and shared a pizza. Good times! I am in town helping my dad out after a major surgery. At least that’s my excuse. I am really here for the spag!

DA [later than evening]: This is one of my very favorite beers: the Dogfish Head 90-Minute IPA. Isn’t it amazing that the Gondo, an iconic restaurant from our childhoods, is now serving us brilliant adult beverages?

JL: Yes, you are correct.

DW: Great Bex’ts. What’s on tap for tomorrow...some 180 mile mega ride with 22,000’ of climbing? After a few of those awesome looking beers and the twisted, elated, conspiring expressions you both have, I’m sure that’s what you were planning. On the other hand, did you guys put your phones down and talk to each other, or just kept checking your social media accounts with a nod, grunt or response that had nothing to do with the question asked from the other? Both are totally acceptable, BTW.

DA [the next day]: LOL. I meant to ignore Pete and Max by immersing myself in online dialogues but I don’t have enough virtual friends to make that work! We’re going to do some kind of mega-ride. I might go for some bonus miles by riding to Golden to meet Peter. Kind of depends on how comfortable the saddle is on my rental bike. I am kind of hurting this morning ... can’t tell if it’s the beer, the overeating, or the stress of being a ... CAREGIVER. (Say that reverently, with a pregnant pause for effect beforehand.)

Helping with skilled nursing facility, then hospice – October 17-26, 2018

DA: Maxin’ out with Bryan and Max at the Gondolier in Boulder. This is a Modus Hoperandi IPA from Ska Brewing in Durango. It’s 6.8 IBU and 88 IBUs but surprisingly smooth and darn good!

JL: Bryan looks angry for a guy with a nice looking full pint of beer in front of him — what did you say to him?? Or maybe he’s just hangry because they haven’t delivered the spag yet. And what brought you guys to Boulder? Weren’t you just there?

BA: Here’s the view from the other side of the table. The spag spesh is a nice reprieve from all the action here in Boulder.

DW: Dana looks equally angry. I hope you guys had more than one IPA.

DA: We are here visiting my dad who is very sick. As in very, very sick ... we are on the way back from the airport having just fetched Geoff [who flew in from Holland]. Sorry to be a downer.

JL: Oh man, I’m really sorry to hear this. There was a part of me that was wondering if something bad was up with your first email, but then I “perished the thought.” You and the brothers are there, and that’s good. My thoughts are with you guys.

DA: Thanks John. I thought about saying something earlier but I didn’t want to taint a perfectly good Beck’st. Things are headed pretty swiftly in the inevitable direction....

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DA: At Uncle Max’s pimpin’ new bachelor pad. Dan, note that even though the New Belgium Trippel specifically recommends stemware, I served these in a proper (and non-carcinogenic) pint glass.

DA (continued): Here’s another. New Belgium Trippel, Crystal Brewing Blood Orange Kolsch, Great Divide Colette.

JL: The perspective appears to be from someone who has already had a few too many… For me, I’m having this odd “IPL” [India Pale Lager] from Jack’s Abby. It’s “cleaner” than an IPA I would say. Slightly more refreshing, but still very flavorful. It might become my new favorite beer. Oh, and it’s in a can, which is my preferred container for beer in the summer/warmer months. Many breweries around here are putting more of their beers in cans. It’s “cool.”

October 27, 2017

[I sent this Beck’st just a few hours after my dad’s death, which is described here. I snapped this photo at the Dushanbe Teahouse, a restaurant my dad raved about but which we somehow never managed to visit together. It was weird to be dining in such a swanky place while our dad was laid out stiff somewhere, but I guess life goes on. As if to underscore this point, at the Teahouse we happened to run into the hospice nurse who’d been at our childhood home with us, and even in the room with us, when our father died. I didn’t feel like addressing these surreal feelings in my Beck’st—much less typing a lot with two thumbs during dinner—so I kept my Beck’st short and sweet.]

DA: A local beer from Avery Brewing Company, the White Rascal Belgian style white, at the Dushanbe Teahouse in Boulder. Delicious! I hired a model to pose in the background. Huh huh, no. That’s my niece R—.

PCS: That’s good times! Cheers to the memories.

BA: Good times indeed. As much as I’m relieved that the late night amateur nursing care, the [heinous] ostomy odors and the gut-wrenching pain of it all are (more or less) behind me, I’m really going to miss the rich, wonderful times with these brothers. I can’t imagine what it would be like going through something like this alone. We had some good Beck’sts, that’s for sure. The food at this tea house was really good, as was the tea I had. Who could have known?

Memorial trip – November 16-18, 2017

DA: This is a Mojo IPA from Boulder Brewing. Pretty yum! Note the reflection of my checkered napkin, and of course Evil Uncle Bryan in the background. We are in Boulder for my dad’s upcoming memorial.

BA: Too bad your phone has such a tiny lens with such a small aperture, otherwise you’d be able to blur out the background a bit better! Still, good times, all things considered.

DA: Actually, I was thinking the main flaw with this photo is that you’re so bald.

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DA: Liquid Mechanic Belgian IPA, post-memorial. [Pete gave me a lift to the memorial “after-party,” held at a friend’s house in a suburb outside Boulder, and when we drove by the Liquid Mechanic brewery Pete made an executive decision and swung into the parking lot. He’d wanted to try this place, and this seemed the perfect opportunity. The memorial had gone just fine, but so many complete strangers approached me afterward and talked my ear off—all on the subject of a dead man who’d been my father—I was feeling pretty damn overwhelmed. This glorious beer and a little peace and quiet were exactly what I needed.]

DW: You guys look quite dapper in your sports coats. That beer looks pretty darn tasty too. Sorry about your dad, Dana. I hope this bex’t will make you laugh a bit. This is my GWAR bex’t.

DW (continued): This is a Tropical and Juicy from The Hop Concepts in San Diego. This IPA blew me away. It was delicious and a total surprise. We stopped in Sacramento on our way down to Ventura for Thanksgiving. No shortage of breweries in Downtown Sac. We tried Fieldwork, but there was no room and not an ideal arrangement for two 15-year-olds. My kids were very hangry and not amused with my need to get to a brewery. “What’s wrong with Denny’s?” I think I heard. We walked over to something called “Burgers and Brew.” The name is a bit hokey, but it had good ratings and a great selection of craft beer. There was a huge line next to the restaurant with a lot of metal heads, hanging on from the 90’s. The reason? Next to Burgers and Brew was the night club “Ace of Spades” and that’s where GWAR was playing. One unfortunate thing about Bend (and most of Oregon, except PDX) is a lack of ethnic diversity. Hanging out in Sac for awhile was nice for that, and the cultural experience of metal heads was a whole new level of diversity that my kids were pretty blown away with. I played them a YT video of GWAR in all their glory.

DA: Wow, cool Beck’sts! I confess that a) I didn’t know Fieldwork had expanded from Berkeley to other locales like Sac, and b) I had to look up “GWAR.” I asked E— if she’d heard of GWAR and she replied, “I’ve heard of guar gum.” Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the crowd as much as the Tropical and Juicy IPA. I love the idea of ageing metal-heads (or “metallists” as we used to call them in high school). I have managed to turn [my daughter] A— on to Metallica. That’s not so hard though, since they’re tot’ly wicked. BTW, my brother Max made a new year’s resolution a few years back (one of many) which was “no more classic rock people.”

Follow-up Boulder trip, cleaning out Dad’s house – March 5-6, 2018

DA: Here’s another Boulder Beck’st with Uncle Peter, Uncle Bryan, and Evil Uncle Max. The beers in the glasses are a Belgian style from Upslope Brewing, a local place. Gorgeous beer. Note the pasta dough—fresh pasta is imminent and nothing goes better with beer except maybe friends and brothers. Fortunately we’ve hit the trifecta! Note also the also local (Denver) Great Divide Titan IPA, a solid choice. Good times!

JL: You guys are all looking good. Real good. However, that “pasta dough” as you call it looks more like an alien tumor. Yikes.

Road trip Beck’st – March 7, 2018

DA: Bryan and I are at the Nevada Hotel in Ely. Our room came with free breakfast at Denny’s and free Budweisers at the bar. I reckon these are about 8-oz. beers and maybe 3.2% ABV. They were slightly better than nothing and the company was top-notch.

JL: I must have missed something. Why are you in the middle of nowhere Nevada????

BA: ROAD TRIP! We were driving Dana’s new car to Cali. He inherited Dad’s Toyota Scion XB, in case you hadn’t heard… So we were havin’ a Bud. It was nothing special but I must confess, it was better than I thought it would be. (That was my first Bud ever.)

Real estate closure – March 10, 2018

DA: Here are Bryan and I celebrating the closing of a major real estate transaction: selling our father’s house. (I finished the paperwork during the Boulder trip but of course it wasn’t really done until the wire transfer came through.) This is at Fieldwork, which is not only the best brewery in NorCal but happens to be walking distance from my house. Bryan has a Belgian “table beer” of some kind and I have got a Radlands IPA. Both very tasty!

DA (continued): I’m not sure this is technically a selfie. We used the self-timer, which predates the selfie by many decades, innit? 

Life goes on – April 12, 2018

DA: I’m up to 174 pounds but the wife says I’m still too scrawny to cuddle, so here I am Beck’sting again. Solo-Beck’sting, no less, in clear violation of my only-drink-with-friends rule. E— put her foot down about that, on the grounds that the only way for me to fill back out after the all-too-effective South Beach Diet is thru regular consumption of beer. Hence the flurry of Beck’sts lately. Don’t worry, though: I can quit anytime I want. In the background there is my new car. Dad called it the Toaster (or “Towster” to be precise) but it’s my car now and I am calling it Boxtro. Bryan can provide the etymology. The beer is an East Brothers Pilsner. It’s okay—paying my rent at this coffee shop is all. They don’t serve Lagunitas IPA here anymore which is a bummer.

PCS: Beck’staholic!

BA: Boxtro was some kind of stuffed animal, though I’m not remembering too well just what kind of animal it was, a bear, I guess, but it seems it had smooth skin rather than hair or fur. I have a memory of someone squirting toothpaste on Boxtro’s head, which proved very difficult to remove. I’m not sure how the name came about. It was Max’s pet, was it not? The car’s looking good!

DA: Boxtro was a teddy bear, and you’re right, he had oddly smooth fur, like a bed sheet. You, Geoff, and Max were huddled around the bear, and I watched with fascination as one of you meticulously drew a figure-8 in Crest on the bear’s head. Max seemed oddly cool with this, perhaps because it was so gratifying to be participating in a group activity with his cool older brothers.

The car is just fine, but E— is begging me to get some hubcaps. Where the hell did Dad put them, after he had the rims spray-painted? I should have asked him when I had the chance…

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Colorado Mountain Road Test - SRAM eTap Electronic Shifting

Introduction

So, this post will be a bit unusual. I did a Colorado mountain ride with my friend Pete recently that wasn’t quite epic or disastrous enough to warrant its own post. (For epic click here; for disastrous click here.) Meanwhile, I’ve long wanted to blog about electronic shifting, but I’m not sure I care enough about it to devote a whole post to that, either. So here’s a combo: while telling you about a not-quite-epic ride, I’ll share my firsthand experience with top-end electronic shifting. If you care about neither, read on anyway, because I’ll cover food and booze too.

Executive summary

Fun ride, even though my rental bike’s SRAM Red eTap bit the wax tadpole.

Short version

Our pre-ride carbo-load dinner was exquisite. I rented a very high-end bicycle from a good shop. This bike had electronic shifting, which I was hoping to have some trouble with so I could bag on it, which I’m predisposed to do anyway. I did have some trouble, which proves that at least this brand of top-end electronic shifting is still a pointless expenditure. The ride was fun, hard, and involved a gorgeous dirt road. It wasn’t that epic, though, which is my friend Pete’s fault.

Long version

If you know me well, you know I’ll all about fast cars, fly women, and gold chains. Hmmm. Maybe that’s not quite right. I guess more accurately I’m all about fast bikes, fine literature, and saving money.  And when I go to Boulder, I’m all about time-honored traditions like eating pasta at The Gondolier and suffering through long bike rides. Here’s my plate at the Gondo:

Look, I know some wiseguy among you is going to say, “Those noodles are too thick and ropey and don’t appear to be made of semolina flour.” That may be true, but damn it, that’s not the point. These were good enough for me as a teenager when I went every week for all-u-can-eat, and they’re good enough now. Trust me, I know from good pasta.

And look at that beer! Dogfish Head 90-Minute IPA, one of my very favorite beers. (Before I conceived of this post, I snapped this photo for Beck’sting purposes, to make my pals jealous.)

That’s Pete in the background. He’s my favorite biking pal because he’s way faster than I am but doesn’t seem to hold it against me. He also susses out all the cool routes that invariably feature gobs of climbing and remote dirt roads.

For my rental bike I went to University Bicycles, affectionately known as UBikes, which is arguably the best shop in Boulder (though I also like Vecchio’s Bicicletteria quite a lot). Now, you might not know this, but Boulder is considered a very bike-y place. “Best shop in Boulder” is kind of like being “best brothel in Amsterdam.” (I’m actually not that wild about the comparison I just made, but I don’t have time to go fix it.) Anyway, one cool thing about UBikes is their collection of very cool old bikes like this one.

When I was 13 my friend Nico (also 13) loaned me, for about a year, a Cinelli road frame of similar vintage.  When I think back to how advanced Nico and I were, compared to the current crop of ho-hum teens, I start to sound like an old person.

Last time I rented a bike from UBikes for an epic ride, I waited too long and got a real pile of crap. This time I planned ahead and, almost two hours before the shop opened, reserved a Specialized Tarmac via their website. I got to the shop about ten minutes after they opened and they’d already put on the Look pedals I requested. As the salesman helped adjust the saddle for me, he sent another guy upstairs to “get the batteries.” Batteries? Huh? Oh, wow, this bike sported SRAM eTap electronic shifting! It works like this: there are only two buttons, one per lever. To get a smaller rear cog you tap the right. For a bigger cog you tap the left. To change chainrings you tap both buttons at once.

Is electronic shifting cool? No. I can say that now that I’ve tried it. I have always been tempted to say that without even trying it (kind of like how I can confidently say heroin isn’t cool even though I haven’t tried it, either), but until now I figured I better hold my tongue. Now I’ve tried it and, as I’ll get into later, it’s not foolproof (which of course it needs to be to have any benefit over traditional shifting).

Empirical arguments aside, I will now walk you through why electronic shifting is lame in principle. First, let’s ask the question, what makes a racing bike good? Number one, the bike has got to look cool. Number two, the bike has to go fast. Let’s evaluate eTap on that basis.

Does it look cool? No. Here’s proof.

That Cinelli I showed you a bit ago? That looked cool. Those SRAM derailleurs? With the big hunks of plastic-y material sticking off of them? Those don’t look cool. They look really bad. Now, I know aesthetics are a matter of personal taste, but that doesn’t mean there’s no right or wrong. If you like the look of these derailleurs you are either delusional or have no taste, and I no more respect your opinion than if you said plastic ketchup bottles look better than glass.

Now, speed is another matter. My Giant road bike might not look better than that old Cinelli I had, but overall the Giant is better because it’s faster. That is, the Giant will get me up hills faster, given the same power applied to the pedals, because it’s lighter than the late ‘60s Cinelli. Now, here’s how the whole “is it faster?” question applies to electronic shifting.

(The SRAM Red eTap rear derailleur weighs 239 grams; the SRAM Red traditional weighs 178 grams. The levers weigh about the same between the two types. Etc.)

I guess it could be argued that eTap is better because it’s more foolproof and/or more pleasurable to use. I’ll get to that later.

Just in case you give a shit, here’s the bike I rented.

Great bike. It rode really well … stiff, comfortable, handled well. My only complaint is that it seemed a bit heavier than my Giant. Hmm, I wonder why.

The saddle was pretty comfortable too, which was a relief. You just never know with a rental bike.

I have to question Specialized’s normally spot-on branding here, though. I mean, Toupé? Are you kidding me? Look, marketing guys: since you evidently didn’t grasp this, “Toupé” is one letter away from, and pronounced exactly the same as, toupée, the artificial hairpiece that insecure men wear, which is a front-runner for the most embarrassing product a man could buy. There’s a reason slapstick comedies so often feature a man’s humiliation at having his toupée  blow away or getting it snatched off his head. Given the prevalence of baldness amoung MAMILs (hardly the most glamorous ambassadors of the sport), this is astonishingly reckless branding. If they came out with a women’s version, would they call it the Merkin?

Since I seem to be finding fault with everything, I might as well complain that the helmet UBikes loaned me didn’t have a vent setup that gave me any way to stash my sunglasses. This really surprised me, since every helmet I’ve had in the last 20 years has had sunglasses-friendly vents. But thanks to the Toupé saddle, problem solved!

I finally understand why so many modern saddles have that giant hole in them. (By the way, the above picture provides the only photo evidence that I was actually on this ride. Look closely and you can almost tell what club I ride for.)

But enough about the gear and culture. It’s time to hit the open road! Here’s where we rode, starting from Pete’s house in Golden.

The reason this ride was so short is that although Pete and I both had the day off, he had a noon conference call. I already gave him a hard time about this, but you should pile on. E-mail me your scathing gibes and I’ll pass them along.

We started out by riding up Lookout Road, featured in the US Pro Challenge and, more recently, Phil Gaimon’s successful bid for the new Strava record. We didn’t end up going as fast as Phil. I guess we forgot to hammer. Oh well. We ride Lookout in less than twice Phil’s time, which isn’t bad.

If you’re looking for an open road, Colorado is a good place to start.

I don’t have a whole lot of photos of this ride because I forgot to bring my camera. Fortunately—check this out!—my phone has a camera built in! That sure came in handy.

There was a wonderful section of brand-new bike path for a ways. Then, after another climb, I helped Pete get a new personal record on the Floyd Hill descent. (Actually, we weren’t even thinking about trying to go fast, much less doing anything on Strava. And lest you think we’re daredevils, this was only good for 144th place.)

Alongside the road were some buffalo, or “buffler” in mountain-man parlance. I’m sure these creatures are more majestic when they’re not all fenced in.

The pedaling was hard. After Lookout we braved another Category 2 climb a bit over 7 miles long, taking us to about 8,700 feet above sea level.  That may not sound like much, but I donated blood recently. Also, I’m not very strong to begin with.

Okay, let’s get back to that shifting. First impression? Kind of nifty. It didn’t take long to get used to it (though a couple times, near intersections, I tapped the wrong button.) Once I got used to it, and the novelty wore off, I realized it’s not as fun as traditional shifting. I enjoy mechanisms. After all, we’re messing about with PCs, tablets, phones, and other electronic interfaces all day long. As more and more technologies are designed to be idiot-proof and as automated as possible, what’s left for us to do? I miss the stick shift on my old Volvo. Driving a stick is more fun than letting the car decide when to shift. (And operating the clutch of my old car was more fun than using Geartronic, the so-called “manumatic” transmission of my current Volvo.)

What’s wrong with today’s wealthy cyclists that they don’t want cable-type shifters, especially considering how good they’ve gotten? Why do all these dentists and stockbrokers enjoy being coddled with pushbuttons?

So much for eTap being more fun. So does it shift faster? No. Rear shifting has been practically instantaneous for many years so there is scant room for improvement there. And when shifting the front with eTap, there’s a tiny delay when you tap both buttons before you hear this little whirring noise and the motorized front derailleur moves the chain. Granted, this delay is unimportant; the main factor in response time was never in the lever to begin with—it’s dragging that chain up to the big ring, or nudging it to the little one without letting it fall. The SRAM red front derailleur does just fine, but no better than high-end cable-type front derailleurs.

The last chance for eTap to prove itself superior would be in the “foolproof” department. This is hard to test, of course.  I will concede that cable-type front shifting isn’t perfect; everybody throws his chain once in a while. That being said, one ride on eTap without a missed front shift wouldn’t mean anything. I might go weeks or months, maybe a year or more, without my bike’s front derailleur screwing up. So my only hope for hitting the trifecta—ugly, heavy, non-foolproof—would be eTap happening to screw up within the narrow timespan of my four-hour ride.

About 2/3 of the way into the ride, all the planets lined up. Pete and I reached a point where a steep downhill led right into a steep climb, and I wanted to keep as much momentum as possible. This meant big-ringing it until the very last second and then going for the little chainring. What a perfect testing ground for electronic shifting! You can see where we were, about 43 miles into the ride:

I bombed the downhill (leaving a bit of a gap between me and Pete so maybe I could surge by him triumphantly) and tapped the two buttons at just the right moment. And guess what? The fricking chain fell off! And here’s the really weird part: it came off the right side, as if it had overshot the big ring (which it had already been in) instead of the little one. WTF!?

Now, a defender of this eTap technology might be tempted to blame the rider. But that’s silly; there should be no way to get it to mis-shift. But wait, you might say, what if I had accidentally hit the two buttons twice instead of once? Well, I suppose it’s possible I did that, but electronics should be “smart” enough  to handle this kind of user error. That is, the system should ignore a second click if it comes a fraction of a second after the first one, since obviously nobody would want to shift onto the small chainring and right back to the large. Besides, I’m not a klutz—on an old Schwinn I had with no front derailleur (it had broken off) I used to shift by hand—so I’m 99.9% sure I tapped those buttons just once.

I will continue to play the devil’s advocate and entertain the possibility that the derailleur was poorly adjusted. But remember, this was a ~$6000 rental bike that gets tuned up after every ride. It was built and maintained by arguably the top bike shop in a bicycle mecca. If UBikes can’t get it right, clearly the tolerances of this system are too tight—i.e., it’s literally too high-maintenance—to be practical. I for one would not want to own a bike with such finicky shifting (if adjustment is indeed the problem).

Pete, looking back and seeing that I’d thrown my chain, said, “See you back in Golden,” and rode off. Now, when you throw you chain off the big ring on cable-type drivetrains, it’s easy enough to get it back going again—you click the little lever on the left side to move the front derailleur left, then lift up the back of the bike so the rear wheel is off the ground, give the cranks a turn or two, and you’re back in business. It is the same process every  time so you do it without having to really think. But what would I do here? I had no idea why the bike had mis-shifted, and therefore no idea what chainring the front derailleur thought it was in. I had to look closely at the derailleur before double-tapping again, so the failure of eTap was compounded.

In the final analysis, eTap absolutely does not shift faster, nor is it easier or more enjoyable to shift, nor is it (more) foolproof. To my great delight, electronic shifting turns out to be even shittier than I’d imagined.

To those of you who shelled out a lot of money for electronic shifting: don’t feel bad. I’m not trying to bag on you. It’s your bike and your business and you can still feel good about choosing electronic, and I would never expect you to second-guess your choice based on my brief experience with it. But your derailleurs are butt-ugly and your bike is heavy.

Our third major climb, Douglas Mountain Drive, is a Category 2, mostly dirt, with an average pitch of 9%. Very scenic as well.

Some of the sights were more amusing than beautiful. For example, this one:

What’s amusing about that, you ask? Well, look a little closer:

There are grills on both the upper and lower decks! Why would that be? Maybe it’s in case members of the family can’t get along. “Just for that, I’m going to barbecue tonight, and you’re not invited!” / “Okay, fine, I’ll go downstairs and have my own barbecue! I don’t need you!”

What a glorious early evening climb this was. Being dirt, and steep, it didn’t let us climb out of the saddle much. We settled in for some really nice suffering and an even nicer view.

Of course I couldn’t snap any more photos once the descending began. With the exception of a mile-long climb I don’t even remember, it was all downhill, for 15 miles, back to Pete’s place. Fittingly, my tale ends as it began: with a beer.

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From the Archives - fiction - A Hair Cut

Introduction

This is a short story from way back.  It was inspired by my move to the Bay Area in 1990, and my abrupt recognition of how different it was from other places I’d lived.  “Different” is perhaps less apt a word than “complete,” in the sense that the little pond I’d imagined the world to be had suddenly given way to a vast ocean.  I came away feeling embarrassed at my own parochialism.  Given the progress America has made in the ensuing 25 years, I trust a wake-up call as shocking as this would no longer be possible today.

A Hair Cut - October 15, 1990

Nick knew Steven from Colorado.  They’d been next‑door neighbors, but Nick mostly knew Steven’s parents.  Steven was ten years older.  When Nick was twelve, Steven opened a hair salon.  Nick stopped by to visit.  He didn’t go inside because Steven was in the barbershop chair with a blond girl on his lap and he was kissing her.  Nick did not want to disturb this.  He wondered if he would ever own his own business.

Years later some friends of Nick’s shared some gossip about Steven.  What they said didn’t seem right because Nick had seen the girl in the barbershop chair.  His friends said Steven was “that way.”  Nick did not know if this was true, and he liked the haircuts because a girl complimented him once. 

Five years later they both were living in California.  Nick had moved to Berkeley for college and Steven was in San Francisco.  Nick phoned Steven to arrange a haircut.  He hadn’t seen Steven in years.  Steven gave him directions.  “I’m in the Castro,” he said.  He mentioned this several times.  Was this for emphasis, Nick wondered?  Or was it just because the first time, Nick had said, “Kestrel”?  Nick didn’t know the city well.  He had no idea where the Castro was.

Nick took the Bart train to San Francisco and got off at the Embarcadero station.  The attendant at the kiosk was not helpful with the instructions for Muni.  Muni buses ran down Market Street towards the Ferry Building and up towards this neighborhood Nick had never seen before.  He waited a long time for the Muni.  Buses kept passing him and none of them said K, L, or M.  Finally Nick asked a passerby who said K, L, and M are on the subway line and you have to go downstairs.  Nick could have waited all afternoon otherwise.  He knew nothing about Muni.

The subway was awfully loud.  Nick had a book of short stories by Hemingway.  He liked how he could feel how the characters felt, and how they couldn’t help how they felt.

When Nick came up out of the subway at Castro Street, he was disoriented.  The street was busy with people and ran down a long hill through old houses like he’d seen in photos.  He looked in the window of a clothing store and one of the mannequins had a hockey mask.  Nick wondered why they would do this.  In whose eyes would this make sense?  He had to ask for directions, but he did not want to ask the people on the sidewalk.  He finally asked two children how to get to 18th Street.  They told him and he was thankful because they were just kids.  They were awfully nice kids.

He found the hair shop.  It was up a steep wooden staircase and down a short, dark hall.  He saw the hair salon to his left but the doorway had black bars across it and a padlock, so he kept walking.  Farther down the little hall was a strange, dark shop with lots of leather and chains.  He went quickly back to the hair salon and a big man with a thick mustache let him in.  Steven was not in the shop.

Nick was glad he had his book and kept reading.  Steven arrived and they shook hands.  Nick felt that he had never known Steven well.  He sat in the big black leather barbershop chair.  Steven’s old salon had had a smaller chair.  While Steven cut Nick’s hair he talked to him and as they talked they used the mirror on the wall so they could see each other.  Nick thought about how it was perfectly normal for people to look at each other when they talked.

Steven was great at cutting hair.  He used little sharp scissors and took a long time.  While he was cutting and they were talking Nick saw another man come into the salon.  He had short dark hair with tight curls and he was talking about his hair.  He said he just couldn’t do anything with it anymore.  He sat down and flipped through a magazine while talking to them.  Three times, Steven pinched his finger in the scissors and yelped.

“How do you like the dildo shop next door?” asked the other hairdresser, the one with the mustache.  Nick said that he hadn’t really looked at it.

“They’re very common here,” Steven said.

“It’s as normal as going to a hardware store and asking for a screwdriver,” said the man with the magazine.  He paused and then said, “I wonder if I meant to make a pun on screwdriver.”

Another friend stopped by to see Steven.  He had thick, tall blond hair and was muscle‑bound.  He did not stay long and after fifteen minutes or so the curly-haired man left too.  When he left he patted Steven on the belly, Nick couldn’t help but notice.

Nick’s hair looked very good after an hour or so but Steven kept cutting, hair by hair, until two hours had gone by.  He charged Nick sixteen dollars.  Nick wrote him a check and then did not know what else to do.  He was a customer but also an old friend.  Steven asked if he wanted to get some tea.  They left the salon.  As they walked down the steep wooden steps, an attractive young woman looked at them and gave Nick a big smile.

“Did you notice that this is a prominent gay area?” Steven asked suddenly.  Nick said that he hadn’t noticed.  “Well it is,” said Steven. 

The coffee shop, Nick noted, also sold beer and cocktails.  It was a curious structure with a corrugated steel roof, Christmas lights, and a patio.  Steven said Nick could get whatever he wanted.  There was a big chalkboard listing all kinds of different drinks.  Nick thought hot chocolate would be good because it was cold out, or maybe a latte.  Those were two dollars and Steven was paying and Nick bought house coffee which was eighty cents.  Steven asked if he wanted to sit outside and Nick said he did.  It was cold outside and getting dark and the coffee shop was beginning to look more like a bar.

On the patio there were lots of people who were dressed lavishly.  Even the plain t-shirts struck Nick as lavish.   A small group of people nearby were talking.  A young woman with short dark hair was talking excitedly to two men with earrings, thick spiked hair, and long overcoats.  “Yesterday, I . . . I saw this cute girl and I . . . I scammed on her and uh . . . cruised . . . uh, she came over and we . . . we made out!” she said at last, talking fast and seeming happy to finish her sentence.  She smiled brightly and the two men nodded.  Nick felt that she was very young.  Nick didn’t think anything was funny but he thought he might laugh but he didn’t.

Steven asked if he was cold.  Nick was in shirtsleeves and the air was cold but he said he was fine. Steven wanted to go in.  They sat in the bar and Steven talked about how bars were encouraged to sell food.  He also pointed out the corrugated steel ceiling, which Nick had not noticed.  Around him lively people milled about and every so often two men would kiss and Nick did not want to look like he was watching.

Two men approached the table.  One had several days of red beard and a turtleneck, and he had a thick musky smell.  The other was a small man with deep clear eyes and a brown leather jacket.  Steven introduced the short man to Nick and the man extended his hand.

“Hi Nick, nice to meet you.  You’ll like Steven, he’s very nice.”

Nick had known Steven for more than fifteen years but he didn’t say so.  Maybe he didn’t really know Steven that well anyway.

The other men left and then Steven was talking a lot about his father.  He said he hoped Nick did not dislike his father.  Nick had always been fond of Steven’s father.  He knew Steven’s father well.

“I don’t think my dad liked your dad,” Steven was saying.  “He never really knew your dad but he probably made assumptions.  My dad always said the new yuppies with their liberal ideas were ruining the city.”  He paused for moment and then began talking faster.  “But he really wasn’t bad about it or anything and he was really tolerant about a lot of things, too, like my being gay and stuff like that.”

The word stung Nick like a bee inside but he did not flinch.  He nodded casually.  The word did not shock him but to hear Steven say it did.  Nick’s neck and shoulders were all tight.  For a few moments his mind drifted and when it came back he found he was talking about money.  He wondered:  was he talking too much about money?  With his other friends it didn’t occur to him to worry about what he was talking about.  Then before he knew it Nick was telling Steven about his ex-girlfriend.

It was dark out and the bar was full and the music was blaring and the bar was full of cigarette smoke and they left.  They walked along the street.  A block down there was a Safeway and across the street were two gyms on the same block.  This was Market street, which had lots of buses running between this neighborhood and, at the other end, the Embarcadero where Bart had let Nick off, hours ago.  Clothing stores lined the street with elaborate window displays and Nick had to look because Steven was pointing them out.  Nick didn’t see any more hockey masks.  They passed a brightly lit deli and Nick walked right past it but Steven had stopped.  He had said something but Nick didn’t hear.  Steven repeated his question:  “Are you hungry?”

Nick was always hungry and everybody always knew it.  Steven bought soft uncooked noodles and some sauce and they went to his apartment.  The door to the street was small and stiff and opened into a long dark hall.  The hall ended in what looked like a carport but Nick only saw a large garbage can.  He thought that seeing a raccoon would not surprise him.  Inside, the apartment was pretty nice but it was all one room and had no windows except the one in the back door that had some kind of clear plastic film over it so it wasn’t really clear.

Steven explained that the concrete foundation was no good because it allowed moisture to seep through.  Steven had always fixed up houses, building walls and porches with concrete, and then he would leave them once they were all done.  He was planning to do a lot of work on this studio.  There was a block of concrete two feet high jutting out from the wall.  It was a mistake when they built the building, Steven explained; he was going to extend it up and put on a table top.

While Steven was washing two plates and a pot to cook the pasta in, Nick sat on the edge of the couch and tried to think of something.  In the apartment were a bed and a couch and a stereo.  On the wall there was a framed photo of somebody Nick thought he recognized.  He asked if the guy was from Boulder and it turned out he was but Nick could not have known him.  While they ate Steven got out a photo album so Nick could see if he recognized the guy on the wall.  Nick knew he wouldn’t.  Steven flipped over the pages of photos, and looking at them was giving Nick a crick in his neck.

Steven got up and walked over towards the kitchen.  He was talking about fathers again.  He asked if Nick knew Tim Glenn.  Nick had heard the story about how Tim always got his hair cut by Steven for years and then heard some gossip and suddenly he and his entire church condemned Steven to Hell and Timmy’s hair never looked as good again.  Nick hated that about the church.  He said to Steven that he sort of knew Tim but mainly through his little brother.

“Yeah, I just sort of thought Tim’s dad reminded me of your dad,” Steven said.  Nick thought about the two dads.  Were they similar?  Nick remembered a story about Mr. Glenn:  once, during dinner, he got so frustrated slicing a baguette, he took it out to the garage and cut it into neat slices with his band saw.  Maybe Nick’s dad would do this, except that the blades of power tools aren’t clean.  Maybe Nick’s dad would use a laser.  Nick realized he was no longer hearing what Steven was saying.

After a while Nick decided he had to get home and then he was worried about finding the Muni station.  Steven loaned him a jacket while they walked to the station.  There was so much to see, and it was all so vivid.  This was something Nick had been marveling at for the last few weeks, when he’d started wearing contact lenses.  Not that everything he saw was pleasant.  There were homeless people begging and Steven got all sore.  “It’s their damn problem,” he said.

At the entrance to the Muni station Nick gave Steven back his jacket and thanked him for the haircut, the coffee, and the dinner.  Steven smiled and they shook hands.  Steven was a nice guy, Nick thought.  And now Nick just wanted to get Muni over with and get back to Oakland.

Nick hated the Muni station.  It was dark and he sat on a concrete bench and somebody sat next to him.  He was a big man with golden red hair and a golden red beard and a black leather biker jacket with lots of studs.  Nick hunched forward over his book.  He stared at the page but could not read.  Another man walked over, short with a thin voice and a white shirt with a collar and a necktie.  He chatted with the red-bearded guy, saying he was only in the area for a day and he had stayed at such and such hotel.  Red said that was a good hotel and Short said he had had just a wonderful time and really liked the area.

“Yes, it’s a grand place to be, even if for only one day,” said Red, “or only one night.”  Short agreed, emphatically.  Red continued, “It’s even a good place to come to just to look at the pretty blond boys.”  Short asked, “To look at who?”  Nick knew Short had heard it fine the first time.  “To look at the pretty blond boys,” Red said loudly.  Short replied, “Oh, yes, even the Aryan-looking ones.”  Red said, “Yes, especially the Aryan-looking ones, but never, ever the skinheads.”

Nick hated being the brunt of Aryan jokes but he chuckled.  He wondered if a skinhead would bother him like this.  He wished he could think of something to say but then the Muni came and he walked quickly down to the last car and boarded.  He looked again at his book. His neck was really sore and the train started up and screamed in his ears.  The train was narrow and the seats were hard.  When they got to the first Bart station Nick got off the train.  He heard it slip away into the tunnel behind him and roar up to speed but he did not watch it go.

Nick was very glad to be back on Bart.  It was familiar and quiet.  He was glad to be able to lose himself in his book and he almost missed his stop.  Nick walked up College Ave towards home.  He passed the pizza place and the little bookstore he liked and the convenience store where he got change for the Laundromat.

The back of Nick’s neck was cold where Steven had trimmed it.  There was a breeze bringing fog in from the bay.  Nick got home and went to bed.  He lay in bed and tried to think about nothing.  When he woke up the next morning there was a stiff, cold breeze bringing a thick fog in from the bay and it wasn’t until he looked in the mirror that he remembered he’d had his hair cut.