San Francisco, Snodgrass has found, is already an Ownership Society; individuals and groups vie mightily to lay claim to territories and assets available, at one time, to anyone who wanted access.
"We've had a dwindling amount of places to go. The Presidio, for example, it's changed," says Snodgrass, referring to an office and condo development in northwest San Francisco. "We can't go there anymore because there are now federal police there. We used to be able to slide in there and get in and get out quick. We can't go in there anymore at all."
Paolo Vescia
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The city's real estate boom has taken its toll, too.
"We had some races that were more urban, with concrete stairs and things like that in the South of Market. But the Mission Bay development has taken away a lot of that," Snodgrass says, referring to the condominium and medical office buildings going up south of downtown. Even on presumably public lands, Snodgrass says he's run into a sense of protectiveness one might expect from a junkyard owner.
"Within Golden Gate Park, we have to confront a sense of entitlement from the dog people. In the last couple of years, we've had far more conflict with them than we ever had," he says. "The dog walkers are crazy mad at us."
The wooded area behind Golden Gate Park's north windmills has become off-limits as well, he says.
"It's where all the guys meet each other and have sex. That area has kind of been abandoned, but it seems like it's just for them," he says. "We're kind of running out of spots."
There are a few left, however, and I'm not telling you where they are. Last week I joined a few dozen new companions as they rode around in the dust waiting for Snodgrass to lay out the day's course. This was a fast one, mostly flat with about 150 yards of pavement and two-thirds of the circuit in dirt. The DFL boys had fabricated artificial hurdles out of electrical conduit and laid them across the trail every few hundred yards, twisting the course through some grassy dirt trails, past some abandoned piles of rusty wrought iron, and along the edge of the bay, before returning to the pavement stretch.
We lined up behind a wheat-flour line in the dirt. Somebody said, "Go," and we were off like foxhounds. On the first lap I ruined my rim, and it dragged against my bike frame during the rest of the race. I fell once or twice, and missed a jump or three. I momentarily went off course. But there were a couple of times on the straightaways where the motion of my legs felt powerful and smooth. On a couple of hurdles my dismounts and remounts came out just right, and I didn't lose speed. And as I bounded up an embankment as we reapproached the bay, I imagined Charlie from my childhood, sprinting behind me. For a few moments, I felt like I was floating.
It's a feeling you just can't buy.
