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• Best Gym for Real People

  Embarcadero YMCA

  The Embarcadero YMCA is located in a fancy part of Downtown, and the surrounding area swarms with uniformly groomed thirtysomethings sucking down specialty cocktails at 6:30 on a Wednesday evening. The building itself is also grand — huge, with heavy glass double doors. But inside, members say, are the People. You know, the ones who deserve the Power. All ages,… More >>

• Best Pool With a View

  Rooftop pool, Bakar Fitness & Recreation Center at UCSF Mission Bay

  It's almost dizzying to keep up with the new development in the southeastern part of San Francisco, from high-rises in progress to the recently opened UCSF Mission Bay campus. But the school's Bakar Fitness & Recreation Center is worth paying attention to: This lovely modern facility features north-facing windows overlooking Downtown from every floor. Nowhere is the view better than… More >>

• Readers' Poll Winners

  Best Race Bay to Breakers Best Hike Mount Tamalpais Best Place to Skateboard Embarcadero Best Gym 24 Hour Fitness Best Bike Shop Valencia Cyclery Best Outdoors Shop REI Best Surf Shop Aqua Best Ski/Snowboard Shop SFO Snowboarding Best Place to Walk the Dog Golden Gate Park Best Swim Aquatic Park Best Jog Golden Gate Park Best Beach Baker Beach Best Yoga Studio Yoga Tree Best Walking Tours Chinatown Best Giant Barry Bonds Best 49er Joe… More >>

• Best 49er

  Joe Nedney

  When a team wins the Super Bowl, it's difficult to pick the squad's best player — the roster bulges with talent. When a team finishes 4-12, the task is a whole lot easier, even more so when the place-kicker has a season like Joe Nedney's. The Niners' most potent (some might say sole) offensive weapon missed only two of 28… More >>

• Best Place to Play Darts

  Eagles Drift In Lounge

  When you feel the need to throw a small feathered javelin at a circle of cork, propel yourself to this Inner Sunset darts hangout. Every Monday night at 8:30 there's a darts tournament ($5 entry fee) complete with handicapping and trash talking. Single players take on random "shooters" in a best-of-three competition; the top eight winners advance to the semi-playoffs,… More >>

• Best Workout Group

  Get in Shape, Bitch!

  What with everything '80s in full revival, there's no better time than the present to bring back the workout jams of yore. Hence, Get in Shape, Bitch!, a collection of kooks willing to don fluorescent one-piece bathing suits and headbands and sweat to classics like Olivia Newton-John's "Let's Get Physical." The group's manifesto, according to its leader, Unitard (aka local… More >>

• Best Place to Score a Bull's-Eye

  Archery Field

  Just this side of the Dutch windmill at the western end of Golden Gate Park is a lovely, misty glade just perfect for making believe you're in Sherwood Forest, where joints of mutton trump shiitake risotto and an unwavering skill with quiver and bow is a matter of life and death. At one end of this tree-enclosed, daisy-dappled lawn, backed… More >>

• Best Long Hike (That Ends With a Beer)

  Ocean Beach to Pompei's Grotto

  Starting at the Beach Chalet, walk north along Ocean Beach. Bask in that Pacific Ocean blue before climbing halfway up Point Lobos Avenue, crossing an unpaved parking lot just above the ruins of Sutro Baths and hopping onto the Lands End trail. This rollercoaster path contains breathtaking views of our steep, jagged coastline, the Marin Headlands, and the Golden Gate… More >>

• Best Baseball Team

  The Oakland A's

  We hate to say we told you so, but we did. Last year we awarded Best Baseball Team to the 2006 Oakland A's, and by golly if the team that General Manager Billy Beane assembled isn't the odds-on favorite to win its division and perhaps even go all the way. And the best part? This team is easy to love.… More >>

• Best Pool Hall

  Family Billiards

  Despite its cuddly moniker, Family Billiards delivers its share of that neo-noir Minnesota Fats ambience you crave when you're in the mood to shoot a little stick. There's the long, low-slung room, hidden away in a subterranean grotto off Geary Boulevard; the pools of lamplit green felt flanked by shadowy figures with cuesticks; the retro stools and raised benches for… More >>

• Best Triathalon

  Accenture Escape From Alcatraz

  Triathalons sound difficult enough without having to contend with the waters of San Francisco Bay, which average around 55 degrees in summer. The temperature outside usually isn't more than 10-15 degrees higher, either. But the sheer excitement of a nationally televised race that begins on Alcatraz Island, continues on to an 18-mile bike ride through Golden Gate Park out to… More >>

• Best Place to Swashbuckle

  Golden Gate Fencing Center

  Before you storm the parapets or raid your next Spanish galleon, drop by the Golden Gate Fencing Center and pick up a few (literal) pointers. The staff of former Olympic coaches and national team fencers trains both novice and experienced swordspersons in the art of the foil (a thin, blunted sword for thrusting) and epee (a heavier, stiffer sword) through… More >>

• Best Sports Radio Host

  Tom Tolbert, KNBR

  The realm of sports talk radio has long been dominated by an execrable creature we'll call the ranter-sycophant, the guy who spews invective at listeners but turns toady when interviewing athletes. Tolbert is the antidote, a laid-back host who grasps that it's called talk radio, not shriek radio, and who dares to ask uncomfortable questions of sports figures, without getting… More >>

• Best Dance/Exercise Class

  Fusion Rhythms, Rhythm & Motion/ODC Dance Commons

  In March, Rhythm & Motion Dance Center decamped from its SOMA base to join forces with ODC Dance Commons in the Mission District. Whatever positives and negatives might have resulted from the merger, R&M's longstanding and beloved Fusion Rhythms class continues to provide those who like to shake their booties of a morning, afternoon, or evening with the same special… More >>

• Best Place to Learn to Fly

  Motivity Aerial Dance Classes, Studio 12

  Have you ever wanted to learn how to fly? Studio 12's Motivity classes prove that you don't necessarily need wings or to become a human cannonball to do it. Taught by husband-and-wife team Kate and Phil Weglarz, the beginner and intermediate level courses combine dance with trapeze techniques into an unusual art form that's a cross between contemporary ballet, gymnastics,… More >>

• Best Low-Budget Boating

  Spreckels Lake and Stow Lake

  Yacht clubs are terribly overrated, and all of that keeping up with the Joneses is quite a bore. We prefer to indulge in a much more, um, refined activity, a luxurious sojourn away from the predictable Marina masses. We're talking about a bundled-up afternoon watching the motorized sailboats at Spreckles Lake in Golden Gate Park, a tradition that goes back… More >>

• Best Outdoor Swing Class

  Lindy in the Park

  Every Sunday the park provides an aesthetic backdrop for all kinds of physical endeavors, from jogging and tai chi to in-line skating and — perhaps most unusually — swing classes. This local swing dance group has been offering free sessions in the middle of the city's longest stretch of greenery every Sunday since 1996. Running from 11 a.m. to 2… More >>

• Best Coach

  Mario Elie, Warriors assistant coach

  It's not a question of if; it's a matter of when: Elie will be an NBA head coach within the next two years. Mark our words. And whoever hires him — whether someone from the Warriors or another team — will end up looking like a genius. Elie, who won three NBA titles during his playing career, brings brains, intensity,… More >>

• Best Night Kayaking

  City Kayak

  If you're a baseball fan, City Kayak provides one of the most unusual views of the game. Join one of the company's Full Moon kayaking trips and you'll end up bobbing about outside PacBell Park just as the post-game fireworks go off. You'll literally feel the vibrations from the explosions in the base of your boat. And the colors look… More >>

• Best Place to Golf Alone

  Golden Gate Park Golf Course

  Golfing alone on Golden Gate Park's nine-hole course, which the San Francisco Recreation & Park Department opened in 1951 as a "pitch and putt," offers two options. One is almost ideal for reclusive folks, and one is geared toward social butterflies who feel comfortable in any setting. If you come down for a game on a weekday afternoon early in… More >>

• Best Outdoor Escapades

  Bay Area Outdoor Adventure Club

  When these folks say "adventure," they mean it. The Bay Area Outdoor Adventure Club celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, still packing its calendar with an incredible range of activities — from full moon kayaking, flying trapeze lessons, and cave crawling to mountain biking, hiking, and surfing. All events are open to the public with no membership required, which is… More >>

• Best Ping-Pong Table

  Finnegans Wake

  Keep your dart boards and liar's dice and pool and pinball; Ping-Pong is the pastime that separates the posers from the players and builds up a thirst for strong drink — the game every bar should have as its centerpiece. Among its many charms (pool and pinball among them), Finnegans Wake features an honest-to-God Ping-Pong table out on its rustic… More >>

• Best Summer Bike Ride

  San Francisco-Pescadero-San Francisco

  Now that the days are long enough to be out bike riding at 8 p.m., take off work early — say, at 3 — and ride down Skyline Boulevard, over the hill to Half Moon Bay, and south on Highway 1 to Pigeon Point Lighthouse, just past Pescadero. There's a youth hostel there (650-879-0633, www.norcalhostels.org/pigeon), and if you've brought a… More >>

• Best Sportscaster

  Gary Radnich

  The ever-popular Radnich, 56, who earned his playing chops as a UNLV basketball player during his college days (he was also a young play-by-play announcer for the Ohio State Buckeyes for a time during the Woody Hayes era), is the dean of Bay Area sports broadcasters, having been at KRON-TV (Channel 4) for 21 years. Famous for intentionally showing up… More >>

• Best City Tour for Locals

  Mundane Journeys

  This occasional bus tour (check the Web site or call for information about scheduling and cost) wasn't created for Aunt Jane from Omaha, although she'd probably enjoy it. The brainstorm of owner-operator Kate Pocrass, Mundane Journeys is specifically crafted for those of us who live here. The idea is to see the city in ways that we may not have… More >>

• Best Dance Classes

  Metronome Dance Center - CLOSED

  Tucked away in Potrero Hill (but easily accessible by bus), Metronome offers pretty much anything you could want in the way of rug-cutting. It'll set you up with lessons ranging from beginning group Argentine tango to one-on-one ballet instruction, from massage for dancers to lessons on becoming a dance instructor. Some classes are focused on fitness; others (like the ballroom… More >>

• Best Sports Book

  Game of Shadows, Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams

  OK, it's an obvious choice. But then again, what other book compelled Major League Baseball to finally — finally! — launch an investigation into steroid use among its players? Drawing on thousands of court records and hundreds of interviews, Fainaru-Wada and Williams untangle the knotty story of the BALCO scandal, constructing a damning indictment of baseball in general and Barry… More >>

• Best Lady Gym

  Curves

  Yes, we know, Curves' CEO, Gary Heavin, donates some of his personal wealth to right-wing causes. Individual Curves franchises, however, are free to donate their proceeds to charities of their choosing, so chances are if you join a Bay Area Curves your karma will stay intact. Politics aside, these gyms are a wonderful thing for busy women. Show up wearing… More >>

• Best Run

  Mount Sutro & Twin Peaks

  Any local with an outdoorsy bent will tell you San Francisco is mounds of fun, but out-of-towners sometimes have a different view. If you'd like to prove our superiority to a sporty visitor, take her on this run. Begin at the Panhandle and go south on Cole Street to Parnassus Avenue, then head west three blocks to Willard Street. There,… More >>

• Best Gay Softball League

  San Francisco Gay Softball League

  No matter which team you play for, which side you bat on, or which trite sexual-orientation sports metaphor you prefer, you're welcome to join San Francisco's premier gay softball league. It's got some quotas in place to keep the league true to its fruity roots, but anyone who's pretty serious about the game and about having some sporty fun should… More >>

• Best Warrior

  Jason Richardson

  Much of the talk in Warriors Land entering the 2005-'06 NBA season concerned Baron Davis, the gifted, erratic point guard whom fans hoped would lift Golden State from its rut of mediocrity. By season's end, with Davis bench-ridden by injury and the team missing the playoffs yet again, Jason Richardson was the guy who kept the faithful believing in a… More >>

• Best Eccentric Walks

  Foot Tours

  As we are with those supposed comedy traffic schools, we tend to be suspicious of walking tours that advertise having comedians as guides. Foot Tours has proven itself worthy of exception, attracting a roster of reputable Bay Area comedy talents with an impressive collective résumé, from writing for major late-night network programs to touring with household names. A sampling of… More >>

• Best Eccentric Walks

  Stairways Across San Francisco

  Buns of steel await those able to conquer the physically demanding routes offered by Stairways Across San Francisco. More than a fleeting tourist fancy, these tours require a bit of commitment, ranging from several hours to all day, and involve climbing the most treacherous steps the city has to offer. Some stairs feel as close to 90 degrees as possible,… More >>

• Best Eccentric Walks

  The Vampire Tour

  Gathering every Friday and Saturday night just outside Nob Hill's Huntington Park (across the street from Grace Cathedral), the Vampire Tour is the antidote for those who think the occult can't be fun or irreverent. Tour creator Kitty Burns stars as the 100-plus-year-old Mina Harker. Surely there has never been a more entertaining, comedic version of the legendary vampiress of… More >>