I spent last week in SF. Getting out of new york city was really good for me.
San Diego
First stop was a family visit in San Diego. I saw my grandpa, who is 92, and met my cousins two children, who are 3 and 1. we went to the zoo.
My dad and cousin rebecca at the zoo.
San Francisco
Next stop was San Francisco. I got off the plane and met up with my old roommate Will. We stalked the Mission for some burrito and ended up at Metate’s. My burrito fell apart. Will told me I could go get a fork, but that would be admitting to being a burrito newb.
After, we picked up a six pack mashup of anchor steam and headed to Dolores Park to watch the sunset. We cracked open the beer and i started to feel ill. stupid burrito. We went back up to San Rafael and met up with Will’s fiance Kim and discussed/invented some wedding plans.
The next morning, i stopped at Suzanne’s apt in the Mission. She let me borrow her pink Fuji Tiara before she walked off to work. Its a sweet old machine. Lugged steel with downtube shifters. it almost fit me.
suzanne's fuji under the golden gate bridge
She lives 3 blocks from Philz coffee. I got addicted to their beans right away. First ride I did was around Golden Gate Park. I stopped off at the Mojo Bicycle cafe to buy a bike map, then did a ride over the Golden Gate Bridge while listening to the Grateful Dead. It was a good moment.
I spent the first half of the week crashing on eddie and dunny’s couch. We used to live together and spent a lot of time cranking through engineering calculations. Ed now works for Google, and Dunny builds solar panels.
Dunny just picked up a Lemond Propad cyclocross bike. Steel frame, carbon fork, full 105 group and disc breaks. it almost fit me.
dunny's lemond with burrito in holder
Twin Peaks I
I posted to SFFixed to see if anyone was around during the day to ride. Nathan Delight told me they were going out for a ride up to twin peaks Wednesday afternoon, starting at the Statue in the Panhandle. We met up with Devon, Maribeth and (?)ken. The weather was great, and although there was a lot of climbing, the reward was a 360 panoramic view of the city.
360 view of twin peaks. photo by devon.
Moustache Ride
Wednesday night was the East Bay’s weekly ‘Moustache Rides’. A ride through oakland where we sprint between 5 dudes apartments, and drink a beer at each one. Its like a fast, drunk critical mass. My favorite ride of the trip.
chickenrabbit pours the whiskey
Benito demonstrates the renegade... shotgunning a beer using only his thumb
Ben said he could shotgun a beer with his thumb. I called bullshit, and he cracked that can open on the first try (the trick is finding the little airbubble and punching your thumb through it).
moustache riders
these moustache riders found some helmet upgrades in their basement.
Twin Peaks II
Thursday night i did another ride up to twin peaks. We had a bigger crew this time, maybe 15 dudes. I was excited to be riding a cross bike with disc breaks, but these ddues had no trouble bombing their brakeless track bikes down the long dark descent. I guess this is par for SF riders, but I was impressed.
SF Critical Mass
my last ride of the week was critical mass. I’m guessing 500 riders, but it hard to estimate. They kicked off the ride by burning the flag. I would have been excited about that last year, but now that we’ve got Obama behind the wheel, I don’t see much need for it.
the ride had 3 excellent sound bikes. you could ride between them depending on which DJ you liked better. they were all playing surprisingly good music.
This DJ was bumping. He also made public service announcements.
We went under two excellent bridges, and took up a lot of roadway. ladies on cruisers climbed hills without breaking a sweat.
I rode for about an hour, then split off to return Dunny’s bike and go meet Jordan for some beer before he peaced out to South America.
