9 posts tagged “san francisco”

Today marked worldwide 'ride of silence' where cyclists from around the world marked off some time at 7pm (or any other time during the day) to get together with others, and ride in silence, to commemorate our fallen cyclists in our communities. We cant help but think of and want to honor Matt and Kristy, so fresh are those wounds.

And as if that was not sobering enough, today another cyclist was hit and killed in San Francisco.

Please ride (or drive) a little slower, breathe a little deeper, relax but be aware. Be predictable, be human, be compassionate. Most of all, we need to co-exist!

One more day and i'm flying away to Hawaii for the Hawaii 70.3 Half Ironman race on the Big Island of Hawaii.

I. Can. Not. Wait.

I have never been to Hawaii.

Show me the beaches, the sand, the waves, the sun.

Some of my packing list, in no particular order...
body glide - check.
sunscreen - check.
hat - check.
cute black shoes - check.
race belt - check.
Sharpie (A that's for you) - check
Ziplocks - need to get some!
run/bike shoes - check.
and on and on and on...

So stay tuned, I'll be sharing photos and blogging nearly every day while I'm there. You can follow along from your desks at work.

See, unemployment is pretty cool still.

And on another note - I just had to throw in some silliness from the past weekend's Bay to Breakers... aka the 'worlds longest party' or 'San Francisco's Mardi Gras"

either way - C-Dawg - thanks for the photo!

Superman keg stand

Finally, a comedic interlude for you - as told by my friend "B-Ja".

Enjoy

This is why I love Burger King on 16th and Mission:
 
1. You can have a crack head woman tap you on the shoulder to buy her a combo meal.
2. While youre waiting for your food, an African American man dressed in leather and sporting silver turquoise jewelry will keep waiting at the pick up counter trying on sunglasses he found on the floor, all the while, trying to get the counter persons attention about "How he FOUND him some glasses on the floor, Sweetheart." He will be obviously conflicted about which glasses he likes better, his own or his new find...
3. While observing said leather man, you turn to the woman next to you to try to share a glance of "oh my, is he weird or what" only to learn, that your peripheral vision fooled you, the woman is not a woman at all, just an old man cross dressing as a woman with smeared lipstick.
 
Viva San Francisco!

There is a memorial planned for Thursday night and a memorial ride planned for Saturday. Details found at the memorial websites for Matt and Kristy. 

In trying to make sense of my teammate's death, please consider making a difference in our world by making a donation or volunteering for bicycling advocacy in your area. Together, we can change the world, one baby-step at a time.

Stay safe out there everyone - get out and ride.

A memorial service for Matt Peterson will be held at 7:00pm on Thursday, March 13 at Sports Basement, 1590 Bryant Street in San Francisco. Everyone is welcome to attend - please pass the word along!

Memorial Ride

*Press are welcome to attend, however we request respect during our ride. It
would mean the most to us if press were to accompany us on their bikes, as we
are all cyclists this week.

you and your ghettotastic bicycle

Reply to: XXX
Date: 2008-02-27, 1:56PM

i see you 'round, all the time. you must be straight outta oakland, with your old beater frame and those blingin gold wheels. sometimes i wish i could run my fingers through your gold bladed spokes. i would teach you how to suicide skid while lighting a cigarette. i would ride backwards circles around you. but then i would show you how. i want to ride down valencia st with you, holding your hand, just to make everyone else jealous. i want to buy you a picnic at rainbow grocery. i would use my bicycle coalition discount. i want to take you and the picnic to dolores park. we would jump off our bikes like kevin bacon, sit in the grass, and drink tall cans of pbr.
hit me up, lady. hit me up.

• it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

Do you guys think I should call him? sounds DREAMY :-)

Today was the "for real" race. For points. I hesitated even going down to Fremont today - it was overcast and the clouds looked pregnant. Because they were ready to unleash more rain at any moment. Cathy, Jessica and I pow-wowed down to the race area - quickly got the tent set up and got on our bikes, registered and ready for the clinic. Wow what a fun day. Weather was CRAP but there were plenty of women out for the clinic. Our instructions - practice pacelining - single, double and threaded - wow that was fun, coming up the middle!! So with all the rain falling recently, we had plenty of puddles and plenty of rooster-tail crap all over our faces from sitting on wheels all day. The clinic was fun but lets fast forward to the race... We started off in a hurry. The number one woman the past few weeks showed up today and pushed the pace from the start. I held on for a lap and a half and suddenly a gap opened and the top 4 ladies got a break, Bergen got in there, and Bev and I didnt catch the break fast enough. So we organized a chase group...But they were gone and we didn't see them again! They stretched the field way out - and we popped all the other ladies off our wheels - it was down to 5, (Me, Bev from the Mouse and then Emma from Dolce and two other gals - metromint and someone in green). I tried to encourage everyone to work together for some laps - Bev and I took some pulls, but the other three didnt seem to want to cooperate. So with about 6 laps left, a mentor said to me "you really need to talk with your teammate" -- Bev and I concocted an idea - if those ladies didnt want to work very hard with us, then let's attack and counter attack to drop them. And thats precisely what we did. Bev shot out and I sat on the other 3 girls wheels until they reeled Bev in, just as we got within 10 feet of her, I stood up and sprinted past them - and they jumped again and reeled me in - we did this twice each and dropped two of the three girls off the back (YES!). So it was down to three - and as a mentor said "okay, you have 3 laps left and it's down to three...." I took off again - that's all i heard - I took off and Emma was left to chase me down - which she did... after a 1/2 lap she also popped and suddenly it was me and Bev. That our tactic worked was enough to give me energy to kick ass to the finish with Bev, we knew that there was still a break ahead of us but we didnt know how many gals were in it - I thought 6. And another mentor told us were just racing for top 10. I shouted "Bev, want me to lead you out?" she grabbed my wheel with 50 m to go... and we raced to the finish to lots of cheers! She came across inches in front of me - we got 5th and 6th today! So we had 4 Meece in the top 6!

Cheers all the way around. MUCHO thanks to the guys team that stuck around to cheer for us, thanks to Mo for the advice and support, Thanks to Cathy for the ride, and thanks to Timmy for the directions to BART - and congratulations to all the girly mice out there. Boy did we represent!

GTTM

Hi everyone - I've been too silent... here's what I've been doing.

(cue photo of me riding my bike.................in the rain.)

Alas, the wet clear stuff keeps falling from the sky - so no photo, but you can use your imagination I bet. Many of you out there are 'crossin it up' one last time - having more fun in the mud than a proverbial farm animal in excrement :) And the rest of us, (many many rodents included) are learning to ride our bikes in the rain, in the gravel, around corners, close to others, going FAST. It's a riot. Last Thursday, I learned a new 'in the city loop' that takes me up and over many of the local (like 10 blocks away local) hills, ridges, and otherwise untraveled steep city streets. You'd be hard pressed to find these routes without a teammate showing you the way. I once heard that ballet is not something one can learn from a book, it's a tradition passed down from dancer to dancer, from year to year. Learning bike routes is much the same thing - passed on from team mate to team mate, friend to friend, from year to year. I've cycled for 5 years in this city and never once came across these different routes through jungles, up hills, down hills, through the creek... to grandmothers house we... oh wait - it's not grandma's house, it's a city.

So, there are still wild jungles hidden in the cliffs that dwell above SF -the city we call home... and discover these jungles...that's exactly what I did on Friday - during one of the most wet days on record in recent memory - a group of daredevil friends came out, explored, and conquered.

Now come on Daylight savings.......

i promised i would blog all days of November. well i sucked at that... so i'll just go to randomly posting :) yay.

update - still oil in the bay - but much less gross that it was 3 weeks ago. They're still using clean up volunteers in Marin County but SF is pretty much back to 'normal' though you couldn't pay me to get in. However, I have several surfer friends that say it's fine these days. And Aquatic Park is back open. but ick.

Thanksgiving was lovely, how was yours? Any truly terrifying stories out there? I loved having 4 days off! Bring on the holidays - and the grumpy people.

I managed to sneak back in town in time for the Bay Area Super Prestige Cyclocross series number 4, hosted in Golden Gate Park. Absolutely amazing and gorgeous. Tougher than expected race, with tougher than expected competitors. We had a fun, gut wrenching, wheezing time. Very fun.

Thanks to Ariel and Dana for the photos!

Dana and Marissa coming up the stretch - photo courtesy of A Parrish

sunset.........