friday fun times: be a bike hero

was walking around the neighborhood today on an errand...and saw this cuteness happen. i walked past then decided to go back and take a pic.

there was a bike locked up innocently. a tag was hanging from it saying, "thank you, you are a bike hero"





so even though this tag is totally viral marketing, it's cute, so who cares. :) and no need to click through or even scan a QR code. feel free to look them up on twitter.

take a deep breath, smell the wheel grease, and have a great weekend!

KALW: social media helps find stolen bikes

in all the excitement of losing (via theft) and finding joanie, i thought this would be appropriate to share.

KALW is one local SF public radio station. yes, we have more than one. they recently did a story on how social media can help find stolen bikes. listen to the epic (in the true sense of the word, not the recently overused version of the word) story of how one man found his stolen bike SIX YEARS LATER.

take a listen.

finding joanie

well, was pretty devastated to be leaving for work on thursday morning to find my bike wasn't in the apartment entryway as it has been on and off for years. my roommate said he noticed the door was propped open, but no one moving anything in or out. that must have been when it happened.


i wrote this and posted it everywhere i could think of on social media. facebook, twitter, google +, flickr, pinterest, stolen bike registry, craigslist, filed a police report. set up an IFTTT.com account and had 5 recipes "spamming" my inbox and texts. i also went old school and took a picture of her to local bike shops. went to flea markets in sf, friends went to east bay flea markets. i looked around homeless encampments for chop shops and random bikes. and then i got numb and started to plan a life without joanie.

and of course i tagged Jenny Oh, that amazing reuniter of stolen bikes. she's basically the 6 degrees of kevin bacon for bike thievery. we had a few false starts out there, but it was awesome to know that eyes are out there and we're keeping a lookout for bikes to return to their rightful owners.

sure enough...someone saw her post on fb and this is what happened:

Well, basically, I woke up in the morning last Thursday and found a red bike in my front yard with the seat post sawed off and immediately said, "FUCK! Some random bike in my front yard, where the hell is mine?!" And mine was gone. Whoever stole hers, traded it out for mine. I think someone definitely scoped me out and knew that I had a bike. My friend Kelsey Simmen reached out to Jenny Oh to post about my bike and on Jenny's page, I saw a picture of Melyssa's bike and said, holy shit! I have that bike! I hope Karma pays me back.

so in order to pass that karma on forward, i'm posting a pic of Meryl's bike. you can contact us here, leave a comment, and i'll get in touch with her.



joanie did not escape unharmed, but she's back. and i can't believe it. power of social media and taking matters into our own hands is incredible!



it does not fix the inherent real issue of inadequate bike parking in apartment buildings, nor does it solve the issue of bike thieving jackholes, but it's something. it's community. and i'll take it.

thank you so much to everyone who retweeted, reposted, commented or just even thought, "wtf, someone stole joanie?!" a special shout out to those who went flea market and division street hunting with me. also to those two that bought me chocolate, it was much appreciated. as last week in america proved there are bad people in this world doing unheard of things (or just being a bike thief), but there are far more good people to counteract those actions.



also, 1/2 of her namesake is joan jett. don't mess with joanie.

east bay bike ride

you guys. i LOVE the sequoia. LOVELOVELOVE. i'm so glad we found each other.

we took a ride to the east bay...



i don't know the east bay super well, but i know we met up in oakland, rode through berkeley's campus, and started CLIMBING out of campus until we found the nice grade on grizzly peak blvd that took us up.

this ride was virtually the opposite of the cinderella classic. that was relatively flat and long. this ride was about 25 miles with about 1600+ climbing (got two different numbers from two different methods of recording...which one to trust?).



good news is, looks like this bike and i are ready for marin rides. can't wait to see how she performs out there!

friday fun times: sassy pants

so after the cinderella classic, there was OMGSHOPPING! and beer. we celebrated being done with an $8 fat tire and walked around a bit. cause, in case you haven't heard, women like to buy things. all these women like bikes. you make the connection.



these shorts were part of the fun stuff that i saw. designed by knights of mo' bay, who appears to be local. i particularly appreciated he was designing stuff for the female cyclist of color.

i decided to forgo the shorts, but walked away with a hat, a snap button jersey and shoe covers.

this weekend holds family time and marin century training ride in oakland. time to take the sequoia up some hills!

where are you going this weekend?

weekend ride report: cinderella classic 2013

way too early on saturday i woke up and took bart to the east bay on one of its last destinations: dublin-pleasanton. i was meeting a couple of friends for the short drive from bart to the alameda county fairgrounds where the ride started.



the above shot was taken around 6:30am just before some guy rounded the corner to talk to me. he then determined i must be in law enforcement and walked away from me quickly.

at the fairgrounds it was rather empowering to see all these women of all ages and sizes ready to go on a ride. this event sells out every year at 2500 people, which is an indication that more rides like this are needed elsewhere.



some women were spandex queens ready to go fast. some were ready to have fun with tutus. one woman had one of those fake plastic butts with a diamond encrusted thong over her shorts. (how that was to ride in i don't know....)

some were the enforcers of the rules of the road and constantly shouted at people to PLEASE say on your left when you are passing or SLOWING when you are slowing. nothing wrong with doing those things, but perhaps it was her law enforcement tone. that guy on bart would have certainly changed his mind about me after that.

and more than a fair share of women brought their kids with them. one particular memorable mother had a kid on the back of her bike on a rack supported car seat. she was passing people up hills with that rather heavy load on her back. very impressive. other young girls were on their bikes riding in small packs of moms and kids. adorable and we cheered for them as we saw them.



as you can see, i brought the 1980s sequoia along for the ride. my thought with this bike is that it is going to replace my blue entry-level road bike that i feel i have outgrown. although it has a lot of gears on it, i don't particularly care for the gearing that it has. so i tested out the sequoia. i think it's a strong contender for the replacement. it has less gears than the blue bike, but it is smarter gearing. i push down on the pedals and this bike is ready to GOOOO. vroomvroom. nice.

i was able, for the most part, to keep up with my friend and her modern-day bianchi. for my first ride, i say we did a pretty good job. my little 1980s era avocet bike computer said we were going anywhere from 14-22mph. i'll have to confirm with her garmin. i'll have to figure out how to use the old school one more. or just upgrade, but i like that little thing. it looks identical to the one below.



for the ride itself, it was mostly flat with a few climbs. the 2nd leg was my favorite as far as just pure riding. the third leg included soul crushing winds that were combined with the most climbing. more like marin and SF "speed bumps," but with the wind, i was working more than a little bit. you could tell who was from SF, east bay hills or marin (other than the marin century / marin cyclist jerseys), because they kicked butt in the hills. i have joanie to thank for that since i didn't get a chance to train as much as i wanted to for this ride. she's a good training partner.



overall it was a fun ride. i was pleased with the sequoia's performance. time to take her out more in marin. i would like to do the ride again next year, and hopefully can have some more friends. my friend and i were already planning who we could ask and what our outfits would look like since we were horribly under-costumed for this event. less pink, more black. woot! but of course, whatever the look, they will have to match our bikes!



now that my knee seems to be better...2013 cycling season has begun!

friday fun times: sneak peek-a-boo.

tomorrow is the cinderella classic. as i recall last year, the ride fell on the worst weather day of the year. my house was shaking, rain was pounding on the roof so hard, and the sky looked greenish gray. and the wind.



so, that's sort of what i woke up to last year. some hawdcora people went out, but most of the 2500 riders did not go or, if they went, did not finish the ride.

tomorrow looks to be vastly different. in short, it looks to be a beautiful day for a bike ride!

i'll be riding the 100km on this beauty. sneakpeekaboo.



took her out for a spin in the headlands not long ago. rode realllly nice. i've had a bum knee that's kept me from training as much as i would like, but i didn't want to make things worse. if the knee acts up, so be it. i can always sag out i guess. but looks like a long flat ride. just what i need to get back in the swing of things.

where is your bike taking you this weekend?

tandem bike friday!

i've seen a few, but none with the front rack like that. he also said that it was usually set up for three people (for him and his kids).

if you are reading this, sorry i cut off your head...but no time at the stoplight to move back to get the full picture.



see any crazy fun bikes on your commute today?

oakland was sold out!

oakland was sold out yesterday for the A's game and for bomba estereo, a band from colombia. what do they both have in common? putting a bike on it. of course.

put a bird on it! scraper bike that is!



put a bike on it en oaxaca...



bomba puts on a great show, saw them in ACL awhile back. last night tho, no bikes. we rented a zipcar since we knew these people like to party and put on a great show. i might be paying for it today, but life's short, right?



then just for fun, bomba estereo also brought on stage oakland's own, panama-bred, los rakas. i did a quick search for them on bikes. hmmph. gotta get them to work on that... ;) on a scraper bike perhaps?