friday fun times: biking for worker's rights

i, unfortunately, was unable to participate in may day festivities/marches/protests this year as i have a new job. ironically. as such, didn't feel comfortable enough to take off. and also had a board meeting that night. one of my infamous 12-hour work days. i hope next year's may day will be different.

anyway, here are some bikey and work type things i saw on may day, which was wednesday.

saw a cyclist on her way back from a civic center demonstration. she gave me permission to take her picture.

over where the work is never done, the new job has quite the bike commuter area.



you could adjust your pedals, or your headset...?

happy friday everyone! we are experiencing some crazy warm weather here in northern california. some people are complaining it might be too hot to bike. NO WAY! hehe.

also... congrats to the golden state warriors for chomping down on some denver nuggets. they advance to the next round in the nba western conference playoffs. we'll have to see how they fare against my san antonio spurs!

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.

friday fun times: world series edition

yeah, yeah. you heard. the giants are in the world series. again.

you heard they won the first two games.

some of us were at game one. here's some pics. enjoy!

KT stopped by the bike parking corral, because getting to and from the stadium really is easier if you ride your bike.

it's fun being a tia/cousin, cause can get outfits like this for the little one.

Foiled!!!

After many years of non-eventful bicycle life in my family, the last couple of months have been unusual.  Today was just the topper.  Cameron called to tell me his bicycle had been stolen from in front of his summer job at the State Building.

Of course he was very upset and he was looking for a ride home when he called me.  There was no point in doing the Twenty Questions bit over the phone so I got in the car and headed to Civic Center to bring him home.  Civic Center in San Francisco is the black hole to which, as some comedian used to say, every freak, weirdo, drug addict, cult member and actor would eventually be drawn.  Cameron just wanted to go home and feel sorry for himself but I wanted to look around.  It seemed a good idea to just ask some folks if they had seen anything.  It was obvious most had been there all day and Cameron's bicycle is unusual, not in the least part because it is HUGE (he is 6'5"+).

I approached a group of teens who spend the day in the area skateboarding and jumping their BMX bikes.  They see everything because no one thinks kids are paying attention.  I gave them a description of the bike and told them it was worth $150 if they found it.  One of them took me up on it.  Two of his friends kept whispering to each other, they knew something.  I had a feeling we may just be in luck.

Next we looked for a police officer. The beat cops in Civic Center know all the bike thieves.  Just as we had hailed a police car and started filing a report I got a phone call.  I almost didn't answer it but boy am I glad I did!  The boys had found the bike, two blocks away!  The officer got in his car and said he would meet us there and Cameron and I took off across UN Plaza with a fire under us.  Somehow the officer missed the spot (it turned out that even though the bicycle was in full view, it was at an odd angle from the street and its more distinguishing features were not obvious) and I wasn't willing to let Cameron's bicycle get away.  The guy sitting in front of it was obviously under the influence of something, a lot smaller than I and very much in the wrong.  He had put a seat bag and a Kryptonite cable on the bike to make it seem more legit.  He had also covered it with dirt so it would look more like him.

Much like Andre the Giant, I can be the Brute Squad if necessary.  I wanted Cameron's bicycle and I was going to get it.  So I stepped over the guy, grabbed the bicycle saddle and said

-"Thank you for watching my bicycle!".  The guy looked at me and said

-"That's my bicycle.  I bought it 9 months ago." I  leaned on the top tube and said

-"No you didn't."  I wanted to keep him talking so the cops could show up and nab him. His next statement was

- "Can you prove it is yours, lady? 'Cause I just bought it from someone."

-"Oh yes?  That would be hard because it is mine."

-"Well I am not going to argue with you.  You can have it but you have to pay me."  He started trying to pack up his bag and get up, so I pulled out my phone to start taking pictures (my good camera got slammed into the ground last week when I got caught in the train tracks on Market St) and I told him

-"No. I am just taking my bike.  You are getting nothing."  The three boys who found the bike and several people from inside the dollar store we were in front of were watching at this point so this guy was getting frightened.  He tried to grab the bike to take it back and I got in his way. I let him take his little bag off of it to slow him down, taking pictures of him the whole time so he would keep putting his hands in front of his face.  As he started to run off, Cameron got in front of him and got a shot of his face, at which point the guy pulled a knife.  Cameron let him walk off (although Cameron is blackbelt in Hapkido and well versed in knife defense and disarming people he knows the best defense is just walking away).

The only picture that kinda came out.

Of course he got away before the officer could catch up with us, BUT WE GOT CAMERON'S BICYCLE BACK!!!!! All of its parts, all of its pieces, everything. We had to buy a new lock on the way home (we are not sure how the guy broke Cameron's Bulldog U-lock in broad daylight in front of a high security State building, but he did), but that is OK with me.  I had already gone straight to the ATM to get the boys (Adam, Mateo and Isaiah) their money.  I parted with it happily as bicycles big enough for Cameron are hard to find.  The boys were thrilled to get the money.

I told them if they hang out there like that they should make a business of bicycle recovery.  They said even though they are there everyday I was the first person to ever ask them for help.  Never underestimate the power of a motivated teenager or two!  They see everything.

Hopefully Cameron learned something today about not giving in or letting things like this just happen to you.  We got lucky we found his bike, but there would have been no luck if we hadn't tried!

friday fun times: shower cap edition

need i say more? checkered side mirror, patterned shower cap.

a reader of ours, el tejano, posted some more pics of golden gate park's parking woes. here are a few. go over to his flickr to check out the rest!

these pictures might illustrate a little more of what is confusing some people in my description in this post. sorry! is not the easiest to explain, which is probably why there is confusion surrounding it in the first place. i plan on going to the park at some point this weekend and see if i can get more pics of the confusion. but also more pics of empty spaces so you can see what it is supposed to look like.

have a great weekend!

parking confusion in golden gate park, as predicted

as we predicted last week, there was some confusion going on in golden gate park this past weekend with the new bike lane project.

these shots were taken by prawnpie while he was in golden gate park. he took some video too that i have to get my hands on to share. let's just say a lot of near doorings and tons of confusion occurs.

as you can see, cars parked in the new bike lane during a busy nice weekend day in golden gate park. a door is open behind the biker showing a danger zone that shouldn't be there in the first place. the car is parked illegally. the striped lines indicate the separation of parking and the bike lane...NOT a parking spot.

but, it does look confusing doesn't it? there were MTA people passing out notes reminding people where to park.

how long do you, dear readers, think these floating parking spaces will take to catch on?

thursday thoughts...

i don't know about y'all, but this week has been super chock full of bikey things. so much so, that during my day job, i've been a whole day off. so in my mind today is friday, but it's really thursday. gaaaaaaaaawd.

so what did i do? i went scouting for a route for the upcoming sfbp. upon our deciding to scrap the route and plan a ride with no bike map and with our phones running out of batteries, we knew we had a long night ahead of us. when i went to unlock joanie to go on a ride to the other side of the city, this is what i stumbled upon...a flower at dusk.

then on wednesday night, i worked with another bike party volunteer, except at our part time 2nd job. we parked bikes, valet style, at a rather picturesque location...

i got to test out the hdr on my phone camera.

i've come home utterly exhausted both nights. whee! all of for the love baby...

what bikey things did you do after work this week?

Park It Here

Bicycle parking. It can be challenging to get a good spot and more often than not, you have to get creative. I have no problem taking up car spaces when needed.

Neither did this rider! One very long recumbent with trailer needs just as much space as a pickup sometimes. Seen outside McDonald's in Sand City, CA. It is nice to see a little SF style guerrilla parking outside of the SF Bay Area.

more fun with bikes in austin!

we were able to acquire bikes while we were in austin for a few days last week. we got a hook.up! on a rental bike for me. i'm short, so finding a bike that fits me is really difficult. there was one road bike at the rental place that fit me pretty well. i was happy to go with the normal hybrid variety, but the temptation of an extended test ride with a road bike that is nicer than my road bike was too much. sure enough, i'm now in crush with that bike...



as you can see, the other one was the practical bike, much like my joanie baby. that bike hauled stuff around in its very handy basket. i LOVE baskets.

we didn't really go for too long a ride, and austin is pretty flat compared to SF (at least the areas we rode around in). thus, i didn't get a chance to completely test out that climbing gear, but whoa, i do know enough of riding around on that bike to know i want to try it out some more. my birthday is coming up sometime in the next 364 days, so if anyone wants to get me a present, i'll take the lexa slx in size 47cm please. kthx.

in other news, i was impressed with the volume of bikes that were being parked at acl, and here's a tiny taste of it...

bike parking before:


bike parking after:


it was fun navigating around austin on bikes and figuring out bikey ways around the city thanks to the trusty austin bikey map. i can't wait to go back and do it again!

"That's A Big Bike!"

I make no secret of not liking to ride light weight sport bicycles. I am enormously uncomfortable on twitchy, skinny tired, racy bicycles. The bigger the better for me. A huge, heavy monster of a bicycle is right up my alley.

Back in September, I got to ride the biggest, heaviest bicycle I have been on yet- the cargo bicycle designed for the 2009 Oregon Manifest show by Metrofiets. While it may have been light weight by the standards of many 7 foot long steel cargo bicycles, it is not a feather weight.

After deliberating about our upcoming transportation needs, James and I decided that if we were going to put this much money into a new cargo bicycle (Cameron has been gifted the xtracycle) that we felt best about giving that money to someone we knew in exchange for something one of a kind, a rolling work of art.

So with the addition of a wooden box (also handmade and removable so we can use the basic platform should we chose) this gorgeous machine is now ours!

Because I am too busy just enjoying our new ride, I have not come up with anything technical about my land based cruise ship. There are some lovely details I want to photograph that all of you bike geeks out there will drool over. In the mean time, I have a couple pictures of my first San Francisco day with my movable conversation piece.

Because I am fascinated by the front of my bike being four feet ahead of me I tend to notice the space right in front of me more than usual. Of course this also because I have to remember not to bump things with my front wheel. I think that the world would be a very different place if people noticed things like this more often.

Parking something this big takes a little creativity. Or a nice standard parking space in front of the bakery. The law does not say you have to park a car in a parking space, only that you must pay for it and observe the time limits, so in I went. I love how the guy in the black car waited for me to move as soon as I got in it. There were ten minutes left on the meter and I was feeling a need to use all of them. I usually only do this if there are multiple bicycles that need parking, but this thing is as big as three bikes so it works. Anyway, the space was already being taken over by alternate users.

At many points, people were unable to resist looking at my lovely bicycle. A couple of them nearly crashed while riding by because they were so distracted. Several pulled out the smart phones to take pictures. This guy used his to find info about the bicycle while he walked around it!

There will be more info in the days to come. I am going to have Hubby The Bikeman write up the technical stuff (he is a huge bike geek, so it will make him happy. I just like to ride!). At some point I will get comfortable enough on it to take some pandas.

adventures in bike parking, II

seen in a SF garage in the financial district. what i like about this is not the free bike you could get in like 10 seconds, but rather is the fact that bike is super disheveled. i see plenty of mountain bikes parking in those bike rack slots (aka sorry-ass excuse for bike rack parking, but i guess we at least get this...), but never one like this. even if you moved a bike to get it out of the way to unlock your own bike, something i have done before, you would think you should move it back to how you found it. or maybe the owner left it like this in a rush to get to work. both theoretical situations exposed the underbelly of vulnerability of this bike's parking job.

in any case, i was rather fascinated by this bike for some reason. keep them bikes locked up well, mkay?