a hilly and chilly february ride

we went for a not-too-long (no 300k for me) but hilly and cold ride yesterday that started in the low 40s and probably warmed up to the high 40s.   We got off to a late start, which I didn’t mind – I was able to get some food in me in advance and my body had time to settle from the espresso buzz.  We would have had to have left at around 6:30am to get to San Francisco in time for one of the official AIDS Lifecycle training rides.  I was okay with missing that because 1) I would have been tired and groggy and 2) the temperature was about 34 degrees at 6:30am.

 

It was still cold despite departing quite a bit later.

plastic bags + socks = windproofish.  despite this, one of my toes was definitely a little purple when I examined it at the end of the ride.  the tingling in the shower scared me a little bit.  but they seem okay.  no gangrenous tissue so far.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

we took tunnel road up the hills.  The clouds were beautiful and the steady mild climb kept me sort of warm.   At some of the turns, you feel like you are almost in the sky.

 

 

 

 

 

 

a bunch of hikers at the top of tunnel.  we noticed that there were a lot of tree stumps on the left side of the road during the climb – what gives?

 

 

 

 

We turned onto grizzly peak.  I was pretty cold by the time we reached south park rd.  We made the descent to save some time since we got such a late start.  It was probably my slowest descent ever – I was freezing and the wind would have been way too much.  I looked carefully for newts on the road but didn’t see any.  maybe it was too cold for them,

 

Wildcat Canyon was a chilly descent as well – though it’s much slower than south park so there was less wind in my face.

 


We stopped for a second on Bear creek rd to enjoy the warmth of the sun and the beautiful wild mustard that was blooming.

 

 

 

 

beautiful day on papa bear.  super wide shoulders are nice but probably necessary given the speed of vehicular traffic.  We took the short climb up happy valley and turned back along sundown terrace to miner rd and took wildcat canyon back over the hills to go home.

 

 

 

 

 

ALC10 Orinda training ride

We joined an AIDS LifeCycle training ride at Orinda BART last Saturday.    Here’s everyone signing in with the beautiful hills in the background.  We did a 33 mile loop or so and then rode back home over the hills to make it a 45 mile or so day.

 

 

 

A crabapple or flowering cherry at inspiration point.

 

 

 

 

 

Hayward to San Jose to Fremont

I did a very flat 60 mile ride to San Jose yesterday with the commuter bike and a pannier.  I didn’t want to spend the entire day on the bike, so I took BART from Hayward and started there.

I needed to repurpose my old iphone 3G and finally found a worthwhile use – GPS using the Trails Lite app.  I created a route on mapmyride.com (yes, I used them despite their obtrusive ads), exported to .gpx and then loaded the .gpx file onto Trails Lite.  I can’t tell if it’s the app or the jailbroken OS (which I had to do since I lost my old sim!) that’s unstable but it crashed maybe 8-10 times over the course of the 60 miles.  GPS works reasonably well without a network and a compass.  I do wish that the screen were easier to read while riding and the app would tell me when to expect my next turn and which road to turn onto.  But, I guess that’s why there exist turn-by-turn navigation apps.  The iphone was held on there with one of those gorillapod holders.  It works decently well but it’s definitely not as secure as a clamp.

There was a lot of flat, straight riding.  Some roads were heavily trafficked with fast-moving cars (but at least a decently wide bike lane) and others seemed a bit more industrial with few cars at all.  In the residential areas, I saw tons of yard sales.  It was a good day for a yard sale.

I spent quite a bit of time on Mission Boulevard.  The Holiday Bowl has a pretty awesome sign.  I wish it were still open so I could have checked it out.

It was kind of funny riding along the hills – my route was super-flat which made me feel strangely guilty.

N I L E S

The route got kind of weird at points.  I feel a bit uncomfortable near highway ramps but at least there was a bike lane.

Tri City Rock – Family owned and operated since 1978.  They sell rock.

This was a stretch on Warm Springs Boulevard.  Pretty during the day but a bit scary at night if you don’t have lighting.

I took a quick break in Milpitas in front of Yang Dental to have an orange.  I don’t think I’d been to Milpitas before.  There were a fair number of cyclists out on Milpitas blvd, probably either heading to or coming back from a ride in the hills.

Milpitas city hall

I took Capitol Ave for a bit and rode along the elevated platform of the VTA

Saw some lunar new year celebrations going on at the Lucky Seven supermarket.  Stopped to watch for a minute.

I just missed the dragon dance!

finishing up

birchy.

Eventually I turned off of capitol ave due to the volume of traffic and rode along Leeward way towards the Reid Hillview airport

tons of yard sales.  seriously.

and finally remembered what it was like to ride up a hill.

I stopped by a birthday party for a bit and then headed towards downtown san jose.  Airplanes were landing at the airport.

the gate was open, so I took a picture of mounds of rocks.

Rode through SJSU for a few blocks

(proof I was there)

I ate some leftovers, hung out for a bit with friends, then started making my way back to fremont.  the ride back in the dark wasn’t as enjoyable but it helped me pick up the pace.

one of many intersections

I finished with a burrito at Chipotle before getting back on Fremont BART.  I know it’s Chipotle.  But I like their burritos..

A rainy ride through Santa Rosa, Sebastopol, Valley Ford, Bodega, and Occidental

Saturday’s bike ride was super soggy, cold, gritty and toe-numbing, but felt strangely rewarding. Here are some photos from the ride.

bikes lined up, pre-ride. lots of blue and white/silver going on. and gold handlebar tape.

the grand cru rolling through santa rosa, en route to sebastopol

joe rodota trail for the win! a pretty sweet, flat, fast trail between santa rosa and sebastopol.

on Sparkes rd, headed away from sebastopol.. things are getting a bit wet!  most of the weather forecasts had called for just a cloudy day.. but this day was mostly mist.  (toes partially numb at this point.)

our crew split up a bit further. here’s a foggy shot from a climb up burnside rd.  (toes mostly numb at this point.)

almost all fog.  but pretty.  but also chilly.

this photo sums things up pretty well.  (toes all numb.)we took barnett valley  down to bodega highway to freestone valley ford rd.  then we took the valley ford cutoff to bodega.  here’s the church from “the birds”

then we began our ascent of joy rd.  I didn’t think it’d be quite so intense.  Though, in retrospect, I do remember seeing a lot of wrinkles on the relief of the terrain map.  I didn’t remember the altitude profile looking so crazy though.  a quick glance at the topo lines shows only 800 feet of climbing?

we took bittner rd down to another small down – occidental – and then descended a chilly and wet graton rd.

I was pretty worn out from the climb and kind of put my head down the rest of the way.  luckily, it was mostly flat.  rain was spotty but there were patches of blue in the sky.

here’s the reward: taps and tastings at russian river.

photos were taken with the gf1 which survived its soggy stint in my back jersey pocket.

photos from summer rides

we had some nice summery weather today in  Oakland.  Here are some photos from summer bike rides hadn’t made it out until now for whatever reason._1020603dmFound some pears off of Canyon rd. in Moraga.  Note – This is before I dropped my camera:

panasonic gf1, post fall

Panasonic GF1, post fall on what I think was Bear Creek Rd.

You see, I have a jersey with a small side pocket that I had fit the camera into.  I left it unzipped so that I could access the camera.  My girlfriend warned me that it looked precarious and she was very right.  I hit a few potholes on the descent at 30-35mph.  My back felt a little lighter and I heard a noise behind me.  I stopped the bike and walked back up the road, expecting the worst.

but!  Suprisingly everything was okay.  The lens had a nick on the edge but the glass was fine.  The LCD had a little scratch but not much else.  The body was pretty banged up, but, hey, the camera still takes pictures today and I have a funny (stupid?) story to tell.  I zipped up the pocket for the rest of the ride.

P1010891dm

riding around the reservoir in  Orindariding up rt 4 in the stanislaus national forestwe did one high-altitude ride near Arnold, CA up route 4 in Stanislaus national forest.  I was wheezing from the lack of oxygen.  I do not have mountain lungs.  The 24% grade (see the sign!) probably did not help.P1020053dmPretty, but kind of scary.  Looks like you’re riding off the edge of a mountain.

Note: Mosquito Lake has mosquitoes.

pizza by bike

We finally made it to Addie’s Pizza Pie (3290 Adeline St, Berkeley) tonight.  I took the leftover pizza home on the bike’s back rack:

pizza by bike

cargo net: highly recommended.  also useful for carrying toilet paper.

Here’s Addie’s charming beverage menu:

PBR: Hipsterville, Milwaukee

Pabst Blue Ribbon, Hipsterville Milwaukee

So that’s where PBR is brewed!  (seriously though, PBR does awesome marketing)

Amsterdam: Day 3

This is day 3 of a short trip to Amsterdam.  Check out Day 1 and Day 2 if you haven’t already.

Breakfast on day 3 was at Latei (Zeedijk 143)I think this is was uitsmijter.  fried egg on a hearty, seedy toast.  I don’t think there was ham.  the freshly-squeezed orange juice was great.

or was this the uitsmijter?  Tomato, cheese, possibly an egg on the same toast.  You can see a unremarkable croissant in the background.

The waitress was super nice but a bit slow.  we ordered a traditional dutch apple pie because we hadn’t yet:

dutch apple pie – appeltaart.

The pie was a bit doughy.  I don’t remember thinking it was all that great.  The place was pretty cool though – great people watching.  There seemed to be a lot of tourists out and we enjoyed watching the groups walk or ride by.

I still needed my coffee, so we walked towards a place that had also been mentioned on a chowhound thread, coffee connection (Nieuwezijds Kolk 33).

coffee connection: storefront

once again, a super nice girl behind the counter.  we chatted for a bit about where I was from and coffee and so on.

espresso at coffee connection

I was really hoping that the espresso would be good given how welcoming the barista was, but it was thin and tasted a little burnt.

I was a little surprised about the espresso selection in the center of town.  my only enjoyable espresso was from the stumptown pop-up shop.  There were other shops that we didn’t get to visit because they were farther off from our hotel or other destinations such as espressofabriek (Gosschalklaan 7) and brandmeester’s (Van Baerlestraat 13) .  Maybe next time.

We walked for a bit to find another place to rent bikes.

older guy with groceries

I think I took this last picture because of the guy’s bike, but I can’t really make it out anymore.  I think it reminded me of a strida.

bike parking at amsterdam centraal

The first place we checked out for a bike rental seemed a little too expensive, so we walked to amsteram centraal station to check out star bike rental (De Ruyterkade 127).  I was kind of blown away by the number of bikes in the bike parking lot.  We just aren’t used to seeing this many bikes in the states.

more bikes in the parking area

we got our rental bikes and rode to the Jordaan.  the bikes were crappy as the last ones we’d rented and slightly more expensive but still pretty cheap.

RIH sport through the window

I’d really wanted to check out the framebuilder at RIH Sport Amsterdam (Westerstraat 150) but unfortunately they were closed.  It was still fun peering in through the window.  The Jordaan was a neat neighborhood to walk and bike through.  It felt a lot more neighborhoody than other areas and seemed like a nice place to live.

A fun set of window decorations

We eventually made our way back towards the city center.  we stopped by the cracked kettle (Raamsteeg 3 to pick up some beer:

bike, with westy crate

we had joked about how it’d be cool if a bike had a westvleteren crate.   here one was..  Its tires were flat, so it was more for display than beer transport.

entry

I wandered around a bit and took more photos.  Our weekend was coming to an end and we had to head back to the southern tip of the country for the night.  We took the train but, not knowing any dutch, did not know that the last portion of our ride was not in operation due to maintenance or construction.  Luckily, the NS train had arranged for a set of shuttle buses.  I was kind of happy to take the shuttle bus because it’d mean that we’d be able to see more of the countryside.

the bus from maastricht

All in all, it was a fun weekend.  A bit exhausting with all of the wandering around, but well worth it.

Amsterdam: Day 2

Every trip I take somehow ends up becoming a bike and coffee (and sometimes beer) tour.  We did some preliminary research on chowhound and coffeegeek for the coffee and beer and found a place for bike rentals.  Also handy was this interview of Stumptown owner Duane Sorensen by Oliver Strand of the New York Times It’s been a couple of months since our trip so my memory is a bit hazy but I’ll try to piece things back together with the help of these photos and the internets.

Die Koffie Salon Storefront

Coffee was my first priority.  We walked from our hotel to de koffie salon (Utrechtsestraat 130) based on recommendations from one of the above threads.  Patisserie Kuyt is across the street and these two were probably taking pictures of the storefront.  I did the same later, of course.

Impressive looking lever machine at Die Koffie Salon.

not as impressive-looking espresso from Die Koffie Salon

The espresso from Die Koffie Salon was pretty disappointing.  Light-bodied and not so good.  Drinkable though.  I don’t remember much else about it.  We moved on to across the street.

Patisserie Kuyt storefront

Patisserie Kuyt was a treat.  We ended up getting a variety of sweets, including the famed Appeltaart.

Bike rentals were from Dam Bike (New 26).  Cheap bike rentals, pretty crappy bikes.  But most bikes in Amsterdam were crappy.  We had some brake and wheel-truing problems, but hey, we didn’t expect much.  Another factor in choosing this bike rental place: we didn’t have to ride the super touristy orange bikes.  We were still touristy of course.

Nespresso storefront

I stopped in here to see if there were any Nestle-fueled single serve espresso innovations.  I didn’t see any, but I did see some (apparently top secret) designer Nespresso machines.  There were patterns screen printed on some of the plastic panels.  They kicked me out of the store for taking photos.  First time for a coffee shop – in the past it’s usually been for taking pictures in churches.

Lots of orange going on – we were nearing the quarterfinals of the the world cup.

women walking along albert cuypmarkt

After hanging out for a bit in Vondelpark, our next stop was Stumptown Amsterdam.  The market was super crowded and the actual store front was obscured by tents.  Lots of semi-crappy stuff but it was all interesting nonetheless.

an overexposed view of stumptown amsterdam

stumptown amsterdam: cupping station

Stumptown Amsterdam had a similar feel to other Stumptown locations but also had a more boutique-y feel to it.  The barista was a bay area guy (if I remember correctly) and it sounded like a pretty sweet gig to be working at that pop-up coffee spot with an apartment paid for by the Stumptown folks.

stumptown espresso

The espresso was predictably good, of course.

Bazar

Dinner was at Bazar (Albert Cuypstraat 182).  We got some sort of kebab platter and though I was stuffed afterwards, I was intrigued by their mint syrup + ice cream + fruit dessert combination.

dessert at Bazar.

Canteloupe, honeydew, apple, grape, ice cream, whipped cream, mint syrup, pineapple, and strawberry.  The mint syrup was too sweet for my tastes but it was an interesting combination made a bit refreshing by the mint.

Albert Cuypstraat, post market

The market had shut down and the cleaning crews were tidying the street as we walked out of Bazar.

Albert Cuypstraat, post market

biercafe gollem

A recommended beer place, Cafe Gollem (Raamsteeg 4),  was nearby, so we sat down and had a beer.  Good selection with a very low-key vibe.  The only thing that sucked was a woman sat down next to us and started smoking.  The breeze was blowing all of her smoke right at my face.  She must have had about 3 cigarettes while we had about 2 beers.

biercafe gollem – at the bar

We left Cafe Gollem to return our bikes to Dam Bike and then walked home.

dam square at night

kind of a sweet bike design.

It doesn’t look very practical but it’s kind of cool how the rack is integrated and how there’s tons of standover clearance.  The decal says “Nationale Postcode Loterij”  Not sure why they’ve branded a bike with their decals or who the manufacturer is though.

the intercontinental amstel amsterdam hotel

The last shot of the night was of the fancy-looking InterContinental Amstel Amsterdam Hotel (Amstel Hotel).  FIVE STARS PLUS!

Amsterdam

I went to Amsterdam earlier this year.

Photos from a weekend in Amsterdam:

I stayed at Hotel Arena.  Its most recent incarnation is a swanky-looking modern hotel.  Glass bathroom doors, a lofted bed.. The building was built as an orphanage with a chapel in 1890, and then was converted into a home for the elderly in 1950.  It became a youth hostel in 1982 and then somehow became privatized and then underwent a drastic transformation in the last couple of years.  The hotel is sort of on the outskirts of the Centrum but it’s only a 10-20 minute walk or so to most areas.. and of course even quicker by bike.

Here are a few of the other things we saw on our first evening.  It was near the solstice and daylight lingered to a ridiculous hour.  I think it was about 11:00pm when dusk started to settle in.

Kitty, on a dumpster covered with somehow color-coordinated tags and paint.

I don’t remember where this was taken, but I am guessing it was on Weesperstraat.

stickers on a red door.

Probably still along Weeperstraat.

And of course there were bikes.  This may have been along Sarphatistraat, but I just don’t remember anymore.  We heard a guy get hit by a car near this intersection the next night – scary, but he walked away and the car drove away and that was that.

More photos from the Netherlands and Belgium to come, eventually.