Saturday, September 1, 2012

Friday's long ride and Critical Mass

Friday of the full moon was a blast.
I met Phil on Valencia, we got some coffee and went to Back to the Picture to see Randy. I got to help the proud owner of an original Red Vic movie poster for Harold and Maude pick out a frame. We talked about our favorite movie, and I am going to make Randy and Phil sit through it. We rode through Golden Gate park stopping to climb the tower at the DeYoung museum. We saw some cool knitted metal sculptures, a huge bronze, and two sphinx.

We then continued our ride to Ocean Beach where we sat for a minute looking at the Pacific. We then bought some fruit, bread and cheese for a packed lunch and kept riding. We sat to eat our lunch at the USS San Francisco memorial.

We then rode through the Presidio stopping at the Legion of Honor and the Holocaust Memorial. Then to the Golden Gate Bridge. We went over and back, very windy. The views of the city, bay and ocean were superb on this ride.

Hauled ass to sports basement and looked around. I bought an MSR fuel bottle. When we left we rode as fast as we could to Justin Hermann Plaza to catch Critical Mass. My back light fell off and I stopped as Phil picked it up. I pulled to the side of the road and Andrea, a friend from Elko was walking on the sidewalk right there!

There were bikes with charcoal grills on them, boom boxes, unicycles too! Very diverse set of bikes and riders. Lots of hooting and hollering as we took over Market st.
I got to show everyone my bike acrobatics on van ness. We went through the broadway tunnel and made lots of joyful echoing noise.

Phil's couch surfing host rode with us. Robin has been going to critical mass for twenty years! He was a lot of fun to ride and talk with. I talked to a lot of different riders on the almost two hour ride. I met Lawerence who might sell me an Xtracycle free radical for phil's bike. He told me about his visits to Elko, NV and I know his brother who is a geologist. Small world.

After critical mass my friend Pam had invited me to a kickstarter concert party with free booze! So we went to Optical Underground, where the door lady was nice and let me park my bike inside. The Sioux City Kids played and they were very rocking, very danceable but it was a packed venue so I couldn't get crazy dancing. Pam was right, they gave me free beer and I was very content because that is what I needed after the days riding.

After that we got a burrito and Pantea, my Uncle's co worker, stopped to chat for a bit. I feel like I know a lot of people here. I rode home alone and got to see a bit of the full moon before it was obscured in fog. That's the short version, you'd have to get a bike and take the ride it's much more entertaining first hand. If enough people would be willing we should start a critical mass in Elko! Take over the streets, granted we might actually get run over by diesel trucks. Or arrested.

1 comment:

  1. Nice! I love being mentioned within the first paragraph of a blog. Good shot of the Harold & Maude poster! When you get back, we'll watch it. :) xxxooo -R.

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