Posts

2012 was another great year for biking, with friends, on many new adventures. Looking back, the highlights for me were: An overnight 120-mile ride to Russian River Brewery with a big group, tasting Pliny the Younger, staying in a retro motel, merging a few different social groups, and a dramatic conclusion. Bringing my bike on a trip to Chicago and taking an overnight trip to Wisconsin with a few friends who live there, on mostly dedicated paved paths, braving flooding and angry birds. ...

Tour de Biere A few of us joined an East Bay beer/brewery tour during SF Beer Week… Update: A writeup and photos on KQED: http://blogs.kqed.org/bayareabites/2013/02/17/the-3rd-annual-tour-de-biere-an-east-bay-bicycle-brewery-tour/ Drake’s and Linden St were especially good brewery visits, and the San Leandro -> West Oakland ride via off-road paved paths, bridges, and Alameda was a lot of fun.

In Argentina, we rented bikes from the friendly folks at Cordillera, and went for a casual scenic ride around the Circuito Chico, before branching off onto dusty back dirt roads. Most of the route was great, but the last 6 miles into town were unpleasant riding: on the major and only road, plagued with thick, choking auto exhaust, no shoulders, and cars and buses regularly swerving and at times forcing us off the road.

People seen cycle touring along Route 40 in Patagonia, far from civilization

Seen coming off the luggage conveyer in the Ushuaia airport. A couple picking it up had helmets, panniers, basic street clothes. My heroes.

Cycle paths, Buenos Aires

wood bike

Four of us took BART out to the end of the line and then biked to Black Diamond Mines Regional Park in Antioch for a tour of the Hazel-Atlas sand mines (and some history on coal mining in the region). It was a casual 20 mile round trip, mostly on the Delta De Anza paved off-road bike path, though with a bit of busy road riding and then a mile of uphill to get into the park. ...

Biking in the nearly-deserted Black Diamond Mines Regional Park (in Antioch).

locked bike in Chicago (this would never fly in SF)