Interesting weekend thing or something Options

[Thlayli]

All right, screw it, I gotta post something about this somewhere, and here seems fine.

I went down to the Bay area this past weekend for a little bit of work-type stuff and a plan. A friend of mine who lives near Berkeley had invited me down there for some different riding, and I actually took him up on the offer for once.

So, on Sunday (after getting lost in Oakland and panicking on Fri. and then taking care of the business on Sat. and watching every episode of Family Guy my buddy has on DVD) we went up to where his office is (Flagship Studios, right next to where the Giants play) at about 9am and immediately headed out... on our mountain bikes. Up Embarcadero, past the docks I recognized from the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater level. A note on that area... and the whole area, actually... is that all the cool stuff to skate and/or street ride on has been set up with little steel things designed to keep people from skating on them. Bummer.

Located and cruised past the Clocktower, but it was too early and the flatlanders I wanted to see weren't there... I specifically had a desire to see Pete Brandt ride, or just confirm Mutt's existence, but that wasn't meant to be.

Golden Gate was very cool. I was glad I hadn't attempted to ride either of my BMX bikes on that one, because of the hills. Though I seem to be in a little better shape than I thought, since I didn't even get short of breath after the climbs... an amazing accomplishment for a smoker, and I was totally surprised... and so was my friend.

A little ways away from "Hippie Hill" in GG Park, I found a little jump-like thing right off the path, next to a little tunnel. I found out quickly that I need a LOT more speed to jump my mountain bike off a real jump... couldn't get the back wheel off the ground, weirdly enough. But I did do a picture-perfect abubaca on the backside of it a few minutes later, and thendid another really pretty abubaca on the front side of it that would've been perfect had my chain not come off. Cheap-arse Alivio drive train. I was also able to do some nice-looking rockwalk/slider things. My STP is not that great to try flatland stuff on.

Oh, and on a few of the slight uphills, I was really on with my wheelies... stick that bastard in an easy gear, and I was easily going a block and a half when I had room. Well, okay, that's an exaggeration, but I did get a hundred-footer a coule times.

In all, we rode somewhere around 14-16 miles over five hours, very leisurely. Nice way to see the north end of the city (didn't cross the GG bridge) for the first time. Surprisingly, being that I've considered myself hippie-like, I was underwhelmed by the famous Haight/Ashbury area.

Next time around, I will find and photograph the Vanderspek brick. My buddy got kinda sick of me talking about wanting to find it this time, but we ended up avoiding that part near the bridge because of hill avoidance.

But it was fun. And I did get some street riding done, slightly, a little bit, on the "wrong" bike. And I didn't hurt by wrist or my back until after I got back up home.