Let’s go ride a bike! Half Moon Bay and Bay Trail
First of all, I’m a terrible blogger. While my girlfriend Kendra over at girlonbikewrites.blogspot.com seems to crank out a couple posts a week, I can’t even remember my last post. The guilt! Somewhat of an excuse: I bought a house which has been one of a hell of a project and have been busy for two months straight. But finally, time to take a break!
Kendra and I loaded up our bikes. Quite pleasing to feel my bike with the light load of only a day trip; what a difference in weight! We BARTed over to San Francisco (ya, it’s a verb now), rode down Market towards Golden Gate Park and then the coast, the official start. Great Hwy, the coast road, is apparently closed seasonally, which I was aware of, but was not aware it would be closed NOW…but it was. Ended up being all the better though, we hopped the barriers and had our own private 3 lane highway, what a treat.
The ride to Half Moon Bay is 30ish miles, fairly leisurely with a few hills (which Kendra totally conquered). Not the quietest route; lots of traffic throughout especially when you’re forced onto Hwy 1. I’ve crashed on this route before so I was careful to watch my speed and take the lane on downhills and when necessary.
Half Moon Bay was a little too cold and foggy to bring out our bathing suits but we had a campfire at least. Strangely scored a few goodies at the campsite too: a firsbee, an MSR stove, a mystery bottle of brown oil, a CKRT knife and box wine and vodka. Score.
The next day we bused over the Hayward Bridge for lack of other options for biking folk and got off at the first stop. Never been on the Bay Trail before and I was surprised, it’s awesome! (At least the continuous portions like near Hayward are)
Sometimes the trail disappears and you blaze your own…
In San Leandro we veered off course to Kendra’s favorite taco place, Los Pericos. The BEST fish tacos ever and unlimited chips and salsa! Just what we needed
Riding by the Oakland Airport we found a huge grove of Arbutus trees with loadsss of sparkling red ripe fruit. We picked as much as we could.
So, fun ride all in all. Nice little break from the day to day and our other projects
09.Jun.10 
Reporting Google Maps bike issues
Regarding reporting Google Maps bike issues…do it! Google has been incredibly receptive to hear from the biking public on it’s new bike routing feature of Google Maps. I’ve so far submitted about 10 different problem reports (mostly missing bike routes from the map) and they have got back to me on nearly all of them informing me that the change will be made with this e-mail:
Hi Dan,
Your Google Maps problem report has been reviewed, and you were right! We’ll update the map soon and email you when you can see the change.–
Thanks for your help,
The Google Maps team
My favorite part: “you were right!”. Leave it to Google to make you feel warm and fuzzy.
So go ahead, take a look at your city’s bike map on Google Maps and send in those corrections. You can do so by clicking the “Report a problem” link at the bottom right of the screen.
Close the gap: Bay Bridge west span pathway
What good is an east span bike path without a west? Good question because I sure can’t come up with a sensible answer. A west span path would be the logical conclusion to the nearly completed east span and to the age old San Francisco bike commute quandary that AC Transit buses and even the Caltrans shuttle do not fully solve.
On March 23rd, Senate Bill 1061, which if set into law would allow toll collections to be used for the pathway, will be heard by the Committee on Transportation and Housing. The East Bay Bicycle Coalition is urging letters of support to be sent (snail mail, really?). My fingers are crossed on this one
Just another day by bike
Moving into a new house soon so I’m always on the lookout on Freecycle for treasure; yesterday’s haul: foam mattress (the sleeper sofa kind, not the thousand dollar Swedish kind unfortunately). Foam made it nice and easy to haul in the ol’ trailer though 
Heading down Milvia, one of Berkeley’s bike boulevards
Google Maps “bike there” finally arrives!
WOOHOO!
Back in October of last year, Google made the big announcement they’d be adding a feature to their Google Maps application for bike navigation (to add to their list of other alternative means of transportation like walking and transit). What I love about Google is they consistently back up their talk and today, they’ve come through and made available a GIANT database of bike route data and the new ability to punch in addresses into Google Maps and have it route you the best way on a bike!!
Been playing with it and it has some great data for Berkeley, San Francisco and Oakland and by the looks of things, has great data elsewhere too. This is big, really big. Go check it out 
Google’s official blog – Biking directions added to Google Maps
Recumbent “bike pod” whisks cyclists along above traffic
…well at least it might some day. The video is mostly in Swedish but there’s some English in there too. Looks like crazy fun and maybe even a useful idea in the right place.
Spotted on Walk Oakland Bike Oakland
Dan’s interesting articles, March 2, 2010
- Cyclist's flower power spreads the love after potholes bloom in icy weather
- Seoul Transforms a Freeway Into A River and Public Park
- Hummer Going the Way of the Dodo
Dunlop valve key rack – another way to re-use
The list of ways to re-use bike tubes seems to grow endlessly. Just when I think I’ve seen them all…
Clever idea and easy to make yourself too
Found via Stilsucht & avail. in Germany at DaWanda (and no I don’t know what either of those names mean)
Update: These are not Presta valves as I originally mistok them for but rather Dunlop/Woods valve which are apparently much more common in Germany than they are in North America
