It was pretty wet all week but luckily Wednesday was dry in the afternoon and my ALC ride was lots of fun.  We had five riders this week which is a record, I think.  Here they are at Shark’s in TIburon:

I saw this poodle at Shark’s.  She was very concerned about the lack of snacks:

We did the short Tiburon Loop and then back to San Francisco.  I said goodbye to my riders and then headed off on my own.  First stop was the Music Concourse at Golden Gate Park.  The De Young looked fabulous as usual:

Me:

I took MLK and left the park at 9th and then took it to Judah to 7th into Laguna Honda to Dewey to Claremont to Portola to Santa Clara into Monterey to San Jose to Duncan to Valencia to 17th to Kansas to 8th to Brannon to REI to pick up some stuff I’d ordered and then headed home Brannon to Potrero to 18th
to Douglass to 17th to Ord and home for dinner.

Bike Mileage:

Today 52.7 Week to date 52.7 Month to date 550.2 Year to date 1,913.1 To Goal 6,086.9 Over (Under) plan (37.6) YTD Mileage vs Last Year 553.0 Rolling Year 6,002.8 Since Inception 10/1/07 35,840.0

The weather was a bit of a disaster for the rest of the week.  Rain, cold and wind.  Not pleasant for riding.  Sunday the weather cleared off a bit and I went and hung out with Mr. Chris and David.  I walked home after.  First I headed down the Embarcadero.  I stopped for pics of the South Beach Yacht club.  It looked so pretty with storms in the East Bay behind it:

AT&T Park:

Then I headed down to Mission Bay to check out the progress.  Mission Bay Commons Park is very, very new:

This is an interesting Richard Serra sculpture on Gene Friend Way.  You can read more about it here:

Genentech Hall in the UCSF campus:

I headed over to Potrero Hill and then home for dinner. 

Thursday I came into work Market to Laguna to Grove to Polk to O’Farrell to Market to Sansome.  I headed home for lunch and then went for a nice ride after work.  I headed off Sutter to Fillmore to Clay to Spruce to Washington to Arguello to Lake.  I stopped by Mountain Lake Park for a few pics.  I hadn’t been there is a long time and it was as pretty as I’d remembered.  It’s scheduled for an extended cleanup.  Apparently there’s a thick layer of sludge at the bottom that’s making the water toxic for the wildlife that lives there.  You can read more about it here:

Me:

I took Lake to 23rd to Cabrillo to 30th and into Golden Gate Park.  I headed over to JFK and made my way down to Spreckels Lake where I stopped for pics:

Spreckels Lake is where many boating enthusiasts go to play.  There was only one on Thursday:

I continued on JFK to the North Windmill to check out the tulips.  They’re fabulous as usual for this time of year:

I took the Great Highway to Taravel to Merced to Hernandez to Laguna Honda to Portola to Corbett to Ord and home for dinner.

Bike Mileage:

Today 26.2 Week to date 88.9 Month to date 497.5 Year to date 1,860.4 To Goal 6,139.6 Over (Under) plan 41.2 YTD Mileage vs Last Year 701.5 Rolling Year 6,142.1 Since Inception 10/1/07 35,787.3

Monday I came into work Market to Laguna to Grove to Polk to O’Farrell to Market to Sansome.  I was feeling pretty beat from the day before because cold and miserable all day really wears you out in excess of the physical exertion.  So I headed home on Muni for lunch and then went home up Market after work.  I hung out with Mr. Poe and then we went to bed pretty early. 

Tuesday I worked from home and was all escándalo over Willam’s disqualification from Rupaul’s drag race.  What could have possibly done to get yanked from that show that is so riddled with shade and subterfuge it might as well be a world war II espionage documentary.  I made Mr. Poe a souffle later in the day.  I got Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking and I thought I’d try something kind of fancy and Frenchy.  I guess it turned out OK.  It got a little too brown on top and when Mr. Poe cut into it it looked a little dry to me but he said it was good and is looking forward to my attempt and that it should have bacon in it.  Obviously. 

Wednesday I worked from home in the morning and then headed over to the Golden Gate Bridge for my CAT2 Supplement ride.  I had four riders show up this time and we had a really good ride.  The asshole from two weeks ago didn’t show up, thankfully, and all of the riders were really nice.  We rode the short Tib Loop pretty fast.  Possibly too fast.  I think with a group that small there’s some pressure for everybody to try to ride at the same pace and no matter how many times I told them that I was perfectly happy sweeping at whatever pace the slowest rider was comfortable at it didn’t seem to work out that way.

Pepe and Chuck:

Darcy

Darcy and me.  Check out my crazy ass hair:

The fog was rolling in by the time we got back to San Francisco.  I said goodbye to my riders and took Lincoln to Long to Old Mason to Marina into fort Mason.  I stopped for a pic of the fog swarming the Golden Gate Bridge:

Detail:

Fort Mason:

I got on Van Ness to North Point to the Embarcadero to Townsend to Kansas to 17th to Potrero to 24th to Valencia to Tiffany to 29th to San Jose to Monterey into Santa Clara to Portola to Claremont to Dewey to Laguna Honda into 7th to Hugo to 3rd to Frederick to Cole to Carmel to Clayton to Corbett to Ord and home for dinner.  Mr. Poe had already eaten and was waiting for me when I got home.  After dinner, I spent my REI dividend, which was kind of a lot, and then I watched some TV and went to bed.

Bike Mileage:

Today 55.2 Week to date 62.7 Month to date 471.3 Year to date 1,834.2 To Goal 6,165.8 Over (Under) plan 36.9 YTD Mileage vs Last Year 694.5 Rolling Year 6,122.9 Since Inception 10/1/07 35,761.1

We had rain the rest of the week and I continued to work from home.   Friday it poured down rain pretty much the entire day.  The weather report looked pretty grim for Saturday.  They were forecasting very cold with thunderstorms and hail.  I cancelled my Different Spokes ride and resolved to being inside on a wet day.  But it wasn’t wet– the weather was fine all day and I totally should have gone.  Which sucks.  Mr. Poe tried to cheer me up mid day and said “Maybe there will be a tornado and a bunch of people will die”. THAT would have made me feel better but sadly it was not to be.  I headed over to Nathan’s at about 3PM and boozed it up with him and then we went for a walk in North Beach.  I headed home and had dinner and went to bed. 

Sunday I woke up and I was dehydrated and had a headache.  For some reason.  I got it together and headed over to Sports Basement for my CAT2 ride.  It was freezing cold but the forecast looked promising and I wasn’t gonna miss a whole weekend of riding.  I saw this huge cruise ship coming into the bay as I headed down Old Mason:

We started a little early to be ahead of a foot race on the bridge and we headed over to San Rafael where we stopped for a break at a grocery store.  Here are some pics from that:

Then it was through China Camp Park and back into San Rafael.  Buz and I stopped for lunch at Chipotle at Northgate mall and it was fucking awesome.  Then we headed over to the lunch spot for everybody else, big rocks on Lucas Valley:

We had Jen and Alvin with a sag vehicle for us which was a treat:

We headed back home through Nicasio where we got hailed on and I made it home a little before 5PM.  I got cleaned up and went to bed.  It had been a very long day.

Bike Mileage:

Today 80.0 Week to date 80.0 Month to date 408.6 Year to date 1,771.5 To Goal 6,228.5 Over (Under) plan 40.0 YTD Mileage vs Last Year 664.3 Rolling Year 6,085.7 Since Inception 10/1/07 35,698.4

I skipped my CAT2 training ride on Sunday because I wanted to look after Mr. Poe.  I felt bad about missing it but I didn’t leave him alone and at the end Mr. Poe comes first.  He was super sick all day but his fever slowly started going down as the day progressed.  He was feeling a lot better by dinner although he called in sick on Monday anyway which was a very good idea.  I could tell he was feeling better on Monday because he was a total asshole all day which is a well known hallmark of him feeling better.

I’ve been working from home this week because we’ve been having some very, very wet weather.  I canceled my training ride on Wednesday because it was pouring down rain and I’m a sane, reasonable person.  The Lifecycle has a rule that the facilitator needs to show even if the ride is a wash out so anybody who does show up knows it’s canceled.  It’s a pain in the ass but I agree it’s a good idea.  So I had to park my ass at the Golden Gate Bridge for a half an hour waiting for people to hopefully not show up.  The view:

From there I headed up to the Palace of the Legion of Honor to go look at the ‘Cult of Beauty‘ exhibit.  It was without a doubt the best exhibit that I’ve been to at the Palace of the Legion of Honor.  They had a bunch of Whistlers, Rossettis, and just about everything you could ever want in art in England from the 1870′s and 1880′s.  Of course it suffered from the typical poorly curated exhibits that I associate with the Palace of the Legion of Honor.  The arrangement was kind of a shit show with all of these jaw droppingly fabulous painting interspersed with decorative objects and architectural renderings.  I think if they would have arranged things by type I would have gotten a feel for things better but the paintings were so fabulous they had the effect of me noticing anything else.  Also, with the space they had available, it seems to me that they had room for either fine arts or decorative arts but not both.  Argh.  I couldn’t take pics inside, but I snuck one on my way out:

Here’s a couple of pics from the permanent collection.  They have a lovely permanent collection at the Palace of the Legion of Honor and I always enjoy it a bit more than whatever exhibition they’ve got.

Early 19th century hotness:

20′s era party girls:

Me:

The architecture of the Palace of the Legion of Honor is amazing.  Evidence:

I got this pic of Marin Headlands on my way out.  Glad I wasn’t riding there:

I headed home to hang out with the dogs and wait for Mr. Poe to come home.

Friday I came into work Market to Laguna to O’Farrell to Market to Sansome.  I headed home for lunch and I headed California to Spear over to Mr. Chris and David’s after work and then headed home Bryant to 2nd to Townsend to Kansas to 17th to Ord and home for dinner.  Mr. Poe was came home sick from work and we had dinner and we went to bed.

Saturday was the monthly Different Spokes jersey ride and we had a grand time.  We rode Tiburon Loop in the reverse direction so that we could ride with some new riders into Tiburon on the flats.  Here’s the hotness at Shark’s:

We rode paradise and then headed over to Cafe Del Soul for lunch which was delicious as usual.  Here are some pics from that:

We headed back to San Francisco and I headed over to Nathan’s to hang out with him.  I made it home about 5:30 and Mr. Poe was super super sick with a fever over 102.  Like going to Kaiser sick.  I figured we could avoid all of that drama if we could keep him eating and drinking and if could get the fever down.  Poor baby. 

I got a bit of Facebook feedback about my comments about an asshole rider who had pissed me off on Wednesday’s training ride.  I think everybody realizes how hard it can be to be a training ride leader.  Exhausted people can be pretty salty and honestly all of that just rolls right off my back because it’s pretty easy to see that most of it is coming from exhaustion and frustration and we’ve all been there.  Back when he was riding, Mr. Poe used to famously go all Linda Blair on me at about mile 70 pretty consistently.  I think what really pissed me off about this guy was that he was treating me like a poor performing waiter who was about to get a shitty tip.  And I’m just not gonna be treated that way for something I’m volunteering for.  The fact that it happened at mile 7 and it was coming from his asshole personality and not exhaustion and frustration just made it worse.  Here’s hoping we don’t see him again.

Thursday I came into work Market to Laguna to Post to Kearny to Bush to Sansome.  I headed home for lunch and then went for a nice ride after work.  I rode 2nd to Townsend to Kansas to 17th to Potrero to 23rd to Bryant to Precita to Mission to Silver to Alemeny to Geneva to Ocean to Lee.  I stopped for pics of the pretty new building going up at Ocean and Lee:

Me:

I love this sign.  Beep’s has pretty good reviews on Yelp, but it looks way to dive-y for me to take Mr. Poe to.  Still, I’m 100% in favor of the sign: 

I took Lee to Holloway to Junipero Serra to Cerritos and stopped for a pic of the sunset:

It was clear enough to see the Farralons!

I took Cerritos to Mercedes to Cedro to Moncada and stopped for a pic of these fantastic houses:

I continued on Moncada to Paloma to Ocean to San Benito to Saint Francis to Santa Clara to Portola to Claremont to Dewey to Laguna Honda into 7th to Hugo to 3rd to Frederick to Cole to Parnassus to Clayton to Corbett to Ord and home for dinner.  Mr. Poe has the cold I had last week and is blaming me for it.  We had dinner and I watched some TV and went to bed.

Bike Mileage:

Today 25.9 Week to date 78.8 Month to date 262.7 Year to date 1,625.6 To Goal 6,374.4 Over (Under) plan 113.3 YTD Mileage vs Last Year 663.8 Rolling Year 6,085.2 Since Inception 10/1/07 35,552.5

Ugh.  This week just keeps getting worse and worse.  Monday I came into work on Muni and it wasn’t a pleasant day so Tuesday I elected to work from home.  I worked from home on Wednesday morning and then headed off mid day for my Lifecycle training ride.  I had four riders show up.  Three of them were delightful and one of them was not.  He’s a first time ALC rider who Mr. Poe remembers from the Paradise Ride and he doesn’t remember him fondly.  He was pretty rude to me and should he RSVP again I’m gonna request that he find another series to train on.  There are limits to the amount of drama I’m going to put up with from riders– I’m donating not only my time for these rides but also my vacation time for this and I deserve better.  So basically he can go fuck himself.  It was such a shame because the other riders Pat, Linsey, and Pepe were fantastic and that fourth rider really put me off for the rest of the day.

Pat in Tiburon at Sharks:

Linsey looking FEROSH:

The fabulous view of San Francisco from Sausalito

Me:

We headed back to San Francisco–  you know I had to sweep the asshole guy in–  and I took off and rode a little before heading home.  I took Lincoln into Camino Del Mar to 25th to Lake to 27th to Balboa down to the coast.  I stopped for a pic of the beach on such a pretty day:

I took the Great Highway to Vicente to 45th to Sloat to Skyline to Lake Merced to Font to Holloway and stopped at Juniper Serra for a pic of Sutro Tower:

I continued on Holloway to Harold to Ocean to Phelan to Judson to Gennessee to Hearst where I stopped for pics of the amazing full moon:

I continued on Hearst to Edna to Monterey and stopped at San Jose for one more pic of the gorgeous moon:

I took San Jose to 18th to Douglass to 17th to Ord and home for dinner.  Mr. Poe had to work late so I fed the dogs and then myself and got cleaned up.  Here’s hoping for a less awful Thursday.

Bike Mileage:

Today 52.9 Week to date 52.9 Month to date 236.8 Year to date 1,599.7 To Goal 6,400.3 Over (Under) plan 109.3 YTD Mileage vs Last Year 637.9 Rolling Year 6,059.3 Since Inception 10/1/07 35,526.6

Sunday was my CAT2 Lifecycle training ride.  This week we headed out to to China Camp.  It’s a beautiful ride, but I find that it tends to be a disaster every year because 1) people get lost and 2) the ride is at the length where people start to have mechanical and physical issues.  We started off at Sports Basement in the Presidio.  Linsey spoke and she amazing.  She’s riding to honor her uncle who dies of AIDS.  This will be her first time on the Lifecycle, but it isn’t her first time training for it.  The first time she trained for the Lifecycle she got doored on her way down Haight into work and she got flung into the street where she got run over by a Pepsi truck.  She broke most of the bones in her mid section and required a lot of surgery and even more rehabilitation.  And she is back on her fucking bike.  It’s incredible, inspiring, and yet another reason to stay away from Pepsi.  Diet Coke would never treat you like that.  Here she is sharing her amazing story:

I raced ahead at the beginning of the ride to get positioned in San Anselmo to point people to San Rafael.  I got some pics of the hotness while I pointed:

Strike that pose, bitch!!!

Finally the sweeps showed up and I followed them into San Rafael.  We stopped at Andy’s to grab some food and we took it to beautiful China Camp for lunch.  Kristoffer and Zack in San Rafael:

The pretty park where we had lunch in China Camp:

We rode through China Camp and then made our way through San Rafael.  Here are Beau and Buz in San Rafael: 

We got as far as San Anselmo when we realized we’d lost somebody so I headed back to find him and thankfully he was pretty much where I thought he’d be.  Then we headed to Tiburon for and stopped at Sharks where Buz gifted me with a packet of Nutter Butter brand sandwich cookies which are among my very favorite.  On our way to Mill Valley Beau had a spectacular blowout because he’d let his rear tire get waaaay to worn.  I was able to patch it enough to get him back to Sausalito.  It was very fortunate that it hadn’t happened on a descent or he might have crashed.  I dropped him off at Mike’s in Sausalito and headed home by myself.  I didn’t have a donut hankering when I got home so I had dinner, got cleaned up and then went to bed.  I was completely beat.

Bike Mileage:

Today 72.1 Week to date 244.4 Month to date 183.9 Year to date 1,546.8 To Goal 6,453.2 Over (Under) plan 122.1 YTD Mileage vs Last Year 585.0 Rolling Year 6,110.4 Since Inception 10/1/07 35,473.7