No it isn't

But I'll bet it freaked out about 0.3% of the people who saw it today.


(Seen near Chatz on 2nd).

Sigh.

Read. Learn.

(Seen on 1st near Market, 11/12/2008).

What Bradley Effect?

(I know this has nothing to do with biking.)

Keith Knight: Stories from the Campaign Trail
FiveThirtyEight.com: Western Pennsylvania

I wish I had the brass to wear a shirt with this printed on it:

REDNECKS FOR OBAMA
AH'M VOTIN' FOR THE NI**ER

The SF Look, Redux

Seen on the N-Judah at Carl & Cole this morning: middle-aged man in a blue suit jacket, white dress shirt and silk repp tie. Also, day-glo leopard-print wraparound shades, a frilly straw sombrero, and a frisbee tucked under his lapel.

A week before his fifty-third birthday, Walter's hedge fund went belly-up, along with most of the rest of the market. On Tuesday, as he was knotting his tie in the mirror, it suddenly occurred to him that he didn't want to go to the office. There was no point. He decided, instead, to go to the beach and play Frisbee catch with his Jack Russell terrier, Buster.

It was only after he got to the beach that he realized that Buster had died in 1973.

ALS Ride Saturday

In two days, the significant other and I are riding a Wine Country Century to benefit ALS.

I've only recently learned that ALS, popularly known as "Lou Gehrig's Disease," could just as easily be associated with Charles Mingus, Lead Belly, or Dmitri Shostakovich.

If you'd like to help us to support ALSA (see their Financials), our team is Caffeinated.

Thanks!

Yay Bike Lights Yay

The Masonic Death Trap has been immeasurably improved by the addition of swanky new traffic signals. And the lights are even in the shape of bicycles!

Thanks to all those responsible. My inevitable violent death has just been postponed a few years. I understand that not everyone agrees with this opinion.

(image courtesy of treadly.net)

MUNI Mayhem

I took MUNI last night (the bike's in the shop). It was enough to remind me why I never take MUNI.

I'm in Montgomery station. I can hear an outbound train approaching, and see its headlights in the tunnel.

The robotic female voice on the P.A. says, "Approaching: Outbound. J."

The red-LED sign reads, "NOW IN SUBWAY: N. 2 MIN: NN."

The big flat-panel TV is dead, of course.

The train arrives. It's a K.

I think we'd be actually better off with a couple of Mooninite signs, and the two drunks from the Bill Cosby bit, "A Nut In Every Car."

Yahoo StreetView?

Saw one of these beauties locked to a meter on Monday: a purple cruiser bike with the Yahoo! logo, and a small set of solar panels on the back apparently powering a digital camera on the handlebars.

Apparently there are several of these, all uploading to Flickr streams, and they've been spotted in different places in California (not just SF):

YBike
Gina Trapani's Yahoo Bike
Amit's Bike
Jessamyn's Bike
John Murch

The San Francisco Look

Under the Duboce Bikeway Mural, passed a scruffy, bearded guy wearing ratty, filthy sneakers, beat-up jeans, and a baseball cap.

He was also sitting on a $3000 racing bike, holding a paper tray of Starbuck's iced coffees.

This mixed-message style is completely typical of this town.

"If you're so rich, why do you dress like that?"

"Because I'm so rich, I can do whatever I want."

Altered States

Passing by a MUNI stop. A man wearing a Greek fisherman's cap, with his arm in a sling, is loudly proclaiming to a middle-aged Asian woman.

"I swear to God. And I'm not under the influence of any medication or anything. I swear. Well, not for the last three days, anyway. Actually, maybe that's the problem. But I swear I just saw the bus drive up, and pull away without even opening its doors."

Your witness, counselor.

First Comes Love

Riding through the panhandle, I pass a guy and a girl kissing passionately on park bench, their legs entangled, she holding his face in both her hands. His hair 's brush-cut, and colorful tattoos cover both of his forearms.

All of a hundred yards later, I see another brush-cut guy with arm tats, looking enough like the first to be his brother. He's got a kid in a stroller.

Wish I could've been there when they met.

Disgruntled Desserts

Getting a lunchtime fix at the Peet's on Mission:

Me: "What's in the 'Mad Cookie'?"

Peet's Guy: "Oatmeal, coconut, and chocolate chips. And anger."

Yum.

Happy Crashday

Yesterday, a couple of my friends crashed in Sacramento. Thanks to helmets and gloves, damage was limited to a little road rash.

Two weeks ago, another friend endoed on his commute home to Daly City. His face got pretty messed up. To give you some idea how bad it could've been, here's his helmet.

His comment? "Looks like I got my money's worth."

The Curse of 7/25

What the HELL is up with Critical Mass rides that happen on July 25th, and police violence?

1997, SF

2008, NYC

It's like an anti-holiday.

Working for the Weekend

Friday night, riding by the SF Academy of Art, overheard three students chatting while having a smoke. Since they're Art students, they've devoted rather more attention to their appearance than the average person might. My best attempt to describe each of their highly-individual motifs:

• Gay Unshaven Cowboy
• Nazi Kink-Submissive Butler
• Zombie Clown

Gay Unshaven Cowboy speaks: "I'm over at the Rawhide, drinking Red Bull and vodkas, and Ray's pouring, so after a while he stops charging me..."

I guess at some point, you become part of the place's decor.

Stock up on tires

As VeloNews pointed out in a recent article, peak oil isn't going to leave bicyclists unscathed. Tire prices are going up another 10-15% soon:

Michelin Raising Prices, Others to Follow (Bicycle Retailer News)

Michelin North America Announces Price Increases (EasyBourse)

"...a spokesman for Continental's tire unit, told Forbes.com that the company was increasing its tire prices for the third time this year..." (Forbes)

It's not limited to North American markets, or European manufacturers:
Bridgestone to hike China tire prices next month (The Auto Channel)

Stock up now!

Will Fight For Oil

"When a person is addicted to crack cocaine, his problem is not that the price of crack is going up." -- Thomas L. Friedman, in a NY Times Op-Ed yesterday.

"We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey." -- Kurt Vonnegut, back when he was still alive.

Call to Action

Leaving work, I heard a woman's voice, apparently through a megaphone, bouncing off the buildings in downtown SF. Inspiring words, like "Yes, you can... YES you CAN!" and "Let's go, people! Let's GO GO GO GO!"

Political rally? No.

Aerobics class.

Retro With a Vengeance

Having brunch at Darla's, saw a pennyfarthing bicycle locked to a meter outside.

GOD I love this town.

Meeting People, East Bay Style

Rode up to the top of Grizzly Peak on Saturday morning. Stopped in the Peet's on Solano Ave. for a latte before starting up the hill. A lady I didn't even know struck up a conversation with me about the Tour coverage.

Maybe I should walk around with a bike helmet on more often.

We Don't Need No Steenkin' Badges

Waiting for the light on Market at Octavia, about a dozen bicyclists parked double-file in the bike lane, we heard a young man yelling behind us, "IT'S THE PO-LEECE! OUTTA THE WAY, BITCHES!"

This was followed by the unmistakable putt-putt sound of a tiny two-stroke engine. The bikers parted to let a teenage boy through on his mini-bike. Yeah, his ride might've been just a couple of sprockets away from a ride-on lawnmower, but he was sporting a Harley-sized attitude.

We got out of his way, he puttered up to the light, turned right and merged in with the car traffic, at about 2 mph, but at least 100 LEET.

We didn't stop giggling for minutes afterward.

We Are the Cyclists

"The intermediate stage between humans and pure energy."

Style Over Sense

I realize I'm not making any friends with this statement, but I continue to be baffled and amused by the popularity of fixed-gear bikes in this city. We have hills, people. We have hills so steep that the sidewalks are staircases.

Invariably, an SF fixie rider:

• is about 20 years old
• isn't wearing a helmet
• has several tats, piercings, etc.
• dresses so as to display them as prominently as possible
  

All of this feeds my impression that it's all just a fashion statement. Riding a fixie around this town is simply nuts. Sudden stops (kinda important in city riding) are nigh-impossible. The steep pitch of all the climbs and drops means these kids are going to be paying the orthopedic surgeon for brand-new knees before they turn 40.

Just now, I saw something that put it over the top for me: a fixed-gear MOUNTAIN BIKE. Yep. No brakes, no derailleurs, big fat knobby 26-inch tires. But gosh, what a sweet paint job, with rims and tires in matching tints even! And me without my camera.

This, kids, is like going snowboarding in stiletto heels and a monokini. Painfully stupid, pointlessly dangerous, borderline life-threatening... but damn, it looks HAWT.

The shortest path from A to B is under construction

RIDICULOUS amounts of construction going on today. Most or all of the lanes are shut down at:

• 6th & Irving
• Page between Divis and Octavia
  
• 10th & Folsom
• Folsom & Hawthorne

Mercifully, a lot of it looks to be almost finished.

The Red Shoes

Corner of 2nd and Howard. Someone apparently tired of these glitzy shoes, and just took 'em off, and left 'em on the curb.

Freegans take note!

I saw the sign

Man standing on the corner of 6th and Brannan, holding up a huge, hand-lettered sign to traffic. On one side:

YOUR
BEAUTY
GOES
DEEPER

On the other:

THAN
YOU
CAN
PERCEIVE

The guy seemed much too young and well-dressed to be another Frank Chu.

My guess? Viral marketing campaign for Dove Soap.

Hang up and Drive

In what is no doubt soon to become another commonplace experience, encountered a cyclist weaving around in traffic while attempting to hold a conversation on a cell phone. As ridiculous (and dangerous) a practice as this is while operating a motor vehicle, this is even more reckless while riding a bicycle one-handed.

But I never really intended this blog to become a catalog of moronic behaviors. How about some name-dropping?

I rode past Ix running through the Panhandle. He's lost a hell of lot of weight since the CP days, and looks great.

Rough night

Young male pedestrian, talking into a cell phone while crossing the street in the Haight: "... so I woke up this morning, fully clothed, in their bed. I have no idea what happened."

A bad driver is perfectly safe until they meet another one

Things that are no longer remarkable, after a month of bicycle-commuting in San Francisco:

• High-speed red-light runners. It's so commonplace that whenever I'm waiting at a light, I wait another two or three seconds after it changes, expecting the large black SUV that'll blast through right about then. I'm rarely disappointed.
• Cyclists who anticipate the green light, and roll out into the intersection while the other direction is still yellow.

It's probably only a matter of time before a perfect storm of the above creates road hamburger right in front of my eyes. Mercifully, this hasn't happened yet.

Chacun à son goût

Today, I was called an idiot by a Francophone ("EEEDIOTE!") yelling from a car behind/beside me. I had just signaled for a left, and turned left from the left edge of the lane.

Later, while barreling down 10th from Market to Folsom at ~15-20mph, on the left edge of the road, a moving car rolled up beside me, matching my speed, and the driver rolled down the window to ask me if the CostCo was nearby. I said, "Yeah, it's just up there on the right," and she thanked me and drove off.

OK, I'm used to giving directions. Especially in SF, since it's a tourist destination. But never while riding down the street at speed. I suppose it was easier for her than pulling over and looking for a pedestrian.