♥Butterlap| Meets Wednesdays at Ferry bldg. 7PM
Rules: 1) Don’t be an asshole. 2) Bring good booze.
++ Ferry building (in front of the steps)++ Ft.Mason (at the excercise bars by the statues, atop Gashouse cove++ Presidio overlooking Baker Beach (Lincoln at Washington Blvd.)++ Legion of honor++ Clement and 43rd ave.)++ Ocean beach (Great Hwy at JFK)++ Stanyan and Fell/Oak++ Benders (19th at S. Van Ness)
San Francisco Bike Party #1, the birth of a party. Took place in San Francisco, this past Friday (This will be celebrated on every 1st Fridays!).
Theme: ♥Happy birthday!!
The start The ride started at the ballpark right at 3rd and King. It was quite conmemmorative, since SF was the city to win the baseball word series last year, right. Continuing with celebration, I arrived shortly before 8PM, the starting time and there were already hundreds of bikes and people all around the corner. Did someone say party+bikes+fun?! We were there.
I decided to let the emotion and commotion sit-in for a few weeks, before I wrote my personal view. I do solo rides and group rides. I personally like to hang in the back of it all and chill out. I don’t like big crowds, but I love being part of big rides, if that makes sense.
flat! Before I even thought about what is what or where the route was headed (which was available previously, and posted on the SFBP various page links) I got a flat. Gaahh!!–really?! But thankfully, V+W and their tire tools+skills, these guys were on to spot to help and Frenchie’s rear wheel was fixed and off we went, back on the road in a matter of minutes. Gracias!
Embarcadero We caught up right after everyone had arrived to the Embarcadero/North point break area. People were dancing, I ran into a bunch of friends, more people dancing. So far the energy was nothing but positive, everyone seemed in a great mood and good times were to be had. And more dancing. Friday nights are the new disco.
Ghiradelli square / climbing Polk street. After riding the Fisherman’s wharf and Ghiradelli area near the water, I was way in the back-back of the bus, so I didn’t even know a little stop happened there. I knew the map, so I was thinking there was just a little bottleneck going on. DN has an awesome shot of that [here]
It was funny to me that someone around the internet called this hill between the stretch of Polk/North point and Polk/Pacific street “gruelling.” Yeah, they are a little steep, but come on, hundreds of cyclist bike this route any given time.
However proud moment we ALL made those hills. Yes. People and SF with bikes ROCK!
Pac heights via Pacific street. Crossing pacific heights was pretty nice. Pacific street was very quiet, and the only complications that I saw during this time, were cars getting caught in the middle of the ride wanting to make a left or right turn, but each encounter, was a peaceful one. I didn’t see anyone go crazy or annoyed by the full-use of lane by hundreds of cyclists during that stretch. Mind you that area is rather quiet, and very little traffic on a Friday night, with maybe the exception of crossing Van Ness.
Alta Park How can I describe the big smile in everyone’s faces. Once everyone got to this view point, everyone seemed to at least forget that we had ridden up some steep hills. So awesome, the fog was barely there, the city lights were shinnning and the playground turned everyone into a big bike happy kid. So beautiful.
Laurel heights into the Inner Richmond This stretch was really quiet. Riding westbound on Sacramento > Arguello > Clement, was SOOO smooth and nice. We encounter almost no traffic.
Golden Gate Park We had a little rest stop at Golden gate park. The night’s temperature had dropped to maybe the mid-30°sF and I think many people started to head home or to catch public transportation (BART or CalTrain) after this spot.
Heading to Civic center via Pandhandle/Fulton This was pretty easy as most of the route is downhill. Either was getting later and the ride started to thin out just a bit, but the fun continued. We ended the ride at Civic Center where closer to midnight, a patrolling cop approached us and asked “are you having fun or what”. Was a little odd but he was actually really nice. He then nicely asked we keep the sound down and he moved on. Cool.
Given that my personal experience during the first bike party presented me with 2 flats -one before even starting the ride, and one on my way home-
Some of these are pretty obvious, but can’t hurt ti just throw them in. Here are some basic tips, according to me:
++ Bring at least one spare tube for your bike and maybe your flat kit/tools as well.
++ Some cash for Muni/BART in case of a mechanical issue, or need to take public transportation home.
++ Keep in mind the ride is later in the evening, so plan ahead in case you need to stop by a store, or get some snacks (I’m always thinking hungry-emergencies and carry some granola bars just in case)
++ Drink water!!
++ Bring your blinkie lights
++ A charged phone (ahem… I’m really bad at this stuff)
++ I also carry some band aids and stuff, mainly because I know I’m clumsy, and I will probably be the first one to use them. Sometimes even bringin tissue could aid someone’s sneazing attacks.
++ Wear comfortable clothes and it doesn’t hurt to layer up. You can always start to take stuff off as you go.
++ Enjoy yourself!!
The SF Bike Party #1 was successful and peaceful, and that is my opinion. I cannot wait to see what it will grow into, and to continue to demonstrate that groups that come together with an idea of an event, brainstorm, organize and peacefully promote something as beautiful as it is to just enjoy oneself on a ride and ride as a bike community, potentially becomes an amazingly fun monthly event.
Speaking of amazing, this event and its organizers are in **need** of volunteers. This couldn’t happen without a little help from everyone, now head to the volunteer survey the SFBP recently posted. The mission statement, “how we ride”, forums and other info, can be found through their website:
// sfbikeparty and facebook page
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Next bike party gathers at 7:30PM this Friday Feb. 4th
Meets at Civic Center
Theme: ♥ ♥ ♥ LOVE YOUR BIKE ♥ ♥ ♥
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“Critical Mass is a mass bicycle ride that takes place on the last Friday of each month in cities around the world. Everyone is invited! No one is in charge! Bring your bike!”
The unofficial critical mass site: sfcriticalmass.org
“Before bikes were invented, the popular Wiggle bike route was a foot trail to avoid these same hills. Change the way you see the landscape as we talk about everything from art and bike politics to floods, lakes and native societies. We’ll discuss the very latest research on how the Mission Dolores was, it seems, founded in the Wiggle.”
11am-1PM
RSVP required. Set your own cost: $10 to $40 donation asked.
+info via thinkwalks.org here: link
♥Saturday: Ferry building
Don’t forget Bike Valet Parking rockstars are parking your beautiful pedal-powered machine while you shop. Stop by and say HOLA! to my amiga aka bike parking rockstar Calitexican. Woot!
♥Saturday: Reid Brothers architectural ride
via sf-now.com (tip hat to mi amiga Diana for reminding me!!)
“The first of what has become a repeating tradition of bicycle tours of the Reid Brothers architectural works in San Francisco took place on 12 January 2008, led by Andy Thornley of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, starting at 1:30 in the afternoon (a fine, dry, clement afternoon) in front of the David Hewes Building at 995 Market Street.”
+info here: [link]
I didn’t do the ride last year and only briefly stopped by, ran into Brad (above) also taking some snaps, as well as capturing Phi, who was featured in the “What to Wear” for Momentum magazine [link]
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The SF Bike party posting will be coming soon. Lots of fotos, stay tuned!
=) TGIF and have a great weeekend!!!
♥Butterlap| Meets Wednesdays at Ferry bldg. 7PM
++ Ferry building (in front of the steps)++ Ft.Mason (at the excercise bars by the statues, atop Gashouse cove++ Presidio overlooking Baker Beach (Lincoln at Washington Blvd.)++ Legion of honor++ Clement and 43rd ave.)++ Ocean beach (Great Hwy at JFK)++ Stanyan and Fell/Oak++ Benders (19th at S. Van Ness)
Jan 5th 2011 – The first Butter lap in 2011 San Francisco. Flat tires/punctures (I think we had 7 in total) and bloody whipeout. No, it isn’t always like this. Actually, I don’t recall any bloody falls or that many flat tires at all, in the last few years of doing butter. Rain + New Years = crappy junk all over the streets. Continues after the fotos —
The most popular photo (below), without me even uploading to the interwebs as of last week. Dang.
We are all adults here, so refrain yourself from helmet/no helmet use. I must say however, that gears and brakes are VERY nice to have for butter, unless you want some knarly scars like this crazy one. I don’t remember if he had a helmet or not, point is that hill is STEEP and really fast, I am always terrified if I go fast, I can always break a limb or lose control, hit a car on the curve and fly over to the ocean to fall into a shark’ mouth. OK I’m exaggerating, but you know what I mean.
I was highly impressed at how nice and helpful the Clif House staff were (two men came out to check that it was all good with the group). They also offered Keith to use their first aid kit and restroom to wash up, which I thought was very kind of them. Take good care of yorself dood!
The rest of the ride after multiple flats and Keiths’s incident, was the latest we have arrived to Bender’s. We usually get there at around 9PM, this time we got there at 1030PM. Oy.
New year, new stories.
Damn. Ride on!
This was back in early December, a core group of San Francisco bike extraordinaries+enthusiasts, rode a testing a route of what would be the 1st unpublished SF bike party. A lot of outstanding efforts, time, and planning has been discussed and the route for this upcoming Friday event was tested a few times.
Many props to all the organizers, volunteers and chefs in the bike party planning kitchen making all that noise.
In preparation for this Friday’s ride, below is a little video I made last year (at the time there was no URL available but now you can find all the info at sfbikeparty.org.) I think I’m liking this presentation style of including a video, what do you think?! not bad huh..
I have also included the set of fotos below, these are too from the first test/ride Dec.2010 =)
[vimeo] Video:
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//// The San José bike party will be in the family of parties with SJ Bike party (posts from August and April rides), as well as the East Bay party.
