little things in life

seems like a small thing but this brand new BART 'thing' at union city station means I don't have to leave the bike to go thru the stile. 30 seconds a day is almost two hours a year!

hottest new couple

chris is shy

Moving on...

Just added the link to the new team I'll be riding with next year. It's mostly the CVC p1/2 team plus some new additions. Looks to be very exciting. Will miss the Team Oakland racing, cause it's been a really good two years but I wanted to try something new.

Been friends with Tim for a while and have been wanting to race on the same team for a while. Always liked Bosch's style of racing (no nonsense). Have enjoyed riding the Port ride on Tuesdays with Chad this year, as well as done some good races with him. I know Vince from racing this year. Highpoint: we were in the break together at EMC for my only p1/2 podium this year. Looking forward to getting to know the rest of the team as well.

Also works out well since Tim, Brian, and Chad have ridden on the same team at different times.

Bridge Gallery: Ken Shew

Bridge Years: Six

What's in it for me: Ken first introduced me to the 5:30 pm group that often rides back together. And he just got back from his honeymoon. Congrats Ken.

Bridge Gallery: Mike

Bridge years: Five

just introduced myself so not much info. Hayward to Redwood City commute. May be of the 'parking lot' variety bridger: driving to the park parking lot at the end of the marshes and then riding over.

bay area riding rocks

crestmont & skyline in Oakland

waiting for hop ride

Commute spot: Ardenwood

While they still call it a 'forest', there's not a lot of trees left amid the tract housing of Fremont. Still a nice piece of my commute though. I've raced some huge jackrabbits thru here. Some commuters skip this section and go around on Paseo Padre instead. Don't do it! It' worth braving the hghwy 84 overpass for this little break in monotony.

Bridge Gallery: Chris 'Crispy' Patterson

Bridge Years: Five

Claim to Fame: Chris was the first one to point me in the direction of bike racing after I started to ride the bridge 3.5 yrs ago. Thanks Chris! Cat 3 Cycling god, Chris hails from Jamaica, via New York City (note cool Brooklyn cycling cap).

Bridge Gallery: George Stepan

Bridge years: Nine

Claim to fame: First met George when he flew by me on a mountain bike, and I thought I was going hard! Took a while to realize that George has electrified the rear hub of the bike. He's an engineer and he tinkers with this stuff himself. Sometimes he'll motorpace us with it.

Dumbarton on Wikipedia

Didn't know there was a sizable Dumbarton entry on Wikipedia! Looks like the original bridge (remains can be seen as the frontage road ending in the fishing piers) was built in 1927. It was the first bridge over the bay. It was, in fact, a drawbridge, which makes sense cause those fishing piers are way, way lower than the current bridge.

View from other side of the bike barrier

this person's carbon footprint is smaller than mine. For today anyway. You know, that barrier is not very big and I've always wondered what would happen if a truck went over it. There's also been an amazing array of items dropped off vehicles into the path: washing machines, tires, clothes, a sink. I'll start to document anything interesting. These nice guys in a golf cart come by every couple weeks and clean up. They have a special vacuum cleaner.

the other way to get to work

the greenhouse gas generator. Not as fun as the bike, but it has to be done once in a while.

FW: defunct railroad bridge

anyone know if the old bridge had a name? I know that the dumbarton was built in the 80's but was there a bridge for cars before it? or did you have to drive under the bay?

commuting can be good

used to drive my car over this bridge every day... Now I look forward to travel home every night. Rain, cold, whatever

rain

love it, riding the fixed over the dumbarton after the rains last night.

You need to click on the pic to enlarge and see the dirtiness of it. It stayed really clean from those months on the track, nice to take it back on the road. As Sean said: you can just hose the fixie down when it's dirty.

running part of runjoelrun gets de-emphasized more

I used to be a runner. I use the term a little loosly since I didn't ever take it seriously enough. There was a brief period in the mid 90's where I put in some miles but never could handle enough to get really good; I would get an injury somewhere around 50 miles a week.

Enter cycling, turns out I can handle a lot more volume, never feel any injury (minus the crashes of course).

Anyway, every cycling off season I go back to run some for a bit of mix-it-up. No, I don't cyclocross, everyone asks that. I'm sure it's plenty of fun, but I've got a lot of bikes already and I figure I need some cycling down time.

The time spent running is going down every year I've riden, my third season just having finished. I just did some lunchtime runs this week, and it's just not as fun as it used to be. I really really prefer cycling now. Will keep it up until the Salmon Duathlon in November (5Krun 30Kbike 2.5Krun). Plus the weekend 10-15 trail runs I'm still looking forward to.

no races....

gonna spend time with the kids.

Oh, and look at Fixed Gears coverage of the Track National Championship