Courtesy the brilliant minds on the SVBC listserv and especially Margaret Okuzumi, ED of the Bay Rail Alliance and a very nice and friendly person: Caltrain Bike Tips Caltrain will tell you the bike rules, but those of us who use it every day will tell you how to do better than the rules and […]
Monthly Archives: April 2008
Everyone wonders
I came across this comment on a bike blog I found while trying to figure out what the vertical footage of Waves to Wine is: I’m considering doing the STP in a day. Though for me it may be just a bit insane as I don’t get anywhere near the riding in that you do, […]
A century plus
For anyone who’s interested in cycling stuff — I’m thinking of riding Waves to Wine in September, the Northern California MS 150 ride. It’s two days, 75 miles each day (in challenging hilly terrain). I have the book Long Distance Cycling which has several training programs in it for a century, two basic ones and […]
Working on a weekend: with wine
I think wine should always accompany weekend work. Loosens up the synapses, and makes one care less that one is not relaxing, because one is relaxed, anyway. I enjoyed this interesting linguistic slipup: “Pullum, however, doesn’t really take Gelernter’s argument seriously, presumably because it’s absurd and ignorant and doesn’t deserve to be.” Parts of this […]
I’m not a bird…
…I don’t twitter. But apparently several of you do. I’m curious why. It doesn’t really resonate with me — too much announcement, too little interaction, maybe? It seems like Facebook status on crack, with what is entered becoming a kind of social performance piece to up the entertainment value. It reminds me of the way […]
Stumped by the NYT
I think most people who would write a blog post “Stumped by the NYT” would mean the crossword, but I’m thinking of their online home. I find the layout baffling beyond belief. The very top isn’t so bad — it’s obviously the top news & other-section stories, plus links to sections. But getting below that, […]
Why I bother
Michael Pollan has an article in the New York Times magazine this week called “Why bother?” It’s essentially a long apology (in the old rhetorical sense) for personal action, personal virtue, in the cause of reducing our carbon emissions. One of the last entries I wrote in my old journal before I switched over was […]
Ride report: Edgewood/Cañada
I met some friends in San Carlos for a ride today, and we went up Edgewood Road past 280 to Cañada, and then rode up to 92, and came back the same way. Total distance: 18.2 miles. Edgewood Road kicked my ass, hard. I really wasn’t properly prepared for any ride harder than Sand Hill/Whiskey […]
101 in 1001 #8: 2 recipes from VwaV
I made two recipes from Vegan with a Vengeance this week as planned: orange-glazed beets and sweet potatoes with five-spice and watercress. Both are good. Beets I’m ambivalent about. Not to put too fine a point on it, they taste a bit like dirt to me. A nicer way of putting it would be to […]
The USPS really fails
I just navigated a long and stupid phone menu (which had no proper way of failing if you can’t give a phone number that matches your address except to wait for a long time and finally transfer you to customer service) and several customer service representatives who transferred me to yet another representative, with the […]