Thanksgiving - Beer, Taters and Apple Pie

Unfortunately, I took no photos yesterday since this blog idea came later but hopefully I will get some shots to show soon. My plan was to go to San Francisco, at my friend's sister's-in-law little gathering. Thanks Katie it was great meeting you and I had a great time. And thanks Molly and Jon for inviting me.

Like a dolt who forgot he didn't have a car, I volunteered to bring the beer, the mashed potatoes and the apple pie. That's some serious heft-age to transport. Oh well, I planned on consuming a lot so all's fair. But then I also became concerned of quality because from my experience, mashed potatoes don't work so well as leftovers, or the next day. And the pie can be a somewhat delicate item to transport. What did I get myself into?!

So I realized, OK, I've been putting it off, now I need some kind of basket and a rear rack for cargo. So last weekend, I got a rear rack and accom-panying basket (Topeak with its kind of cool Quick Track System). I never had one of those before so it was a bit of a learning experience to install, but not to bad. I'll probably have to get the panniers that fit the system, but am a little concerned since I've broken 2 rear spokes and I don't normally break spokes. And I hit nothing more than a small pothole here and there, maybe gently over curbs. So I am worried about weight on the lame wheels but...

My commute would be a 2.5 mile ride to the Redwood City train station, then CalTrain to Millbrae, then BART to the Mission. Then the final leg, the reason, I could leave my bike at the train station instead of taking it into the city, was that I would meet my friend Jon and his car at BART for about a 2 mile ride to the final destination in Bernal Heights. Hills! This is becoming clear: I will depend on other people's cars out here so that has to be acknowledged. The one time I rode my bike in the city, I got a ride with someone via an email list - 3 of us car-pooled to the city start. We cruised the Golden Gate Bridge and climbed Mt. Tam that day. Tomorrow, we ride Mt. Diablo but I have to meet a new friend in San Mateo for a car ride out to Dublin to meet the group. So these are awesome rides where I needed a car ride. So thanks to the community and new and old friends for helping me out.

Back to the potatoes, beer and pie. As for transporting the goods, I realized that using some cardboard filler, I could stack the pie on the potatoes in my new large basket. So I filled a large pyrex casserole dish with like 7 pounds of mashed potatoes, that's 7 pounds potatoes raw before cooked plus all the other good stuff. It weighed a ton. (I finally decided to make the potatoes that morning, so they would just be done as I was heading out the door. It made things a bit frantic but I think it worked, they were fresh and tasty, no worries of rubbery or concrete taters.) I am new to the pie-making art but that did not stop me from attempting to make a serious apple pie but that's a whole 'nother story.(Can anyone say "macerate"? None of us ever heard of the word - look it up. There was also some burn-age and a hybrid pie result.) It was a 9.5" pie in a heavy Pyrex plate, so that weighed like multiple bricks. The overall food weight was ridiculous. And on top of that I had my Kryptonite NY Chain lock which weighs 10 pounds since my bike would be out for at least 10 hours. My bike went from having its usual 155 pounds on it to having over 200. (The rack and basket weigh a lot.) Thank god, or at least modern development, the Safeway is right next to the train station so I could buy the 12-pack of beer there. Because that's some serious weight there as well.

I can report the ride was uneventful. I pumped my rear tire to 70 psi (40-80 range but usually I keep it at 50-60). But I realized that was not enough. The weight was so great it made the rear tire seem almost flat so I was very concerned about a pinch flat. And I was equally worried about my spokes due to previous bad experience with these lame wheels. But all's well that ends well and the ride with massive cargo went without a hitch. It took me about 12 minutes to get to the train station. I locked up and went into the Safeway, procured the beer, caught the train, had a good dinner, met some really cool, really smart people. And I was thankful to be alive and to be with them, to be in Northern California, to have such good cycling, and to have a new President that really makes me feel proud of my country for a change, and we were all happy about that which was nice. And life can be so hard and unfair, it is important to appreciate the good things and randomness of it all and this was a good day.

Oh but there was the return home, I almost forgot. I took BART to Millbrae but just missed CalTrain so I said, I might as well take the bus instead of waiting 50 minutes for the train. It probably saved me 20 minutes. So I headed to that major artery El Camino Real. It is a bit of a walk to the bus stop there and I saw the bus like a long block before the stop. It is like 9:30 at night on Thanksgiving and in the 'burbs, so not a lot of traffic. So I start running, hoping the bus gets caught at the light, but it turns green right away so he gets going, and the next light stays green, but I am running, with my cargo basket which has some leftover pie and potatoes... But the driver pulls over, and waits at least 15 seconds or so for me as I am running across the intersection, so that was cool. He said something like, "I didn't have to do that, you shouldn't be late." But of course, I was just randomly wandering out, not going by any schedule. I was very thankful he stopped for me. Turns out, he did have to go a little slow on the route so as to not get ahead of the timetable. So that was an adventure.

I am like the only white guy on the bus. No Car, No. Cal. I feel like I fit in, though. Seems like all immigrants, people with reason not to have a car. Then a white dude with a badge gets on. And it's like- is that a cop, but you see his hair mussed and he is kind of slovenly. And you realize he is a security guard, the kind that impersonate the cop appearance, except they have a total slacker look that in no way inspires confidence or security. I did that job 20 years ago in college. Thankfully, I haven't done it since but I guess I still have that slacker spirit. And I'm on the bus.

Car ride to 24th St. BART (very helpful) just past 9 pm, Millbrae 9:35, Redwood City 10:30. Home 10:50. I read the current Newsweek and Nation issues on my commute. Not bad.

(Sorry I am new to blogging and this is probably way too long. At least I can claim to be working on my rusty writing skills.)