Bike Parking at Amsterdam Centraal

The sheer tonnage of bikes in Amsterdam is best experienced at Amsterdam Centraal, the transit station in the heart of the city. From here, you can take train, trolley, ferry and taxis to all points. I took a train into the city from the airport and couldn’t believe my eyes when I debarked. For one, […]

Afternoon scenes on Nieuwe Lelie Straat

I’m blogging from a weathered bench in front of my friend Will’s flat on Nieuwe Lelie Straat. Meadow rue and geraniums overflow from two pots on my left. The honeysuckle and rose climbing the doorway are lanquorously bathed in slow-setting sun. I love these narrow, cobbled streets. Young and old crank past on beater Dutch […]

Pilgrimage to Bike Mecca

Dropping into Amsterdam has been like waking up in the Matrix after selling out my friends to an Agent. As an urban bike commuter and bicycle propagandizer, my deepest, darkest bike-topian fantasies have been realized. Rusted piles of Dutch bikes sprout on every corner like fungal masses after a rain. Cyclopaths wind labyrinthine through stately […]

Monster Quads vs Thunder Thighs

Could I be rail lean like Jenny Shimizu? Sure. A couple months ago, I tried a fabulous instant weight loss plan. Broke up with my partner of 6 years, stopped eating and sleeping, and lost a couple dishes of lasagna from below the waist. Breaking up and losing weight felt like lying in a car-wreck […]

Bivy in the Backyard – Findings

I slept out in my bivy in the first big rain of the season. Be sure to get the full story here! The East Bay Bike Camping group on Facebook snowed over yesterday with a flurry of posts. The discussion was over whether to go with a bivy sack or a lightweight tent for bike-packing. […]

Bivy in the Backyard

It was raining steadily around 10:30pm last night. Perfect weather for testing how my ultra-light bike camping equipment performs in the wet. I decided my experiment wasn’t about how wet I got setting it up — a test of technical skill and decision-making. The test was about how wet I get sleeping in the thing […]

Fairfax All-Terrain Stage Tour

This post is ONE BIG HOLLA to my speedy, game and adventurous friends, Peter and Becker. At a bbq last week, Peter let on that he was looking for a bike adventure in the coming weekend. He suggested that we ride Tamarancho, a Boy Scout maintained single-track mountain biking trail in Fairfax. Later in the […]

Fairfax All-Terrain Stage Tour – Day 2

Be sure to catch up on Day 1 of the Fairfax All-Terrain Stage Tour. Becker and I woke up Sunday morning in the 6am dark. The search and rescue training group gave a rally cry in the distance and tromped by again, a line of them in headlights. We crouched by the creek like Sam […]

Fairfax All-Terrain Stage Tour – Day 1

Saturday morning, I threw my bike-camping gear on my mountain bike and met a crew at MacArthur BART. After arriving on the San Francisco side of the bay, we crossed the Golden Gate bridge and rode north to Fairfax. During this leisurely 20 mile, I could not help but unleash to chase down roadies. I […]

North Bay Runabout

The Revolution is the annual fundraising ride for BORP, the Bay Area Outreach and Recreation Program. My friend Greg Milano runs the cycling program, which gets people with physical disabilities on bike. They also have a tandem cycling program, and for the past two summers, I’ve volunteered as a tandem pilot for visually impaired and […]