Ride to beach

Had a great ride today....out to the Ocean Beach, the Sunset Cliffs, then to Fiesta Island, before swing back and coming up Bachman Place hill.....I can't believe how awesome it was to climb Bachman, relatively easlily.....the new bike helps...and all the hills I do too!   Feeling really strong!

A reminder about me doing the Aids/Lifecycle Ride 2014!  From San Francisco to LA, 545 miles to raise money for AIDS resources....here's my page link with more info.  

Please consider helping in the fundraising if you can!  

I'm riding my bike from San Francisco to Los Angeles next summer!

I made a huge decision.  I've registered to do the Aids/Lifecycle Ride 2014.
The ride is from San Francisco to Los Angeles, the first week of June, next summer.

Here's a link to the site, and my personal page on the site.  
I'll be posting about the ride preparation, my biking and how it's changing, the fundraising, personal goals and hopes for the experience, over the next few months.

I've thought of doing it for almost ten years now after a very good friend did it.  But I didn't get really involved in my biking until four years ago, when I started commuting every day to work, back and forth.  Then I sold my car, and became car-free!  That was life-changing.....

Feel free to follow this blog and keep up to date with this!

Time to get back to blogging about stuff I love!

Time to start blogging again!  I was really enjoying it, then life just got busy.  And my biking just really took off....after I stopped regularly posting on here was when I got up to 5 days a week commuting pretty much every week.  Now I've been at a pretty steady pace of  4 days a week, plus a weekend ride for errands, or fun.

And the big news, a new bike is in the picture!  I'll post on my buying experience and the big reason I got it in a day or two.

But here's a pic of the new one.  LOVE IT.  Giant Defy 1, 2013.

Back in a  few days with some great personal bike news!  

A near miss

How awesome is this?  This is a new intersection being tried out in Portland in high bike traffic areas.

I could have used something like that on Thursday morning.  I missed getting slammed into by a car by about a foot, after all the brake screeching was said and done, both mine, and of the car driver.

In short...I was moving along, in the bike lane, on the right side of the road, exactly where I was supposed to be.  And a driver, turning left, into an entrance to my right, waited for a car to pass, and didn't look up at all, and accelerated her car, and didn't look up again and see me.  Luckily I can yell/scream pretty loud.  I think that is what saved me from getting hit dead on.

To avoid it, I pulled on my brakes so hard that I snapped the cable on the front one.  I'm going to get that replaced this weekend.

I must say...this is a good reminder to myself to make sure I make eye contact with drivers who are turning AT ALL TIMES.  I normally do that.  I didn't this time.  And man o man, did it frickin' shake me up.

It's bizarre...a couple people joked with me about it afterward.  I can't find anything funny about it.  I'm going to use it as a reminder of my need for safety first.  That may sound corny, but it's true.  I think too that if I'd been in a car, and we had had a fender bender, it would be no big deal, an inconvenience perhaps.  Not when it's car against bike.

On a much lighter note...that pic is from a great page on The Huffington Post about bike culture.  Check it out here.

                                                              Bogota. Colombia

The Met simulcasts

The New York Metropolitan Opera a few years ago started doing live simulcasts of some of their productions into theaters around the country, and around the world.  Click here for a link to the upcoming season's schedule.  They have been an amazing success!  And has brought world class, among the best, opera to scores and scores of people who otherwise wouldn't have the opportunity to see/hear/experience them.

I've been to several of the live broadcasts....And now with summer, the opera season is over, they are rebroadcasting some of the best, most popular ones....

Two weeks ago I went to see LA BOHÈME.  This is such a familiar opera...but it was a treat to see it, and hear it again.  Here's a great clip of a very famous aria.  Sorry that the subtitles are in French.  The soprano is actually singing to her real life husband, who is playing the other lead role.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiyT5_UipMs&feature=related

And then this past week, another one, TURANDOT.  This aria is sublime....enjoy it.  ;o)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyTT4myt1jI

5 days a week

View of the mountains surrounding Salt Lake City from a business trip I just was on.  Looks like a really good bike city.  Huge, wide streets, lots of bike lanes, and amazing scenery.  Nice.

I really have been enjoying riding five days a week to work.  I've been pretty consistent with the five day weeks.  I've missed a few days...I was sick and feeling wiped out, so I bussed it one day....And another two days I rode the bus into work since I was going out right after work.  In general though...I've gotten to this very cool place where I don't even really think about whether I'm going to ride or not, I know I am going to.

Riding in the warmer, sunny weather is an amazing experience.  I love the sun beating on me, sweating, feeling the ever present San Diego ocean breeze.  Really feel in the elements that way and can't imagine being cooped up in a car.

I am missing taking pics as I move along my different routes.  I feel motivated to start doing that....I'll post over the next week or so for sure.

Comfortable with Uncertainty

I've got three full weeks of riding to work every day under my belt.  I feel like I've undergone a huge shift in my mindset about this.

It's funny.  Not ha-ha funny.  But interesting funny.  I got an email from a friend, Grammarblock blog writer Monika, commenting that I've been quiet lately in my blog/writing.  I realized I'd finally been riding MORE than writing or thinking about riding.  That's a huge shift.  AND....a powerful one for me.

I was noticing something that would happen in my thoughts when it would be late in the evening, about the time I was getting ready for bed, getting the next day's lunch ready, etc.  That is when I was always deciding on whether to ride the next day or not.  So many times, countless times, my thoughts would go to a safe kind of thought.  The thought would be something like, "I've already ridden twice this week, I should rest tomorrow."  Boom.  Instant nail in the coffin for riding the next day.

Something shifted though a few weeks ago when I started to allow myself to hear that little thought in the back of my mind that was saying...."what would it be like to ride all five days.  I bet you'd feel great about that, and I bet you're physically ready for it."

Physically I have been ready for it.  It was mostly all in my head, so to speak.  I have been a bit more tired in the evening, but then, I sleep more soundly.  Good deal on that.

The title of this posting, COMFORTABLE WITH UNCERTAINTY, is the title of a book by Pema Chödrön, who I've written about before and provided some links for her talks, teachings.  The first line in Chapter 32 is:  There are three habitual methods that human beings use for relating to troubling habits such as laziness, anger, or self-pity.  I call these the three futile strategies- the strategies of attacking, indulging, and ignoring.  


She goes on to say a few paragraphs on:  The mind-training practices of the warrior present a fourth alternative, the alternative of an enlightened strategy.  Try fully experiencing whatever you've been resisting- without exiting in your habitual ways.  Become inquisitive about your habits.  


Become inquisitive about your habits.  So true.