It begins.

My posts are more brief these days, but my riding is less so. I finally got the road bike out for a real ride yesterday. Berkeley to Danville and back. Not a ton of climbing or mileage, but 53 miles while still not fully recovered from a cold this past week isn't too bad.

Gratuitous bike shot at the reservoir near home:

The hill are alive, with the sound of traffic...

People seem to like to see photos of other people's commutes, so I slowed down today, took a completely different route, and took some pictures. They look like this one, and can be seen by clicking on the photo or on the flicker album off to the side. Yeah, the day wasn't so bad.


A lot better than 1991 when that whole hillside erupted in flames and nearly every home up there was lost. Per Wiki: "The fire ultimately killed 25 people and injured 150 others. The 1,520 acres (6.2 km²) destroyed included 3,354 single-family dwellings and 437 apartment and condominium units. The economic loss has been estimated at $1.5 billion."

Anybody growning their own?

I am. And I'm using the Xtracycle to transport used Starbuck's coffee grounds back home for use in the compost pile. No photos available, but my four year old and I headed to downtown Berkeley last Friday to get a copy of her birth certificate (for school), have lunch, get some groceries and see how many bags of used coffee grounds we could pick up. Check my gardening blog if you care about growing your own and getting free fertilizer to do so.

As this is a cycling blog, I'll tell you that we ended up carrying home four bags of grounds probably totaling 40+ pounds, a bag of groceries and ourselves. The 700' of climbing to get home was a bit rough with a full load, but certainly good exercise. My daughter has also decided to ditch the peapod and just sit on the snap-deck, so that's pretty neat.

Update: Everyone likes photos, so here is one of the maiden coffee ground voyage. Do be careful of leaks, so use heavy garbage bags to protect your bike and panniers.