Bike Partiers All Over

On 11 February I wrote I began to get ready to go to bike party. I went to 16th and had to transfer at MacArthur. That train had bike partiers all over. There weren't a lot of people at El Cerrito BART because the departure have been moved back an hour. Slowly the people I knew best started trickling in. The guys were drinking whisky and the air was a bit cool.

We left following a flag guy who was obviously new because the disco ball was really far behind. The flag I also had a music box. I noted that he had been pretty quick to split.  I had reviewed the route but after a short while I wasn't paying attention to where we were. I just knew we would be going to Richmond. Once we passed under the freeway I knew that we were on our way.

We crossed a few major streets I remember trying to keep up with the flag. We ended up at a park and I remember one of the guys saying the ride had been too short.  We rode around and ended up in the parking lot away from the mud in the yard. I got to know the recycle bike.

The ride started leaving and people ran off because they needed to do their corners.  I knew in general where we were headed but didn't remember what we were doing - I just let it go.  I got to the front really easily near JFK park and counted about 300 people. I noted that we had gotten a little lost there because everyone wanted to stop but the flag had kept going.

The ride went to Nicholl park on McDonald. I remember entering the park early but because of the internal circular path I ended up passing the rest of the ride.  I noted that there was a mini skate park near the tennis courts. I got to know the green flag leader. I walked around talking to random people.  I met some guy with a long gray beard.

When the ride left,  I got on my bike and knew we were going to 23rd. However, I didn't know exactly where we were going. Reviewing the map showed me that I we had headed up 23rd to market street and that we probably came back on Fred Jackson.  All but the last roads were good. That was after we crossed the railroad tracks.

I made comments to one of the guys about the embodied politics I saw on the ride and at Lucas park I bummed a beer off of someone.  A bunch of people had a dance party then. I organized a three of us to head to BART and two others but still made it to the train station. Two of us said bye to everyone when we got to MacArthur for the transfer. We went to the city and I got off at Civic Center.

This is an occasional series chronicling my life. This Notebook Analysis series is meant to be contemporaneous piece developed as an agglomeration of my notebook pages. In each of these posts I used my notes to develop my recent thoughts.