East Bay Bike Party

On April 14 I wrote that the day before, in the afternoon, I made Ride to Larkspur fliers and tidied before going to the apartment to get some time to myself. I grab the beers and ate leftovers before putting on my tweed jacket and catching a train to West Oakland. I was going to East Bay Bike Party.

I saw a lot of regulars. At first I gave flyers to people who had whiskey that I knew. Some of the people I sort of knew but later I just gave them to everybody. The ride zigged West Oakland and zagged into downtown before skirting Jacqueline and square for Embarcadero.

We ended up at the pure that they go to a lot. The party was nice. It was dominated by Scraper Bike Team – they were leading the ride. I walked around giving flyers to people and saw a lot of good friends. I hung out with one of them until the ride moved.

We headed towards Embarcadero and out towards Fruitvale. We ended up at Chavez Park. I like that one. I had a borrow a beer and hung out with the guy that always shows up late. We discussed urban planning. We went looking for the pianist but he was missing. I saw that the guys were leaving though so we headed to Fruitvale BART.

On the way up to the platform I slipped and the bike hit me in the mouth. I was really troubled. I asked random people for a tissue and while stopping the blood I went and found the guys. They saw I was bloody and did what they could to comfort me.

On the train the blood stopped flowing but my front tooth was chipped – I was really bummed. There was blood on my jacket and I texted my friend-she ho was having trouble sleeping. When I got home I did what I could to stop blood and went to bed at 11:30.

In the morning of the day that I wrote this I was worried I would be late to meet one of my cycling companions – we had agreed to go on a ride together. However, I was relieved to find out I was up with an hour to spare. My friend went to the coffee shop and when she returned I headed to BART.

My acquaintance was bummed when he saw my tooth but basically said that the same had happened to him. We boarded the Pittsburgh Bay point train after some discussion and rode it to Rockridge. We talked about stuff to a guy having quiet time on his way to Oakland from SFO.

At Rockridge the two of us made small talk about housing policy over coffee. I insisted we get useless biking items at the shop. Then we rode up to Broadway and onward to Lake Temescal. There we had some water and continued. He noted the place was a bit like Maryland. I pointed out signs of faulting.

We crossed 13 and wandered to Montclair center. Only a couple of motorists were rude. We stopped at the bike shop and climbed onto the Shepherd Canyon Bike Path. We stopped at each information panel. At Gunn I showed him where the old train tunnel was - now retaining wall behind the house at that corner. Then we climbed Saroni to Arrowhead and on to the top.

We hung out for a bit and chatted with some people and took a picture of Mount Diablo. As we weren’t certain about continuing on to Lafayette, we got ready and descended to Montclair again - a ride which could’ve been super crazy but we deliberately went slow.

We said and have some coffee and talked about science fiction. Later we returned to Rockridge and then caught the first train. We rode Valencia to the empanada place and he told me about his job. I had a beer.

When I said bye to him I brought empanadas to my friend. She had been quietly at the apartment all day and wanted to get loud at the park – she left me alone for three hours. I tidied and considered the evening. When she got back I finished tidying and tried to help her wind the house down but she had to go outside so I did it as normal.

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.