Butterfit

Here I am.
Butterlap+outfit.
This is what I wore a few weeks ago for this weekly Butterlap ride, for which by the time I get back to my house is a tad over 20+miles. Because all you really need is your friends, a spare tube, plenty of good attitude to climb some hills (no one cares if you walk bits and pieces of them) and don't forget your blinkie lights.
The rest will fall into place. Good times.

drizzle

Upside down pandas

Taking photos, while riding, upside down.

reverse triple panda with Matthew + David | crissy field

otro upsidedown | golden gate park

Triple blues.

Blue bench. Blue beans. Blue bike. Cadillac.

Now that the frenchie is getting her much deserved down time, I must say it that it has been pretty fun riding the smurfette all over the city. Especially the big hills. The ones I usually ride my way around them often over a mile, so that I avoid walking them.

This is the cutest little market in the north-east side of the inner richmond, on 8th and California. The don't have the biggest yogurt selection (life-saver for an caffeinated abused stomach), but you can find dirty -in the good way- fruit, french little soaps, picnic items, fancy crackers to impress your picnic friends, naked-brand coconut water little packs (I had no idea such things existed) and etc. etc.
And did you know they have Blue Bottle drip coffee? Well, now you know.
When my friend muffin introduced me to this little gem market a few years back, I knew that is some vital info that I just wouldn't forget. Comes in handy more than often...

Otro saddle bag hack

Another little hack.
Since we happen to have recurring events about bags and bikes and hacks, here is yet another one. I do love my little PoCampo bag, which is pretty much meant to be a handlebar piece (review from earlier this year: Feb 8, 2010) and continuing my fond minimal love for my road bike and fond explorations of new little new bags, because honestly, I can't have enough bags – and why not explore with already existing items.
So, after tinkering around with the straps and playing again with the key chain loops from my Brooks saddle which, after almost 2 years feels like BUTTER, this idea along. Sure it rattles a *tiny* bit, but it does not quite bother me.
So there it is, pretty much this is as girly +classy as a small, petite rear saddle bag gets.
Holds lipstick, cell phone, some cash, as always - first aid kit, safety pins included..., some lady extra stuff, pen, paper, wallet, and clipped outside, the red rear blinkie light. A little bit of gold and a pager. wooot.

Made in Chicago by a two women independent company PoCampo, ridden in San Francisco by one crayz caffeinated woman. Bring it on.

discalimer. This post was not requested to be published by the aforementioned company neither was me, the blogger, asked to blog or post commercially about this.

Nicasio, California.

We made it!

Just in case you were wondering. Total of 7 of us (us 3 +4 guys) completed our very first Marin Century 100K.
That is all for now, we will probably do a little recap soon. Cheers with Marin brie cheese!

At the half-point check, in Petaluma, Calif. Woot woot.

Cross-post with Change your life. Ride a bike!

Upcycle the cycle

This green hack is presented to you by putting stuff away to the store and/or donate pile, when suddenly those two hook-rings from this bag spoke to me, and they wanted to tag along with me for the long ride. This bag is made from 100%recycled materials (I won a raffle thing 2 years ago from greenLAgirl) and became a brand new saddle bag, big enough to hold a little more than just a spare tube.
Though I highly covet a round small bag saddle from the British company Carradice, as well as the x-small saddlesack from Rivendell, I will settle with this quick fix – for now.
I went to the hardware store and bought the two rectangle keychain small pieces for about $2.50 for both, and here is what happened.

This is what all that fits in my skull little bag. +a rear blinkie light.

Detach it and go.

The strap detaches, so it works.

+


keychain attaches to bag and to the Brooks saddle hooks.

done deal.


This went inside. (clockwise from top right: first aid kit *yes includes neosporin*, camera, keys,
Red notebook, pen, wallet, phone, sunblock, vitamins) Later added rolled up arm warmers and 3 granola bars.
Coffee went into insulated KleanKanteen + water bottle, both on the racks.

Century ladies

While you are reading this, we are busy riding the rolling hills of beautiful Marin County in the 2010 Marin Century. +I'm probably actively looking for the next coffee stop.
♥See you all next week!!

What's up Marin, here come the city dwellers triplettes de San Pancho attack. Wheeeeeee

Photos del día: Nicasio, California.

Annual Nicasio photo. (2009)

Steven in the background with the bikes.

You've got velo mail

Butter up, buttercups.

With the World Cup fever (Are you with Germany or Spain?!) Speaking of world cup fever, if you bike to the games, don't forget to submit your fan pictures to the pool the fabulous gals over VeloVogue: Bike to The Cup
I'm hoping to be done with work by butterlap time. 7PM Ferry buiilding. See ya there.


«via garminconnect»
New buttercup Bill has one a very cool gadgets to measure the distance, altitude and what not, and he has shared his little map above (thanks!!) from his first ride last week, which was great crisp weather and we all met tons of new people and riders that had first joined the ride. Very awesometastic!

I was crackin up when one of my friends pointed me to this picture taken by the lovely Kelley,
proof there is some skin under the color tights. I had been hot all day, mid50°s with heavy fog felt great.

06.30.10 by By kelleyjeanne

Ade recently got a new camera and she wrote a cool post about some new women riders two weeks ago, over at Change Your Life, Ride a Bike!: sticking together.

Lisa Marie also took some super cool ones that day, and on Gwen's first butterlap, she conquered those hills in her basket red bike like a champ. Ride on girlfriend!! Here is LMG's set:


Come stretch your legs and detox your brain from work or play, ride some hills and sweat a little.

♥ Butterlap | Meets every Wednesday night 7PM Ferry Bldg.

This land is your land.

Smurfette – The view from Twin peaks.

Frenchie – The view from Pacific Heights.


Bikes on the ferry. From Larkspur to San Francisco.

Woke up this morning listening to "come along and ride this train...»" with mr. Cash.
Happy 4th US of A!!

via the selvedge yard

Racked.

My good friend Stephen gave me a lift a couple of weeks ago. We were both about 50 miles away from the City, and it was a treat to chat with a friend, have our bikes in the back, and not leave work 1.5+hrs before to catch CalTrain or a time-restricted Bus or BART. I'm fine with that once in a blue moon.
I wanted to show off the fact this is built-by-Stephen. He made the rack himself. I know nothing about cars/sport racks, but if you can make something yourself and it involves bikes or food (better yet, both), I am all for it.
Here are some shots of his super fancy road bike, a pimped out Litespeed with Dura Ace included, and my retrolicious smurfette.

stephen's truck

Butter up, buttercups.

la calitexican + la meligrosa got the sillies

Butterlap tonite. I'm showing some love to my non-butter friends and going to a bday party and a music show after. A case of the too-much-to-do Wednesday night.
+I will miss butterlap tonite +will miss you ♥

This was from Wednesday, June 2nd.
Have fun everybody!!

Karen – wooooot.

Meet Jorge. Hi cutie!

foggymuggylands

Ade!! super happy - yeaaaaaaa

Nio. up that last little annoying hill.

New buttercups. Bikey girlfriend Constance y bloggy friend Alex. Awesome!!


♥ Butterlap | Meets every Wednesday night 7PM Ferry Bldg. Previous map/post here»

So please:

late night. post-butterlap

An empty Divisadero. At California.

This is what a midweek-midnight looks like. More than often when riding home, from any direction, I ride alone. I don't live in the most popular streets. I don't live in the flattest areas, and you know what - I love it. Because I have moved around the city, and I have to love where I am. That is home.

- - -
This week may perhaps be a good time to catch up with a ton of posts I have brainstormed and have been running around too much to sit down and do them.
So much running around, that a few days ago, my camera got tangled in my keys/caffeinatedhands/bracelets/idontknowwhat + I dropped it down.
16 steps.
and that hurt.

I didn't think that it would make it. Down it went, felt like minutes instead of seconds. Sunday, after not wanting to face it, I was finally able to transfer the photos to the computer and noticed there is a huge blur, consistent, in the bottom right corner in all of the photos.
Anyways no big deal, I am sending in for repair. (Insert sad face here)

I do believe in fixing and repairing things, I've had outstanding customer service with Cannon before, so let's see if that turns out okay. If not, then we will see.
I'll keep you all posted.
okluvu ♥xxo.m

Frenchie and her bikey friends, Sunday at Atlas Cafe

I'm. Taking a ride. With Omar.

The other Sunday Omar and I went for a "short" ride up to Marin. To me, short means coffee. Otherwise it doesn't exist. Well, we still have coffee, but it wasn't until we got to the bottom of a mean steady steep hill, and I said:
-oh we are going back to the cafe that way right?-
Omar said: "No, we are going up, down and then back around. Then we go get coffee"

I hadn't even thought about it much and Omar had taken off.
He said, you got the gears now..."

Errrrrrrr - ok I went. Was fun. Kinda windy, but OK. We drank coffee at CIBO, the one special spot in Marin currently (the only one perhaps in Sausalito?) serving Blue Bottle coffee. That, itself makes it all worth it. Yes.

So I enjoyed it while I can, then we headed another nasty hill (Alexander dr.) on our way back into the city. I was ready for a hot shower and some more coffee. Cheers.

Hola from a Panda

Panda shot from the last Friday of April

Polk st.

Smurfetting around.

My Italian road bike is certainly the 'other' bike. It is also beautiful, European, has that solid Italian sleekness to it and it rides like butter when free of stop-go-stop environments. I thought I would dedicate at least a little post to it.
I have now put on the freewheel that my friend Eric guided me to and it makes *all* that much difference. Instead of riding it once every blue moon, I have been riding this beauty almost every Wednesday evening for butterlap which it really is the only time I make a huge effort not to ride Frenchie luv, so I just go for it.

Eric doing some fine tuning.

Recently, I have also ridden the bike all over the south bay. I get bored, easily bored with routines, so I have found many ways to mix it up. I have taken this smurfette up a flight of 3 stories/Bart levels, including being on the wrong platform right when my train approaches. Argh. With the Frenchie, that would take me ages, especially when I must carry this gadget I tote around called a laptop. At almost half the weight, that is more realistic.
I have tried this at least a couple of times in the last month or so. Is not often that I have to travel between cities up to 100 miles in one day. Caltrain, coach buses and Bart become a good tool, but really at the end of the day, I'd like to get back to my peeps and in time to join them for trivia night and a beer. You know.

essential mug.

Van ness and Grove - 7:14 AM

I still prefer my Frenchie 99% of the time, but this bike is lovely for rides when I need to head outside the city. Rides like butter on open roads, and can't wait to explore even more further in Marin, Napa, East Bay and Woodside. Everywhere. Let's go!!
So here are some pictures from a recent day at work, before even getting to work. This bike does get me everywhere when (and if) I need to get to many places in the Bay Area in one day. Not often at all, but it happens. And it sure is fun.

Bike fuel: caffeine. Lots of it :D