»Gears are cool! We've got gears in our school!
Today really was an outstanding day for a bicycle ride. Peter and I rode to the Golden Gate Bridge, thence through Crissy Field to Frog Hollow for a cup of Blue Bottle coffee. I also ate a delicious ham-and-cheese savoury: a little more than two bites, and with a pastry ever so buttery. On the way back home I was having some trouble adjusting my seat-post, since my handy Park tool was confiscated at LAX a few months ago. I spun past Carlos' Salon des Biciclettes, but they're never open on Sundays. I turned right at the corner of Fillmore and Haight and voilą, I see Refried Cycles (Bicletas Refritas, keeping with the 'hood's multi-lingual cycle-shop theme). Benjy and dog Linus were behind the counter, and helped me out with the loan of a tool. They're open on a schedule complementary to other shops (closed Tuesday; most other shops close Monday, or in the case of Salon des Biclettes, Sunday and Monday), and he was very happy to direct me to other nearby shops where I could buy the various parts I needed. I ended up ordering them through him, partly because I'm lazy but mostly because I like having more bicycle shops in the area. They even have a nice seat in the window, so you can stare out at the tree-stump carving on the sidewalk.
And I rode the Bianchi today, replete with gears. I needed it, too, up the shamefully short one-block grades around the bridge. How did I ever race up and down that route on a fixed-gear? Heavens.
