A short Tuesday ride

I did ride last Tuesday, but just around the peninsula to snag historical marker photographs for the Equinox to Equinox rally.   I didn’t take any other photos and I had to be back early for an appointment, so I didn’t bother doing any kind of ride report.   Trust me, you didn’t miss anything.

Yesterday’s ride wasn’t much better, but I did take a few “normal” ride photos, so you get a crappy ride report. Yay!

First of all, I should mention that this is very likely my last ride for a while.  For those that don’t know already, I’m 17 weeks pregnant; due January 13, 2014.  I still fit in the Teiz suit just fine, but the bumps and jostles of riding are starting to get uncomfortable — not to mention having to stop for a bathroom every 15 feet — so I think I’m about to hang up the suit until February.  Don’t worry, though, I have a laundry list of cool stuff to do to the bike this winter, so hopefully the blog will still be marginally interesting.

Anyway, I started the ride up in the Santa Cruz Mountains.  There were a lot of bicycles on Kings Mountain Road, which always makes me think of my awesome bicyclist friends Brandon and Alison, who do stuff like Death Rides and metric centuries and other intimidating sounding things.  I feel badass enough just going up those roads with a bike with a motor.  😉

I stopped at Alice’s to use the bathroom and was somewhat surprised to see the parking lot full of dealer-plated Harleys.  It turned out to be a stopover for the Kiehl’s LifeRide, a nine-day charity ride from Seattle to Los Angeles.  Most of the riders seemed to be actors from Los Angeles, and I chatted with Gilles Marini for a few minutes as he was prepping for a short commercial take that they were filming at his bike during the stop (“when I’m on the road, Kiehl’s lotion keeps me from getting chapped by the wind!”).    Apparently he has a steamy shower scene in the Sex in the City movie, which now I will have to go check out, y’know, for research.

I headed down out of the hills and towards Mountain View, where I was meeting Steph for lunch.

I am the world’s worst pregnant person and rode my motorcycle to get sushi.  Too bad it wasn’t also at a bar with raw eggs and brie and deli meat.  In my defense, I only got tempura and California rolls.  😉  Five more months until ahi….mmmmm, ahi.

See?  Just tempura.

After lunch, I had a little time to kill, so I headed south to Alviso to snag a few historical markers for Equinox to Equinox.

Alviso is a really interesting place, historically — it used to be the major shipping hub for the entire bay area, but has slowly faded.   It was incorporated into San Jose proper in the 1960s and then practically destroyed by floods in the 1980s (it’s below sea level and built on marshland).

Today it’s an interesting mix of old and new — major tech companies with large campuses (TiVo, PolyCom, Flextronics) and sea-salt weathered old buildings with peeling paint.  I read an article this morning that compared Alviso to a ghost town, which offended some residents, but I can see how the author made the comparison.  Admittedly, I was there in the middle of a weekday, but there was no one out.  During the time I rode all over the town looking for historical markers, I only saw three people.  Many of the buildings looked abandoned, though I don’t know if that’s just because the salty bay air weathers the outside of buildings something fierce.

I had to hop back on the interstate and head home after that, but it was still a nice ride out.  I accidentally reset the trip odometer on the GPS before taking a “ride stats” photo, but it was about 75 miles.

We’re off to the Midwest for a couple of weeks to see family, but hopefully after that I can begin the “improving the Ninjette” blog posts.  I have a few things I want to do, some cosmetic and some functional, that I think will result in the bike being even more awesome.   Here’s to some great riding in 2014!