Sunshine and Transit Adventures in the Bay Area

Outside Mojo Bicycle Café on Divisidero St., SF

The Momentum lady posse power trio are on assignment in the Bay Area. Though our main mission is to attend Maker Faire this weekend, there are lots of other bikey types to visit while we're here. Too many to fit into one trip!

Tania and Mia inside with Mojo John.

We started out our day in the with a visit to Mojo Bicycle Café. Located on Divisidero they offer a warm and inviting coffee shop, bike repair, and bikes for sale. We think we'll go back tomorrow evening and inspect the garden...

We rode down Golden Gate (street) to our next stop: the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition office on Market Street. There we met staffers Kate McCarthy, Jodie Medeiros and Neal Patel, and a crew of fabulous volunteers.

SFBC Community Planner Neal Patel with "crater invader" stencil

Neal showed us stencils used in a pothole tagging program April 22, dubbed "attack of the crater invaders." Eight teams spread out and flagged the offending absence of asphalt on SF's bikeways in an call for the city to improve the safety of its roadways.

Amy and bikes on BART

Merely a block away we hopped on the BART train and headed over to Oakland. Of course we are biking here in SF - Thanks for finding us bikes Gary!! - so we were very happy to be able to bring the bikes with us on our train trips.

Oakland BART bike parking

In Oakland we visited with the fabulous folks of Xtracycle and had a sneak preview of their new bike frame design and stopped in to meet Richard at Tip Top Bikes.

Richard at Tip Top Bikes in Oakland

Peter, Adam & Nate at Xtracycle

Glorious to be riding in Cali

Riding back through Oakland we enjoyed the palm trees and spanish-style
villas, warm sunshine and flowers gently scenting our route. It is
lovely to be in California!

Ted at Warm Planet Bikes

Returning to downtown San Francisco by BART we rode over to the Townsend St. Caltrain Station and met Ted who was working at Warm Planet bikes - a bike parking station, repair shop and bike retailer.

The Caltrain took us South to the San Mateo Fairgrounds where we caught the dinner hour of Maker Day – a pre setup day of show and tell and hanging out for exhibiting makers.

paella yum at Maker Day

Dinner was a deluxe: paella cooked in massive pans and delicious dark beer. Mmmm! Thanks Maker fair! You know if they get the food so fabulously right the rest of the weekend promises to to be delicious as well.

large lady of Maker Faire built (at least in part...) by Che of SF's Cyclecide

Though several sculptures currently populate the premises, tomorrow will be a big set-up day on the fairgrounds.

Raphael's strange doll

I am falling in love with the atmoshere of this place - and you cannot make a move without meeting someone interesting. This is Raphael from New York City with a very odd writhing doll he created. Yes it's an arm and a leg. Most of the comments I heard were along the lines of, "Ew, creepy." but I thought it was pretty hilarious.

Caltrain Bike Car

Mark our biker buddy on caltrain

The Caltrain home was full of bikes and bikers and after admiring the style of his handlebars we fell into a great conversation with Mark all the way home.

Goodnight San Francisco! We're happy to be here and looking forward to tomorrow!