China, Asia, Climbing and Fixed Gear Bikes

My friend Gary had suggested to go cycling together. That was a great idea. What I did not really expect was that his 50 mile race yesterday was not a cycling race but actually a running race. That is a double marathon. But not more. That is why he suggested to do some cycling the next day. He is a real endurance person.

His friend Tim from the Marin cycling club had loaned me a nice Trek road bike with shoes and helmet and all.

The 3 of us started in Fairfax and cycled on nice backstreet countryside roads along the reservoir to Point Reyes.

We went to a small coffee shop in Point Reyes that was swamped full of road cyclists. It seemed like there were more cyclists there than the total amount of road cyclists in all of Beijing. Amazing.

Also on the road we met multiple cyclists. It was a very different feeling than cycling around Beijing where you hardly ever meet any other road cyclist.

It was a great ride with some small climbs and descents in a beautiful landscape. We only did about 35 miles because of me (as they were not sure if I can do more), not because of Gary. I uploaded a few snapshot pictures while riding to a picasa webalbum.

Today I was meeting some friends for a morning tea and for lunch. For that I was cycling around Palo Alto. The best way to go across town on a bike is to cycle down the „Bicycle Boulevard“ on Bryant Street.

It is named after a famous local bicycle activist Ellen Fletcher. This bike street has mostly right of way and has bridges over the canals.

I will be performing tomorrow for Martin Krieg and his non profit organization „National Bicycle Greenway“. This event is to fund raise for Martin Krieg who will set of to cross the USA from West Coast to East Coast on his reverse High Wheel (Penny Farthing) called Eagle.

He is doing this for the „National Bicycle Greenway“. That is a non profit organization trying to build a coast to coast cycleable green bike path through all the different states and all counties. Cycling is good for environment and good for each person. I hope more people will understand this and cycle more rather than using cars.

I will be doing trick bike performances in Palo Alto at both 4pm and 7pm tomorrow. So we went the venue for me to test the floor with my trick bike.

After that we went to a nice bicycle shop: Cardinal Bike Shop. The guys there are really nice and the manager Manny has a beautiful fixed gear bike with an old Schwinn frame that is artistically repainted.

In the shop they had a huge used chain ring.

Martin Krieg who has already cycled across the USA twice will soon set off to do it on an old reversed Penny Farthing called Eagle HiWheel. He has so many collected bikes and parts.

He has been training a lot to master the Eagle.