On Thursday, I rode to work and back, and on the way back I took a detour along the Bay side edge of the East Side of South San Francisco instead of cutting across. I call this post “Joy”, because that was delightful, especially the detour. I also call it “Joy”, because this ride was dedicated to my friend Joy, one of the sponsors of my participation in AIDS LifeCycle. AIDS LifeCycle is a 545 mile ride from SF to LA, June 2-8 2019. You can read more about why I dedicate rides to my sponsors here and have a ride dedicated to you here. Or just keep reading.

Joy is my friend from Toastmasters, and as I rode I felt grateful for having the extended surrogate family that I have in Toastmasters. I wrote about that before, and I stand by that. Joy and I were in the same club for 3.5 years. We were in a mentoring relationship most of that time, learned from each other, inspired each other, gave each other crap, you know how it is. Joy is one of the smartest, creative, and driven people I know; I am so lucky to have met her.

Back to my ride… On Thursday, I rode straight to work in the morning, no stopping for pictures, because I had an 8 AM meeting to get to. I did ride with joy though: the days are getting longer, another bout of rain was over, everything was fresh and clean and just a little flooded. Actually, here I have a few pictures from a few weeks ago: lots of water on the South San Francisco potion of Bay Trail.

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Since I had an early day and the days are getting longer, I took time to explore in the afternoon. For me, this is the most immediately enjoyable perk of all this training: getting to explore the beautiful nooks and corners where I wouldn’t normally go. Instead of heading North-East-North, I went West-South-West first to get to the Bay Trail sooner rather than later.

It’s fascinating how quiet the perimeter of this industrial area is! (More about the industrial area here.) There are thousands of people working on this small peninsula, and yet for the first mile or so I saw just a couple of runners. The rest of the scenery is just water, jagged shore line, beeches, swamp land, green grass, yellow flowers. You can see “civilization”, but it’s far off.

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After a mile or two of just me and an occasional runner or another biker, I started seeing folks walking on the trail and looking like they were going somewhere, not just taking a promenade on a lovely afternoon. The mystery destination soon revealed itself: Oyster Point Ferry!

The Ferry seems like a sensible way to get to East Bay from South San Francisco. Would be at least faster than driving or taking BART during rush hour, and probably otherwise more pleasant as well. I need to check it out one of these days. More exploring!

For the time being I finished the detour, got back on my regular route and headed home rather uneventfully.

In the evening, I rode to teach yoga and back, making the day total over 25 miles. Not bad, that being on top of working the main gig and the side gig and being for the most part adequate at both. More about being adequate in the next post.

For now, thank you all for joining me on this ride virtually, thanks again to Joy for supporting me in so many ways! If you want a thank you ride dedicated to you, head this way.