In lieu of a ghost bike.

A few days ago, a cyclist was struck by a car and killed at the end of our road. I hadn't known what had happened until reading about it in the local paper a couple of days later. I went out for a jog that day and saw a huge police police presence at the intersection. They'd cordoned off Alemany Blvd. to through traffic at Silver Avenue. Officers were congregating there, I guess, waiting for colleagues to come and measure the area of the accident. Some forty minutes later, they were all still there.

Alemany is a long-ish thoroughfare cutting through a large swath of the southern area of San Francisco. Pedestrians & cyclists need to be very careful when crossing at this intersection as many motorists are both driving well above the speed limit & not obeying the traffic signals. Whenever I cross at this light, I sort of stick my head out from behind the slew of parked cars along the road to make sure there's no one barreling down the road at me. Doesn't seem to matter that they've a red light. These motorists must think they're in The Fast & Furious 8, or some such thing, when they are behind the wheel.

Alemany boasts a fairly long dedicated bike lane. Even so, I, frankly, wouldn't ride my bike down Alemany before this fatality & I'm certainly still not keen to now. Due to recent road work by the local electric company, Alemany has been torn up, literally, and holes in the road have been temporarily covered by large, steel slabs. The bike lane in these work areas has been all but eradicated. It was in one such area where a man called Moises Chavez was killed while riding his bike. The motorist who hit him pulled over & called the police. Chavez died at hospital.

Small memorial. Out of shot are a bunch of candles.

Just about where Mr Chavez was hit. 

Bike chain

-went out this morning to feed the cats, as usual.  The hubs had the car, so I rode my bike the five miles down the shore.  There was nothing much to report.  The cats were all well hidden in the bramble and under the rocks.  I left wet food in the camo-rock-sleep-space, put some kitty treats in the little cat cubby, and dished out some grub to those that lurk under the bridge.

I was about to pedal home when I spied a city vehicle making its way up onto the bike/ped trail by the first feeding station.  The city truck was hauling what looked to be a small, red buggy.  Intrigued, I ditched my plan to cycle home, dropped the bike against some bushes and peeped at the workers as they exited the truck.  Setting out cones to mark off the area around their vehicle, the guys then unloaded the buggy from the truck bed.  The little vehicle was kitted out with plastic tanks containing some sort of fluid.  The workers got into the buggy and made their way into the wet areas just beyond the brush that had, in recent weeks, become full of stagnant rain water.  Up until now, ducks had been using the area as a make-shift pond.

As the dudes drove through the water spraying something odorous in their wake, I walked up to the parked truck and saw that it had been dispatched by some sort of mosquito vector control team.  I'd never seen the municipal logo before and wondered if its presence had anything to do with that new(ish) Zika virus I'd been reading about the papers, or if the city dispatches sprayers every year when the waters are high along the shore.

I checked out the workers for a few minutes longer to see if they were inadvertently going to disrupt the feeding areas (they didn't) before picking up my bike and going home.  I must have really chucked my bike into the bramble because when I picked it up I could see that the chain was not only off, but twisted around the pedal and also disengaged from the back derailleur.  I couldn't put the fix the chain and it had started to rain, so I just sucked it up and walked with my bike home.  At least the cats are probably okay.

Tommy, about a month back.

Sunday cycles.

The hubs and I went for a 40-mile ride today.  Taking the bay trail from home, we made our way to the Dumbarton Bridge.  It's the only bay span equipped with a bike lane.  We had high hopes of cycling to Union City, but, riding along loud cars with only a three foot cement wall separating us, I panicked & made an 'about face' only a fourth of the way to the East Bay.

Along the salt flats. Part of the Facebook campus is off in the distance.

Dumbarton Bridge, bike lane entrance.

Back on land, we decided to bike south to the Google compound in Mtn. View.  Our route took us through East Palo Alto, a fairly unsavory-looking town where many of the homes have barred windows and sit behind wrought iron fences.  We pedaled past a young & very pregnant woman shuffling down the pavement who looked in need of a hot bath and a hug. 

Multi-ball was a hoot!

My reward for 20 miles on the bike was a game of pinball at Eric's place of work (and a soft-serve with M&Ms on top) before making our way home.

My new cycle-buddy.

The bike/ped bridge from E. Palo Alto to Palo Alto. Signs posted let cyclists know they're to dismount. I did not.

Tooling about on the bikes.

I rode 36 miles on my bike today.  -didn't go it alone, but went with the hubs who is in a 'Tour de France' phase of late.  Since riding in earnest, he's gotten fitter, eats better and sleeps more soundly.  -all good things.  I've not kept pace with his long-distance riding, and, instead confine my cycling trips to and from work & along the bay trails here in town.  Yesterday, the hubs rode a 75-plus mile loop around the peninsula, so, for him, our 36 mile jaunt was a walk in the park.  Speaking of parks, the picture below shows some of the greenery that our bike journey took us through this afternoon.  If one looks really hard, one can almost make out a wee fox on the prowl there between the tree branches.  The picture below the green space shows the entrance to the bike path from a car park at the top of a hill.

Fox looking for snacks along the bike route.

Entrance to the bike path atop Ralston Rd.

I had a good day with only some car-related issues.  Here in Ca., we're all meant to 'share the road', but that's easier said than done.  What freaked me out most was the ride back home.  Our most direct route down Ralston Rd. put us perilously close to cars.  Never mind that this street is meant to be 'bike friendly'.  There's no dedicated bike lane for most of it, and the motorists fly down the hill like they're drag racing at Sear's Point.  Couple cars vying for pole position with those who think they're Bradley Wiggins on two wheels and one has a recipe for disaster.  I walked my bike, like a goat, down the hill until a bike lane was visible, then rode the last one-mile stretch home.  As it was Sunday, today's car count was minimal, but that didn't stop me from deciding to walk rather than compete for street space with the likes of this (see: video).