Bicycle Renaissance

Obviously I'm not so great with updating.

Which doesn't mean I haven't been biking; it's just that I often can't think of a single thing to write about my favorite hobby.  I biked to the store yesterday; it was hot and windy. Who cares?

That, of course, is apparently the point of blogging, so here I go again.

I've had a bicycle Renaissance, and it's all San Francisco's fault.

In July, I visited a friend in San Francisco.  It's a glorious town for biking (aside from those monstrous hills for which the city is so famous), and so every day I would take the BART in to town, rent a bike, and spend the next eight hours or so (until my friend got off work) biking around town.  I biked the Golden Gate Bridge, I biked the Presidio, I biked every bloody thing in between.

It was a beautiful week for it--highs around 80 degrees, sunny & very little wind.  I got sunburned down to the knuckles simply because, unlike in South Texas, it didn't feel like I was going to spontaneously combust when I stepped outside.

And when I returned home, despite the heat advisories, I found I still wanted to be on my bike.

...and hopefully update this blog a little more often...

Paris, London, San Antonio...

A few years ago I went to Paris with my grandmother, and fell in love with the Velib idea: bikes available to borrow at locations all over the city, an easy ride from one to the next. I was also dismayed to find out that my American credit cards wouldn't work in the automated kiosks (you can now purchase a ticket online, however, which makes me want to go back even more).

It's spread both internationally and domestically, and has now spread to a city quite close to me: San Antonio.

This is a FANTASTIC idea. For one, San Antonio's downtown area is fairly condensed. The Alamo, the Riverwalk, La Villita, Hemisfair Park & the Tower of the Americas, are all pretty close to one another...though perhaps far enough apart that you wouldn't want to walk.

Nor would you want to give up your drove-around-the-block-three-times-trying-to-find-an-empty-parking-space steps from the Riverwalk.

So a bike share is PERFECT.

My last trip to San Antonio I was surprised by how many cyclists were whizzing around downtown. They continued steadily even after dark, as tourists stumbled back to their hotels, a stream of lights bouncing along on two wheels in front of the Alamo.

I can't wait to join them!