I’ll Just Quickly Fix The Fence

Haha. Nothing goes quickly. So what’s happened since May? Mark moved out of downstairs, my mum came to visit, we went to visit my brother, I rode my bike a lot, my brother came to visit here, and… I finished the railings on the stairs and deck, and started replacing some of the fence between the deck and the neighbor.

It’s Arwen–wearing her medal: 1st place cuteness.

But before I got to the fence, Mum came to visit. And we went to Taos, NM.

Misha and I managed to get some running in: My knee seems to have healed itself with all the cycling I’ve been doing over the past few years. Before I started cycling, even running to the bus would make my knee swell up the next day.

In Taos, we stayed at an ‘earthship.’ The one we stayed at was beautifully decorated with some intricate tile work, and bright, colorful paint. Mum loved it.

We also spent some time in Santa Fe. It was really hot while we were there. I can’t resist taking photos when I see bright colors – this is outside the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts.

And back near home, I went for a walk in Santa Cruz on the beach with both my parents. Haven’t done that in 40+ years!

Oh, and before I get to the house work, I did do a couple of Santa Cruz rides this summer, too. One of them round trip, the second I stayed overnight in Santa Cruz before riding back the next day.

Two sisters and nieces for a Dad’s pre-birthday while my sister was in town.

Oh, and I love this sign:

Lots of bike rides with friends…

Alrighty then: This post was about the railings on the back stairs. We built the stairs years ago, and I never got around to finishing the guard railings. So they were quite dangerous, but we got used to it.

So this summer I finally got around to making the balusters to fill in the railings.

Quite a production effort because there are so many of them. And of course, I’d started making them with a routed detail on the bottom, so that had to continue. On the side of the stairs, the balusters have to be spaced away from the side of the stair stringer. Whenever wood is held tightly together, it stays wet in the joint, so that’s where the rot starts. So I figured I’d fill the gap with waterproof glue: I glued and clamped spacers on all of the balusters.

Here are about half of them when I was staining them:

Mole and Arwen: The railing and balusters at the top landing are all white, because I made those balusters back when we built the stair. At the time I’d planned to paint all of them white.

Here I’ve got balusters on one side of the stair:

Both sides done:

The finishing touch is I added an Ipe plank on top of the railing. It strengthens the rail, but it also looks better I think.

The next project is the fence. It’s very rotten, plus my neighbor doesn’t walk their dog: He just goes out back to do his business. Sad and stinky.

When I took down the old fence, this is what their deck looked like: Utterly insect infested and rotten through. I added some temporary shoring under there so it doesn’t collapse while I’m working, and warned him.

I had to take down my stairs at the bottom to replace the fence. Arwen figured out how to climb up and down the ladder quite quickly. Also, I decided to change the stairs so that they are slightly steeper: This will make it so that there will be more head room at the bottom of the stairs.

Even though I was just changing the stairs slightly and then re-painting, it took a really long time. Stairs are painstaking work because they have to be very accurate. Any unevenness can be a trip/fall hazard.

Oh, and to add another wrinkle, the drain pipe was in the way of the old fence. Rather than build the fence around it, I decided to move the pipe over. Which which meant I had to break out out more concrete: The ever expanding project.

While I had the jackhammer, I decided to expand the bed for the rose bush. This was waaay more work than I’d bargained for, because there was an old concrete footing there, full of rebar. Really hard to break up. Before on the left, six hours later on the right.

At the deck level, I built the wall up tall enough that we can’t see over to the neighbor’s side. If the stink still comes wafting over, I’ll put windows up at the top. Still need to add the finishes to make it look more like a fence, but the wall part is done:

I think mole snapped this photo of Arwen while mole was riding zwift in the garden room. It’s a bit worrying riding on the trainer with the cats in the room: There’s a fast spinning back wheel that could really hurt them. We don’t usually let them in, but sometimes they insist.

Oh, we had a party: Mark, who’s lived downstairs for about five years, is going to Lithuania. So we had a big leaving party/birthday party for him. We strung lights up in the back yard, and it was a great time.

We put a Lithuanian flag out front, too!


On hot days, Arwen and Bella stretch out to try not to over heat. Looks like they are flying:

Mole and I stopped in at Davenport on the way down to Santa Cruz for dad’s birthday; wandered around a little. I guess you can have great views even when not riding a bike:

Bella says: “why are all your photos of Arwen?”

Ooops, one more Arwen photo.

Garden room: Finished!

Wow, another project that started out as a “quick” project is finished (two years later.) But it came out quite nicely.

A checklist all checked off: satisfying.

More recycled wood used on the window trim.

The only problem I had was I bought some different polyurethane by Minwax for the counter top and it’s garbage: It didn’t stick – and I only discovered it when I used tape to mask off the edges while I caulked the joint at the wall. The tape pulled the top layers of polyurethane off the wood! I had sanded between coats, even (and on the can it said that’s not required). Had to sand all the way down to the wood again to get rid of it. I’ll stick with Bona Mega from now on.

Arwen decided she needed to do some inspection when I was plumbing the sink faucet.


Here’s the faucet installed: I offset it to the right slightly, so it’s not in front of the window, and hopefully it makes the sink more convenient for cleaning the large 6.5 gallon carboys. It’s still the brewery room, right?

I also sanded, resized, and stained the old front door (that I’ve had leaning around in our garage for years) to close off the space from the garage. Had to also replace the acrylic glass windows because they were scratched and had been painted over.

Popo left behind a daybed/couch and it has also been sitting in our garage for years. We bought a cheap mattress at Ikea and I put it into the garden room. That’s mole’s bike on the trainer.

… and mole testing it out while I made the living room upstairs stinky (more on that later).

When I first started working on this space, I was thinking of it as potentially a cat-free space for visitors. Little did I realize, but when you live with cats, there’s no such thing as a “cat-free” space: They own the whole house.

Here’s Arwen checking under the day-bed: She’s not happy until she’s checked every square inch.

While mole was riding on the bike trainer, Arwen brought down her favorite wand toy for her.

And Bella just waits patiently on the stairs.

Oh, and here’s the sink in the toilet room, with the tile grouted and finished. Looks neat.

When we moved in (ten years ago!), our plan was to take out the carpets. But we’ve lived with them ever since. I recently decided to take them out: I’m convinced that all that wall-to-wall carpet is not good for air quality. As we took it out, we found that the underlayment had started to decompose, and left sticky red pieces all over the old floor surface, dropping them everywhere as I carried it out: Looked like dried cranberries, but definitely not as good. Lots of work scraping and scrubbing them off.

While tearing out the carpet, Arwen enjoyed the new furniture layout.

This is the old floor tile after we had removed all the old carpet and underlayment, pulled out the staples, scrubbed and cleaned it up and polished the tile. I damaged a lot of it back when I was working on the wiring for the lights downstairs.

So we covered it up with a rug.

This bit was still exposed, though. And Bella did not like it: She started picking at it and broke off part of a tile.

So I decided to replace the broken tiles with some cheap self-adhesive vinyl tile. It was a total pain getting the old tile off (had to use a heat gun). Yes, I’m certain this tile is “hot” (asbestos). Didn’t use protective gear: Hope I don’t regret it. Sometimes I’m just plain stupid lazy. Mole and the cats were downstairs hiding in the garden room.

Done (using the stool my godfather made for me as a weight to glue the corner of an old tile down).

“FEED US! (We are only going to look cute for 30 seconds, then we’re going to melt down and start fighting)”

We got a new rug for the bedroom.

Arwen!

“Helping” with my calculations at the office.

“I’m going to take a nap here, OK?”

Prrrrr…..

Bella loves this box. We stuck eyes on the box – it comes alive when Bella gets inside it. One lesson I learned the hard way: Don’t stand near it – claws will fly out of the corners and grab toes. The robot has lightning-fast reflexes even through its eyes usually get pulled off or rearranged.

The box robot lives!

Nap time.

We volunteered for the AIDS/Lifecycle “day on the ride” in April: It’s a one day test ride for the people planning to do the week-long ride to LA in June. We’re not riding, so it was fun to dress up and help to staff rest stop one.

Trim and tile

I’m adding the finishing touches to the garden room. There was still some trim around doors, and baseboards to finish.

I really like the curved piece I came up with for the transition from tall baseboards around the foundation wall, to lower ones around the garden room (above).

Now all the trim in the back room is also finished.

I also put some shelves into that space to store things like bottles (this is going to be my brewery room, right?) I added removable fronts on the shelves so I don’t have a disaster of broken glass after the next earthquake, hopefully.

 

Arwen came down to inspect the garden room while I was working on the cabinet and counter top.

I sanded the old cabinet (from the kitchen on the ‘downstairs’ floor), and painted it.

Arwen likes tools, except power tools.

I’ve had trouble with the compression fit piping that’s commonly used under sinks. The plumbing book I have recommends the above alternative. It’s certainly easier to install, and seems quite a bit more sturdy, too.

Here are the cabinets after paint, and new handles. Also, I’ve installed the sink I got from building resources (the local recycler of building materials — construction is responsible for about half of all landfill). I’m going to put the faucet in after the tiling, and a few more coats of polyurethane on the counter.

My godfather sent me a cycling map of San Francisco, and I’ve finally found a good place for it. The garden/brewery room serves mainly as a workout room these days.

Getting started on the tile, I wanted to make it similar to the kitchen in Downton Abbey (white tile with small black squares). The photo above left was the more labor intensive option (I had to cut down the black tiles to about 1.5cm squares). Guess which one we went with.

Here’s the tile after it’s grouted. Not quite as extensive as Downton Abbey, but neither is the brewery room!

I also added a tile backsplash at the little sink in the toilet room.

I had to do some plumbing in the shower upstairs (hair clog!) and the girls both joined in to help:

The Freesia seem to love our back yard: They increase every year (whereas there are only a couple of daffodils left).

This back yard needs some inspiration: Big pile of rocks still there–volunteer Nasturtiums have covered them. Arwen is trying to figure out what to do about it all:

It was a rainy Friday, so Mole’s friday ride group got together to celebrate her birthday. And there was a trip to get vegan donuts, too.

And yesterday Mole’s mum made vegan apple pie for her birthday. It was a triumphant success. Everyone had seconds.

Here are Arwen and Bella pretending to be constellations.

Smorgas-baseboards

Oy vey, so much miscellany: Baseboards, door, water heater, carpet…

But first things first: Kitteys! Synchronized sleeping anyone?

I still have quite a pile of old wood, so I’ve been planing and reusing it to make the molding in the garden room.

There is a stem wall that is wider than the walls above in the toilet room, so I boxed it in with wood. The wood in the toilet room is stained dark red-brown, so I also did that with the base boards.

Here it is ready for the toilet to go back in.

A fully functional toilet in the garage. Such luxury. Except there’s no door yet: Details.

I put a planter box outside the toilet room window, and planted a variety of plants that I think can handle the low light. We’ll see.

Another project that used quite a lot of old wood: I needed to make a table for the laundry room to fit next to the dryer.

Here’s all the wood, planed to width and ready to make into a table.

I glued boards together to make the top.

Here’s the top clamping together.

Here’s the base of the table.

I also made a drawer to go under the table.

This is the finished table.


Here it is, in the laundry room. Doesn’t look like old throwaway wood.

Back to the toilet room (what, you thought I was done already??)

For the rest of the baseboards and trim in the toilet room, I decided to just paint it white instead of deal with staining and polyurethane, etc.

Well, this was instructive: I did such a nice job of fitting the strike plate for the door (above left). Pity I measured wrong. Sadly, I measured wrong not once, but twice. As usual, I do everything three times.


Above right is the door that used to be on the toilet room upstairs. I tried to give it to building resources, but they wouldn’t take a hollow core door. I was planning to cut it up and throw it away, but I needed a door for the toilet room: So I sanded and stained it.

The picture above is after the remaining baseboards and trim were finished, and door is on the toilet room. Now it’s really a functional bathroom.

Recently, a friend mentioned that they had to have their water heater replaced because it leaked all over her garage. That reminded me: Most water heaters have an anode rod that must be replaced every few years to prevent the inside of the hot water tank from rusting. And I’ve never changed the anode rod on our water heater in the ten years (!) we’ve lived here. So I ordered one:

I also had to get a large socket to remove the old anode rod.

The old rod had completely been used up. Ooops. Well, I think most people don’t replace them, so they buy a whole new water heater more often. Hopefully this will make ours last a bit longer.

While draining the tank, lots of rusty sediment came out. Looks like the inside of the tank has been rusting.

Back to wood re-use: There were a couple of solid oak boards that I saved from the floor of the “tear off room” (remember that?) I planed them down to smooth wood, and cut a rabbet into them for trim around the door into the garden room.

There were some pretty large knot holes and rusty nail holes.

I’m getting quite good at making wood plugs to repair holes (above is a knot after it’s filled).

For the baseboards, I planed, glued, filled about 180 feet of old wood subfloor. I also routed an ogee into the top edge. Getting a bit carried away.

Here are a couple of the baseboards installed. It’s quite time consuming installing baseboards over this floor because the floor is so uneven. I have to place the baseboard into position, then mark the baseboard for the shape of the floor, cut along the baseboard with a band saw, and seal the wood before attaching it.

One additional wrinkle: In the garden room, there is a concrete stem wall behind the base boards, so I have to use concrete screws. To fill over the screw, I countersunk it, then filled with wood plugs made from the same wood as the baseboards.

Here is the hole in the baseboard before I’ve filled and sanded. You can see a completed plug at the bottom of the photo.

Upstairs in our bedroom, we still have the same wall to wall carpet that was in the house when we first bought it ten years ago. Mole has been having a lot of allergy issues lately, so I decided, on a Friday evening, to tear out the carpet in the bedroom.

It’s much easier if everything is moved out – but we just shuffled things around while I pulled up the carpet, cut it into manageable rolls, and dragged it out. The hard part, actually, is pulling out all the thousands of staples in the underlayment. I was done by midnight!

Here’s the room without blue carpet: There was tile under it: That will have to do for now with a rug.

We brought the rug into the bedroom from the living room. It had deep dents in it from the furniture: I read online that you can put ice cubes on the dents, then once they melt, fluff up the fibers. Not sure why the ice cubes, not just spray it with water — but I follow directions.

And the girls love ice cubes!

Doubling back in SF – 510km

We’d completed most of the mileage this week already, so this was supposed to be a simple loop around San Francisco, with an early stop at the Greens restaurant “to-go” counter. We slept in, and left about an hour later (waiting until Greens opens at 9am). We got there at 9:30 and the doors were locked — there was a note on the website that brunch was starting later today. Janeen was super disappointed, and kept talking about how much she’d been looking forward to this. But we headed on. Instead of doing the full SF loop, though, I figured we could double back when we hit half way.

The sun was out as we rode up to the Presido, and Janeen’s legs were clearly not interested in doing much more cycling this week. Surprisingly, my legs felt strong today, so I did a couple of all-out sprints up the two short bumps on the route.

From the Great Highway (along Ocean beach) we turned left into the Golden Gate park, and wound our way through. Part way along, we stopped into the Polo Fields bike track and did a couple of laps, before continuing on.

Then we cut back over to the Presidio, and went right back to Greens: To-go counter closed today and tomorrow 🙁 Luckily the farmer’s market was on, and we got a very tasty Falafel plate to share. I’d been planning to get a coffee, also, but the line was out the door at Equator. I made an espresso when we got home. #festive500 completed!

This has been a difficult year both personally for many of our friends and family, and politically. Riding our bikes has given me some time to reflect on the year, to try to put some of the losses into perspective, and to be thankful, also, for the good fortune I’ve had in life. Next year, I’d like to focus on doing something positive. Maybe we will ride and fund raise for AIDS/Lifecycle again. Maybe we’ll travel to visit our friends and family more. And hopefully we’ll get to ride our bikes just as much.

Happy New Year!

What I love about cycling – 455km

One of the main reasons I got hooked on cycling is my belief that bikes, actually, are the future: Cycling is the most efficient form of transportation invented by humans. I think we’re going to fart around with hybrid this and electric that for a few decades, but eventually efficiency will win.

So, initially, I looked down on recreational cycling, because I believed it was diminished: “Bikes are a hobby for your spare time, so infrastructure to support cycling is not as important as for something essential like cars.” Then I joined the AIDS/Lifecycle ride, and started training to ride to Los Angeles. I became a recreational cyclist too — with a cause and a destination. I found myself continuing the long recreational rides afterwards on a weekly basis.

About a year ago, after falling off my bike one too many times (sliding on wet road around a bend), I bought an indoor trainer. At first I just got it because I thought it would be a good way to maintain fitness without crashing during wet weather. So I started doing intervals and following training plans, sweating alone down in the garage. I’d also heard about a cycling computer game — Zwift — which puts thousands of cyclists worldwide simultaneously on a computer generated world.

I found myself riding 2-4 times a week on Zwift, even during the summer. And Janeen, too, has been riding around the virtual worlds. The incredible graphics fulfill my desire to see beautiful views while riding, and the safety and convenience allow me to fit more cycling into my week. I still use a bike as transportation to get around SF — and sometimes further — but most of my miles are recreational, and on Zwift, by a long shot. This winter, the rain hasn’t come to California as it did last year: It’s been a very dry winter so far. When the annual “Festive 500” challenge appeared, Janeen mentioned that she’d like to do it also. And here we are, one day away from the end of the challenge with 45km to go.

We haven’t had snow, ice, or even any rain to speak of over the last week. Both Janeen and I have ridden more miles on the road over the last week than any other week all year. So what is it I love about cycling?

I still love that it’s the most efficient form of transportation known to human kind. I love getting fitter and stronger even as I get older. I also love that I get out to see sights and places I would never go otherwise. And there’s a social side to it that I love: Every ride needs a destination involving food and/or coffee! I just love to ride somewhere with friends, and then sit and enjoy eating and talking, before riding home. It’s such a pleasure to me, that I just can’t understand how I managed the first 42 years without it!

So when we set out this beautiful chilly clear morning, headed for lunch in Woodside, you know I was looking forward to that lunch stop. We rode out through the Golden Gate park, and down the Great Highway.

The surfers were out riding waves as we rode by. No fog anywhere to be seen.

I planned this ride as a flat ride, but forgot how much elevation the rolling hills along Skyline rack up. The ride along Sawyer camp trail and around the reservoir was spectacularly beautiful — but damn cold. It must be ten degrees colder down in the valley.

We took a selfie standing on the reservoir dam. Actually, this is called “San Andreas Lake” (yes, directly on top of the San Andreas fault line).

Looking down into the valley below the dam, this haze hints at how cold it would be.

Crystal Springs reservoir is further down the valley.

As we were working our way up the grade before the downhill into Woodside, Janeen’s energy was starting to fade: I decided at that point that instead of retracing our path back to SF, we would take a flatter route along the bay side of the peninsula.

When we got to Woodside, Janeen went in to the market to get deli sandwiches while I stood outside with the bikes. While standing there, I noticed about five cyclists across the street sitting on the curb eating. Across another street, on the island, a couple of cyclists were trying to prop their bikes up as they tried to sit on the wall to eat. There is an acre of parking for so few shops, and absolutely nowhere to sit outside. No benches. Not even tables outside the market. We found a corner of the parking lot, and sat on some wood fencing while we ate our sandwiches and I griped about Woodside.

It took me a couple of hours riding after this for it to really sink in why I got so annoyed: I was missing my absolutely favorite part of the ride!

The road out of Woodside was a fast, smooth descent. It felt good to be escaping the town that just did not support my dream. On the way through Hillsborough, we happened upon this wonderfully painted traffic light control box. I really don’t like traffic lights (efficiency?), but if the control boxes are this beautiful, I can make an exception:

Riding past Oracle in the Baylands, I took a wrong turn, and we started winding along the Baylands heading south. We ran into a nice looking little cafe that is part of the library. When we went inside, the person working there was bandaging up a cut hand 🙁 Onwards.

Once we got back on track, we found “Creme Brewlee” – and I loved it. It’s the complete opposite of Woodside: Tables and chairs outside, inexpensive, unpretentious and lots of fun things to refuel on (mini muffins, chocolate filled beignets, coffee, and green tea soy latte for Janeen). We were happy cyclists.

In Paradise? 331 km

We’re on to the third day of riding this week. This ride was shorter, but our legs were feeling tired. Paradise drive (often called the “Paradise Loop” or “Tiburon Loop”) loops around the Tiburon peninsula. It’s a go-to ride for many people who live in SF because it’s scenic, not too long, and generally has fewer cars, stop signs and traffic lights.

This is the first day we’ve left the house with clear skies. It was slightly colder today, but we stopped into a bike clothing store and Janeen bought a “snood” (or “neck gator”): it’s like a scarf you can pull up over your face. The store — Rapha — puts this festive 500 challenge on every year, so it was mobbed with cyclists getting ready to ride out together.

While we were catching a picture in the usual vista point stop, the 30 plus cyclists from the Rapha store rode by, waving.

When driving during this time of year, I have always felt that people are particularly nasty. There’s a big contrast between the ideal for the “season” and the fact that everyone is just trying to deal with all the societal requirements. That’s part of the reason, I think, that so many people love the festive 500 every year; avoid it all and go ride your bike.

Given my experiences driving, last year I was quite worried about how drivers would treat cyclists. But until today, it had been a dramatic opposite: People were courteous, friendly and happy. Today, though, drivers were particularly inattentive: Twice people opened their doors into us without looking. I’ve tried to develop a habit of riding well away from parked cars (out of the “door zone”), so luckily we avoided the doors. But many drivers look at cyclists doing this and get angry: they think we are riding too far into “their” lane.

While I was riding past some parked cars, a car passed me perilously close (within inches). I easily caught up with the car stopped at the next traffic light. When I knocked on the window, the driver opened the window and we discussed why she passed me so close: She felt I was too far away from the curb, and said she’d pulled all the way to the left of the lane when she passed. Don’t worry: There was no swearing or unpleasantness. Some people just don’t get it: She saved no time passing me, and if she’d just bumped me, I’d have been injured and she’d have been responsible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdgVcGjzgR4

On the way back from the Tiburon loop, we took an alternative route up Strawberry drive: There’s a very steep section at the beginning, so most people ride it in the other direction only. Janeen was convinced she couldn’t make it, until we got to the top. Even with tired legs.

I feel a bit guilty showing these photos in the middle of winter: No wonder so many people live in Californa.

Arwen gave Janeen some recovery purring time when we got home…

We’re going to take Friday off: Need to let the legs recover a bit. Only 169 km to go!

Riding in the fog to China Camp

It was a chilly start to our second ride in the festive 500. We could see only one of the bridges as we rode out along the Embarcadero.

When we stopped at the usual vista point, the visibility was not quite what it usually is. Can you see SF in the distance? Me neither.

While riding across the Golden Gate bridge, I snapped a selfie (acting like a tourist) just to show how thick the fog was.

While we were getting our bikes ready in the garage this morning, Janeen commented how difficult it would be to change a flat tire if we were riding in a place with snow or freezing temperatures. We may complain about the “cold” or the fog, but we know we really have it easy. There’s been very little rain this year, too.

Maybe that was a jinx? Janeen has only had three flat tires EVER (over 3 1/2 years riding). Last year, I got more than that in one month. And for her previous two, people she was riding with were much too nice and changed the tube for her, so she said she didn’t know how to do it. No time like the present: I took photos and provided coaching. The most difficult part is finding what caused the flat (ie a piece of glass stuck in the tire). The fix was successful; and over ten cyclists asked us if we needed help as they rode by.

Pumping up the tire is the most work, actually, and I did help with that a bit. Lots of people use carbon dioxide cartridges to pump tires: It’s very fast, but you have to carry around these heavy little single use metal tubes.

The fog makes the bike path through the Bothin marsh preserve otherworldly. All the houses on the hills nearby are obscured. Someone has decorated an old tree stump with Hanukkah balls 😉

We noticed the fog start to clear as we passed Larkspur. Then a beautiful blue sky opened up as we rode into China Camp state park.

The oak trees in the park are really beautiful. This park is known for hiking and mountain biking trails. We just ride a loop around it on the road.

On the way home, the fog had cleared. While still chilly, the same marshlands that were shrouded in fog looked totally different:

Almost home: the trees in the Presidio.

When we get home, Bella loves to snuggle while I geek out on the ride data…

Point Reyes Station with heavy clouds: 145km

We woke up to my alarm clock — still dark. The “festive 500” has become an international tradition to ride 500 kilometers between Christmas and New Year. We are trying to complete it this year, so on day one, we planned to bite off a big chunk of it.

Janeen opened the curtains: a bright horizontal crack was forming where the sun should be rising. Even Bella wasn’t up yet. Arwen had her purr turned up to maximum: early breakfast!

I usually don’t drink coffee before a bike ride; but today? I turned on the espresso machine while I filled our water bottles.

We’d expected it to be cold (by SF standards, that is), so bundled up in our warmest cycling clothes before setting out. Riding across the city was peaceful and warmer than expected, with few cars driving, and the streets cleared of many of the parked cars that typically choke our city. The streets felt so wide.

There was no sun, just a dull uniform grey light. The strobes of our headlights flashed the street signs far into the distance.

We rode around the Embarcadero, past the Marina green (where I snapped a selfie) and through Crissy Field. There’s a small sharp climb before getting to the bridge, and I always want to take a picture at the top.

As we rode across the Golden Gate bridge, we looked back over the city to see the sun (still mostly unsuccessfully) trying to seep through gaps in the clouds above. The route up through the towns of southern Marin county leads us through Larkspur — the town that my dad first moved to when he moved to the US. I remember the park at the bottom of the road, hiding below dark redwood trees: My brother and I played there with the neighbors when we came to visit in 1980. I now see it as a very convenient place to stop and use the restroom!

While climbing Camino Alto is quite a warmup, White hill is the first real climb of the day, and we took it at a nice and easy pace. Shortly before the top four cyclists passed us, only to stop in the same parking area we were planning to stop. Everyone was friendly, wishing happy holidays and just enjoying being out on our bikes.

There was almost no wind. As we rode past Nicasio reservoir, the reflections were so clear and smooth that I couldn’t resist stopping to take a photo. Janeen snapped a far better photo of me as I was trying to figure out how to capture the view.

We rode on to Point Reyes. In the summer, there are some nice benches out in the park at the town center and the bike racks filled to capacity; now it was just bare ground. Janeen huddled in a corner watching our bikes while I went into the store to buy burritos. Sadly, no burritos were in the offing, so the woman working at the deli made me a sandwich: “Merry Christmas” she said as she handed me an almost two pound work of art.

Rain started sprinkling around us as we sat shivering on the concrete steps eating our sandwich. Even a cup of coffee and hot chai tea barely took off the chill: Time to get moving. We had been hoping to see some friends who were also riding, but we’d not seen them yet, so we set off south on highway 1 towards Olema.

A steep hill waits right after the town of Olema, and then a fast descent before the cross marin trail — a bike and walking trail that leaves the main road for a few miles heading back towards Lagunitas. Then there’s a long slow climb back up White hill before retracing our tracks through Fairfax.

We stopped at the bottom of the Golden Gate bridge before heading back into the city. No matter the weather, the view here is beautiful. Merry Christmas.

So Shiny

Summer is a time for riding bikes, and not working on the house. But I’ve been chipping away at it a little. I sanded the wood beam and post that are in the space, exposing the wood. I’ll polyurethane it. Nicer than paint.

How d’you like the pink pipe? If you can’t hide it, paint it pink!

My first attempt at resurfacing the concrete floor didn’t go so well: It cracked up badly and it came loose from the concrete below. So I chipped it all out and started over:

Above is the floor after I’ve removed the cracked concrete. Then I re-did the thin layer of repair mortar.

This time, I covered the whole floor in plastic sheeting and left the sheeting on there for two weeks. There was very little cracking this time (just near the edges of the plastic where more air could get in to dry it.) I think, even though it’s supposed to be ‘low shrinkage’, when the top surface dries while the bottom cannot, it makes the mortar want to curl up.

And I finished filling, sanding, and painting the window that looks into the garage.

I went back and forth a lot on what to put on the floor in this space.

My first plan was to get some cheep Pergo flooring, and install a floating floor over a moisture barrier. This would probably be the best approach for a concrete slab that doesn’t have any moisture barrier below it. But headroom in this space is extreeeemly tight for me. Actually, we are now using the ‘garden room’ space as a workout room: I have a bike trainer set up in there. When I sit on my bike, there is about 1/2 inch between the top of my head and the ceiling. If I put in a floating floor, I’d be touching.

So I decided to try using an epoxy coating on the concrete.

Preparation is quite labor intensive. I used a diamond grinder to grind the entire surface of the concrete to make sure it bonds properly. But I’ve learned that you can get a shroud for the grinder, attach it to the HEPA filter vacuum, and it’s almost dustless.

After grinding it, I had to acid etch it, and thoroughly wash the concrete.

You can see the cracks in the old concrete slab showing up clearly when the concrete is wet.

Above left is the garage back room, looking towards the toilet and the garden room. Above right is the toilet room floor.

I filled all the large cracks with acrylic latex caulk. The black parts are where I used an epoxy filler to fill larger holes or feather edges between different concrete pours. Here’s Arwen checking on my work. There’s something about concrete she loves: she’ll walk around a bit, then roll on her back on the concrete purring.

The process of coating the concrete is quite easy. You pour it onto the floor, then use a squeegee to spread it around. After that, you just use a roller to spread it evenly. In the photo above, I’m wearing spike shoes, so I can walk around on the wet epoxy and it doesn’t leave any marks. They are tricky to walk on at first — probably much easier than high heals, but I almost fell at least four times!

Then to get a more interesting patterned surface, and to add a bit of non-skid to the surface, I sprinkled it with a mix of color flakes.

One lesson learned: You have to fill all the cracks, not just the big ones. The epoxy runs into the cracks and they show up very clearly once the epoxy sets. In fact, they are much more visible than before coating the floor. So I filled all the cracks with the same acrylic latex caulk. It was well color matched with the epoxy coating.

Here’s the same area of floor after filling the cracks. Then I did the final clear coat.

It’s shockingly shiny now! The color flakes add a bit of roughness, but I’m really impressed with this stuff.

Bella says the new floor is so clean she could lick it.

Here’s Bella checking on the plants while mole was riding on Zwift.

That’s my bike set up on the trainer, with Zwift loading on the laptop. Initially I got the trainer because I was tired of crashing on wet pavement last winter. But I’ve got hooked: It’s so easy to just go down there and ride for an hour. I don’t have to worry about cars driving erratically, debris on the roads, etc. And I can get a really good workout in just one hour. So even on sunny beautiful days, I’ve been in here riding on the trainer!

A screen capture mole made while riding on Zwift; it’s quite scenic!

In October we went to Portland and had a good time eating vegan food, and attending veg fest.