Along the lines of the 2012 bikeit recap, some of the most memorable rides from 2013 were:
Organizing a dumplings-by-bike tour for friends and strangers that pulled in about 45(!) people and was a great day.
A Dogpatch/Bayview history ride I posted publicly through the SF Bike Coalition (and met new people on, including one person I’ve continued riding with), along scenic dirt bike paths and past graffiti, goats, and other strange sights:
A ride up to San Rafael for brunch, made especially enjoyable by sunny weather and wildflowers blooming:
A long (114 hilly miles, from sunsire past sunset) ride to Lagunitas Brewing and back on a very hot day. A tough day to be riding, some heatstroke, but everyone survived and it was a satisfying accomplishment:
The “East Bay Beer Tour” organized by someone else was a great all-day ride (San Leandro -> Alameda -> Oakland), along paths and routes I’d never seen:
An all-day 40-mile bike ride through and around Tokyo with a friendly stranger we’d just met the day before and great yakitori was the most unexpected ride and one of the most memorable (scenic in a different way):
The ride up to Larkspur to rent kayaks and paddle around before a beer and sunset ferry home was one of the easiest one-day adventures with friends I’ve done in a long time:
And almost as easy, a sub-24-hour-overnight one-night bike camping trip with a few friends up to Samuel P (with convenient festival stop en route):
And on the more adventurous side, the highlight was spending a week riding 400+ miles through gorgeous rural Maine, camping, eating, and meeting a great new group of people:
Honorable mention to riding Circuito Chico in Argentina– I feel like biking that far from home deserves a mention, and bits of the ride were good, but the traffic and bikes were both heavy and I wouldn’t do it again:
Here’s to great rides in 2014!