Ok, it’s only March, but between the switch to Daylight Savings Time and wonderfully sunny days, we are already thinking about not coming home after work until we are totally tired and dusty or chain-ringed and mom calls us home for dinner.  And we are adults.

What about the kids?  You gotta figure they are thinking the same thing, but it’s a little tougher them to get out so easily.  Not to  worry,  we’ve got plans for our junior brethren to help them create their own 2-wheeled adventures,  so that  they, too, can spend the rest of their lives dreaming on 2 wheels.

Yes,  SF Urban Riders are doing summer camp.  Similar to last year, but more, bigger, and better.  Like last year, we are working with the Presidio YMCA folks, who have the expertise and the good camp cred already in place.   But bigger and better because the SF Urban Riders are adding more dirt to the Y’s camp offerings, by helping them with 5 camps that will be focused on mountain bike riding.   That’s right, five (5!) weeks of opportunities for a kid you know to go play in the dirt, NO PARENTS, to  learn some new skills, to become a better rider.   if you think we are excited about summer, we are PSYCHED!!!! about creating the next generation of cross-country riders, teaching them both how to ride well and how to enjoy, respect and preserve the lands they travel through.

You got to be an official kid to go to these camps.   See the YMCA flyer for age groups, dates, etc. (Click for a hi-rez pdf).  We have a little more pedal-to pedal info on our Youth page.  Click over to it for more info on the how each day of the camp week turns as well as some big smiles from last year’s happy campers.

For the over-15 set, click over to the calendar our monthly ride schedule, or send us an email at info@sfurbanriders. org, we’ll hook you up with some places to go, and we won’t tell your mom where you are.

Lets get together shall we? Enough of this working business.  Time to invest in your sanity, throw a leg over a mountain bike, get ready to explore, and come out and ride with us.

The THIRD Sunday of every month, we will be meeting anyone who’d like to come and ride at McLaren Lodge, 501 Stanyan street.  The rides will be geared toward intermediate riders and up in both skill level and physical fitness.  Most rides will have a ‘Bail Out’ option , but expect them to be strenuous and challenging – lasting about 3-4 hours. We will have a loose itinerary and the destination will be up to those that show and the weather on tap.  SFUR promises good off road adventure, good people, and good fun.  Heavy rain cancels

TIME             DATE

9am                March 21st

9am                April 18th

9am                May 16th

After all, when it’s all said and done, it’s all about riding your bicycle.  We hope to see you out there.

]]> http://sfurbanriders.org/wordpress/feature-articles/ride-with-us/feed/ 0 http://sfurbanriders.org/wordpress/lead-story/think-bike-park/ http://sfurbanriders.org/wordpress/lead-story/think-bike-park/#comments Mon, 08 Mar 2010 20:35:55 +0000 dcrites http://sfurbanriders.org/wordpress/?p=1502

We’re making progress on the McLaren Bike Park.  We’re gathering support and reviewing proposals to submit to the city.  Thanks to everyone who has already joined our McLaren Bike Park facebook page.  Thanks to everyone who has visited our new MBP page here on this site.  A very special thanks to everyone who signed our support petition and wrote a letter.

We’re also making a separate website just for this project.

Come by and visit us @ www.mclarenbikepark.org.

With enough voices, our momentum towards a bike park and mountain bike trails in McLaren and elsewhere will be unstoppable.  We really need everyone’s help to spread the word.  Tell people on facebook, tweet it out, send some emails, or just talk about it after your next big ride.

Wilderness First Aid Training

16 hour certification course

**Class Size Limited to 24 participants

For those of us that enjoy excursions in the outdoors, knowing what to do in case of emergency is the most valuable tool you can ever have with you.  With that in mind, SFUR has worked with Foster Calm to bring a Wilderness First Aid class to San Francisco this March.  Details below.

REGISTER: via email at info@sfurbanriders.org
COST: $120 per person, check payable to SF Urban Riders
DUE: ASAP – first come first served

This is a four part course:

DATES:
Monday – March 8th   from 6pm – 10pm
Tuesday – March 9th  from 6pm – 10pm
Monday – March 15th  from 6pm – 10pm
Tuesday – March 16th  from 6pm – 10pm

LOCATION: UCSF Parnassus Campus, Millberry Union, 500 Parnassus.
INSTRUCTOR: Foster Calm: www.fostercalm.com

We all love riding in the currently green, often golden hills of Marin, and we now have a chance to show up and improve some multi use trails in Marin.   May the multi use trails prosper and flourish among those beautiful yet prohibited hills.  Come out and lend a hand if you can.

Trail Work and Habitat Restoration near Muir Beach

MCBC and Share the Trail will be partnering with the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy on two upcoming trail work projects:

Trail Work and Stone Wall Construction – Saturday, February 20, 9:30 am – 12:30 pm.
Native Planting and Weed Pulling – Saturday, March 20, 9:30 am – 12:30 pm.

On Saturday, February 20th we are looking for volunteers to help do tread work and stonewall construction on the Dias Ridge Trail. This is a great opportunity to get a sneak peek at the new multi-use trail, while helping make sure it’s ready for its official May opening.

On Saturday, March 20th , we’ll be planting natives and pulling weeds along Redwood Creek. The work will help restore a healthy creek ecosystem, one that can better support the coho salmon and steelhead trout that swim up the creek to spawn in the Muir Woods.

We’ll meet for both projects at the Muir Beach parking lot and walk back across Highway 1 to the area in front of the barn at the Golden Gate Dairy Stables. For those who want to ride their bicycles out to Muir Beach, you can lock your bike to the backside of the mailbox row along the highway.

We’ll provide tools, snacks and water. Come dressed in a long sleeve shirt, long pants, boots, and, if the forecast calls for it, rain gear. Heavy rain cancels.

Please contact Tom Boss to RSVP at 415-272-2756 or tom@marinbike.org

Jesse Gray of SFUR Overseeing Quality Assurance at the Old Navy Bike Build.

What a tremendously satisfying event this was!

Special thanks goes out to Playworks, a non-profit that is culturing and educating young people through quality unstructured play.

Playworks Executive Director  Ellen Goodman brought this unique concept to the Old Navy Regional Corporate  meeting held on Wednesday February 10th at the Hilton Union Square Continental Ballroom.

It quickly became a free for all with some surreal moments.

Over 450 Old Navy employees were surprised with a Team Building Challenge, in which each table of people needed to work together to build a bike. They were to employ the team building concept of ‘Step Up’ and ‘Step Back’, which reflect ones natural tendency to step up and take control, or step back and play the subordinate role. The idea was to have each person perform only one task so everyone would need to step up.

Not only did the Old Navy employees build the bikes, but they raised the $10,000 to purchased them as well. In total 120 low income and under served youth were gifted new knobby tired bicycles.

From a bike geeks perspective, this is where things got interesting. SF Urban Riders got a big shout out from  Playworks, introducing us as Quality Assurance, and then the group energizes in mass and storms to the back of the ballroom like it was the Amazing Race.  Lets just say the quality assurance came after the team building challenge was over. That is when the SFUR crew looked over every bike for fork & handlebar alignment, cable routing, tire pressure, and other sometimes comical issues one would expect from a massive group exercise.

The ultimate high came when the kids showed up to claim their  new rides. They were all from Cleveland Elementary in the Excelsior District and coincidentally real close to the proposed McLaren Park Bike Skills Area.

Now SF Urban Riders is working with the principal to follow up with more bike skills mentorship.

That is how it would work all the time in a perfect world.

Mark Your Calendar

Next Bike Build will be on Saturday April 24th and we can always use interested volunteers.:

More Details coming soon.

If you didn’t make it, and have never been there to help, click over to our Volunteer page to get all the details of this monthly event.  Friend us on Facebook, and we will keep you updated, invite you even, to the monthly par-tee that is trail building.

The below is the now dated original post:

For tomorrow,  we might get cancelled as weather people say rain, but they are wrong a lot.   We’ll Tweet and FB a status in the morning.  Remember this is Sutro, it’s not dry ever, really.

Tomorrow specifics – After meeting in Wood’s lot at 9, we’ll be here:

Trail building 2.6.10 - Where the action will be

this is what we are up to:

lets get rid of this

and this

It’s gonna be a great morning of maintaining our trails and making them a little less slippery,

“winterized” as our leader, Dan Schneider, calls it.

Then we are going to kick it, eat some pizza, drink some beer, and scheme up our next bike ride.

Hope to see you,

SF Urban Riders

]]> http://sfurbanriders.org/wordpress/feature-articles/sf-urban-riders-take-on-old-man-winter-you-in/feed/ 0 http://sfurbanriders.org/wordpress/blog/as-requested-a-cookie-recipe-for-the-sf-urban-riders-faithful/ http://sfurbanriders.org/wordpress/blog/as-requested-a-cookie-recipe-for-the-sf-urban-riders-faithful/#comments Fri, 05 Feb 2010 17:42:22 +0000 Mo http://sfurbanriders.org/wordpress/?p=1234 I been making cookies for Trailbuilding for the last few months, and I have been everything from politely asked to hounded to share the recipe.

This is what I always say the recipe is:

the starting point

It’s the above or it’s the version from Joy of Cooking.

That’s how the cookies were made, that’s how it was done where I grew up, kinda.

But then I realized,

they aren’t in charge of my cookies anymore.  I’m an adult!

I get to make cookies like I like ‘em.

And I like my chocolate-y chunks.  In fact, I like pretty much any sugary-chunk, and I want more, in my cookies.

And since I like oatmeal, a bunch of that goes in, too, and a lot of it.

I think there are others like me, so I make enough to share.   If people don’t like , well, it’s pretty clear what the “win-win” solution is to THAT problem, isn’t it?

But now this isn’t my recipe any more, it’s yours.

you can see the chunk madness, and see inspiration;

you can see the healthy additions and see rationalization;

or you can just freak out at the amount of processed sugar I am putting in them.

My dentist is Dr. Carmine Vicino.  415-563-1070.  totally great guy.  Just for the record.