Foxy Roxy

I am a very lucky girl.  I am a very lucky girl in oh so many ways but the reason on my mind right now is my new bicicleta: Foxy Roxy.

Roxy is connected to one of the other reasons I'm a lucky girl: My Christopher. My Christopher is dear to me for oh so many reasons and in addition to all the reasons he is dear to me, he also builds bicycles. Really really nice bicycles. Foxy Roxy is one of those bicycles.

Christopher had a summer of fun-employment a few years back. He had recently acquired a welder and decided to learn how to design and build bicycles. The first bike was a single-speed, spray painted frame dubbed the Furlough. I got another one of those first bicycles (Annabella) and they were both very fine.

Annabella: My original and first custom frame built in 2010

But he is better now. Annabella was a great bicycle in general but Foxy Roxy is custom to me alone. I always say the most important part of a bike is the engine but the engine running Roxy needs a whole lot less fuel than the bikes I've had before. (Given my affinity for cookies as fuel this is one slight downside in the matter.)

Roxy is mostly a commuter bike. In some ways it is a lavish indulgence to have such a bike subject to the perils of city riding, bike racks, rain and the daily grime. But this is literally how I get around every day. My bike is how I get to work, the gym, the store and more. I ride year-round in almost all weather conditions. I don't ride (much) when it is more than 100 degrees out and I don't ride (on purpose) if there is ice on the ground, but otherwise almost all my errands and doings around town are by bike. I am often soggy and tired of the wind.

We estimate I probably ride the better part of 3,000 miles a year on my commuter. That is about 3,000 reasons to have something fit me perfectly, be designed for exactly this type of riding and work as well as possible. I also now have a great option for weekend distance fun rides if it is rainy out. With fenders and disc brakes Roxy rocks the damp days.

Grete: Another Christopher frame made for our amica Jen of Long Haul Trekkers for their year-long adventure 

Which leads me to yet another reason Roxy is connected to me being a lucky girl: If it weren't for Roxy I'm pretty sure I would be toast right now. It was a rainy Saturday so I took Roxy for my longish ride. Near the end I was heading down on a wide, low traffic road with a dedicated bike lane. It was downhill so I had some speed (but I'm a giant wuss so I didn't have too much speed) and a car accelerated from behind to pass me right before taking a quick hard turn in front of me into a small parking lot. I slammed on the brakes, fishtailed like crazy and somehow managed to avoid crashing - either into the car and/or into the pavement. Somehow I escaped with only a semi-strained left hand and an adrenaline OD.  I honestly feel that if it were any other bike that fit me any less perfectly I would not have held it together.  Roxy is, as one friend put is, essentially my avatar.

For oh so many reasons I am oh so very lucky.

Bay in the Bay

I lived in the SF Bay Area during my middle and high school years and it was home base during college.  Despite thoroughly loving the Bay Area and still having friends and family in the area, I hadn't been back since a friend's graduation in 2006 - nearly nine full years ago.  With in-laws and close friends in the Sacramento/Sierras vicinity any time we come within striking distance of the Bay we end up in the gravitational field of those relationships and are pulled to the Central Valley or mountains instead.  This March I finally found myself with work reasons to be in San Francisco and spent a few days in the Bay.

The first day or so was pretty nostalgic.  I flew into Oakland, drove around the old home town with my aunt, and had dinner at a posh "San Francisco style" restaurant in the exceedingly upscaled shopping center my friends and I rambled around growing up.  Other than Applebee's, everything else was only vaguely recognizable.  I stayed at the very familiar home of dear family friends I used to nanny for and found my muscle memory remembering where dishes and silverware live.  Thursday morning I had a lovely commute across the Bay by ferry: the sky was California blue, the sun was shining and I was greeted outside the SF Ferry Building by palm trees and Muni cars.  I enjoyed the bustle of the Embarcadero and my 15 minute walk up Market Street to our office on the 30-something'th floor of a grand historic bank building.

The nostalgia started to fade when I missed the ferry home after a long day at work.  The ferry comes every hour and despite being a nice way to commute it took a bit over an hour door-to-door, even when timed correctly.  By the time I got home it had been a 12+ hour day and we ate dinner later than my usual bedtime.  After just two nights of big city living, waking up Friday morning was rough.

I took off a bit early on Friday to catch up with a good friend and do some site seeing.  We had great Mexican food in the Mission, saw the ocean and went to "Off the Grid," a food cart extravaganza at Fort Mason.  It was a really lovely afternoon but getting home took about two hours, making my second full day of big city living even longer.

With an amica near the Sutro Baths at the NW corner of the SF peninsula.

After a quick run around the island Saturday morning and a hearty breakfast I schlepped off to the airport where my flight was delayed over an hour.  It was actually a pretty tame journey back home but when I finally got home it was quite a relief to be back in the little village of Portland.  I enjoyed the time in San Francisco but in my few days there I worked too much, was on the move too much and overall found myself overwhelmed by the too-much-ness of it all.  I didn't get a chance to talk to my Christopher except for a few exhausted moments before we both fell asleep and I missed my personal yoga practice for the first time since late December.

Some friends find Portland too quite, too sleepy, too small.  There aren't as many direct flights to exciting places and I'm told the night life is very lame.  Our food carts don't have live music or as flashy of a website.  On the flip side, instead of two hours in traffic on a Friday night to get home, I can ride two hours on my bike Saturday morning to this:

View of the Columbia River from the Vista House at Crown Point.

Portland is just my speed.