moving piem

Tacos de carne al pastor

After four nice days at Zzara's place, it was time to take the road again and start cycling South. A couple of kilometers outside Tijuana, I heard a scary noise coming from my front wheel. I passed a road bump a bit fast. One the front racks went touching the spokes and got badly folded into the wheel. Fortunately, no spokes were broken and the rack was still usable. After an hour or so spent at unbending the rack and remounting it, I could start cycle again.

Jesse was waiting for me in his wonderful house near La Mision. It was late already, and the sun had already set fire on the ocean. Jesse knew from my CouchSurfing request that I was coming by bicycle, and was not too keen on the idea of me cycling at night. He gave me a call to know where I was and soon arrived to pick me up with his huge truck for the last three or four kilometers.

Jesse, Kathy, Howell, and Ebony invited me for a delicious diner at their place. We had a wonderful evening and excellent food. Kathy had been touring alone on her bicycle in France forty years ago, so we had a lot to talk about. The next morning I woke up and discovered the beautiful view on the beach from my room. We had breakfast on the terrace and watched the surfers on the beach. It was already midday when I left their house. ... more

Sunset on the Pacific Ocean

The night in San Diego was a bit rough. I was awake until late, didn't look for a CouchSurfing host, and couldn't find a nice place to pitch my tent, so I just slept a few hours on a bench in Little Italy. I got woken up early by the waiter of the nearby café that was opening its terrace. I went in to have a coffee.

From San Diego, I cycled the 30 km to reach the border. Avoiding the freeway was not so easy, since many of the locals had no idea how to get to the border by bicycle, and advised me to climb in the trolley bus instead. But after getting lost a few times and looked at strangely by one or two Border Patrol trucks, I reached at the Mexican border, had my passport stamped, and started cycling in Mexican land.

Just on the other side of the border lies the city of Tijuana, right in the corner of Latin America, the most Northern and Western point of the continent where Spanish is primarily spoken. Each year several hundred of thousands of migrants cross the border, and each year hundreds of them are killed. ... more

Evening lights from Route #1

On Thursday, October 20th, I was ready to start cycling South towards Mexico. Guillaume had left the day before and I spent one more night at Studio G. From Mission District, I found my way outside of the city and kept pedaling along the cost, along Route #1, until after dusk.

For my first night camping with my bicycle, I found a nice place, a hundred meters from the road, just above a little cove. When I woke up in the morning, my bike had slowly lied down along my side in the soft and sandy ground, and the screen of the computer was saying 'sleep'.

For the next few days, I drove along the beautiful Route #1, slept on beaches and under pine trees, watched the Sun set over the Pacific and the surfers run into the morning waves. ... more

Ready to roll!

I had planned on about 2 weeks to prepare my bicycle and get ready to start cycling South. On my second day in town, I found the bicycle I needed on Craig's list: a Specialized Rock Hopper from the early 90's, tall enough for me, steal frame, and at a reasonable price (160$). Ten days later I got lucky and found, also second hand, the 2 pairs of black panniers I wanted ($230).

At the wonderful Bike Kitchen, I spent several evenings working on my new bicycle. With a lot of help from Jim, Justin, Guillaume, and many others, I learned how to maintain and rebuild the bike entirely, and found most of the spare pieces I needed: a kick stand, old school friction gear shifters, bottle cages, derailleur upgrade, handle bar ends, double walled rear and front rims, rock solid pedals, new bearings for bottom bracket and freewheel... ... more

Colorful groves at Grooves

Guillaume and I both love music, and especially on records. We spent a few afternoons digging the crates in downtown Frisco. We first went to Rooky Ricardo's Records, on Haight Street, where Steve owns a large collection of Soul music, before skimming through various thrift store in Mission.

I couldn't resist and asked again to take a few portraits, as I did earlier in New York.

At Amoeba, probably one of the most famous record store on this planet, we found even more records. As I asked to take their pictures, James, from San Francisco, picked the phone to 'look busy', while Nick, from Los Angeles, kept his grin as he was sorting out my selection.

We also had a nice chat with Kelley at Grooves Vinyl Attractions on Market Street, in his beautiful shop full of gems made of movie soundtracks, instrumental rarities and other odd sounds.

With more than 30 records each, plus the ones I had found in Chicago and Madison, Guillaume left with a very very heavy bag loaded with vinyl.