We’re SO stoked right now. We’re working on a new regular feature for you, which always puts us in a good mood. We love alternative transportation, from road bikes and sailboats (our favorites), to whatever unicycles and rollerblades and hang-gliders you crazy hippies can come up with. Hell, we even like Muni. Sometimes. So we’re going to start looking at places to eat based on the transportation you’d use to get there. If you have ideas, suggestions, or questions for us about this or whatever else, please, drop us a line.
Today’s inaugural OTRA post will look at our one of our favorite and most-used forms of transportation: The road bike. There’s nothing better than knocking down the miles on a perfectly broken-in Brooks saddle, working up a sweat on the climbs and catching a thrill on the descents. And San Francisco is a great town for medium-length rides, and longer ones that cross the Golden Gate or dip down into the Peninsula. My, but you work up an appetite, though! Let’s examine a few spots that make for excellent pit stops on that ride:
• The Beach Chalet is a no-brainer for cyclists. Casual but good, with a great view, it has plenty of beer and hearty food for an end destination, and is perfectly situated for a mid-way break if you’re doing, say, a loop around the city or maybe cutting through the park. They’ll let you wear your spandex in there, and they have racks out front.
• On the other side of town, Red’s Java House, on the Embarcadero, can be a destination or a starting point (or both!). It serves big, cheap breakfasts and coffee, as well as beers and burgers on an open patio right on Pier 30. It’s pretty close to the Bike Hut, ferries, and BART, which makes it a good meeting point.
• Our rides have been known to take us pretty far south, sometimes over into Daly City and down the Peninsula, but other times cutting up Sloat Boulevard from Great Highway, and over Monterey. Time was, we’d grab a corndog or basket of fries at the Doggie Carousel Diner, and just bear with the cramps on the way home, but that gem has gone the way of the dodo, so these days it’s all about Java Beach, where you get sandwiches and coffee and other non-deep-fried things.
[Photo: distinj/flickr]
