Dialing in Alaska from Outer Sunset. Jan 10 - April 5, 2017.

Ocean Beach, a quick scoot from my SF spring home.

Alaska was in my sights, but it wouldn't be ridable for months yet.

On Jan 10, 2017 I landed in San Francisco from Hong Kong, solo again after a whirlwind month traveling with Fred. The weariness of jetlag shared space with the ache of separation, while gale force wind and driving rain rattled the panes of my aunt's home. Of course I'd landed during one of the many storms that season that would eventually collapse Californian spillways and put an end to their five year drought. Normally, I poke fun of what California deems 'weather' but as I hiked to the grocery store, flimsy umbrella held in front of me against a wet, windy protest, I allowed that this was indeed serious. Every few steps a gust snatched the whole thing and flipped it backwards, and as I blinked away raindrops I noticed two spokes were already broken.

What the fuck am I doing here?

Last year, from the comfort of Fred's home, it seemed a grand idea to put Alaska on my agenda. The month of May would be the earliest I could arrive, so I'd designated the months beforehand to San Francisco, one of my favorite cities. It made sense; my bike was already stored there, I had a place to stay, I could get some jiu-jitsu in, and it was generally temperate enough to ride, allowing me to stay sane and generate some income to stay afloat until the north thawed out.

I just hadn't expected it to start out so... cold, wet, hungry, and alone.

Anyway. The plan?

Serenity is well adapted for courier service.

Introducing Serenity Delivery, joining the Postmates fleet. While other parts of North America were suffering through varying degree of tundra, the climate on the coast (when it wasn't experiencing record breaking rain) was quite tolerable and even pleasant. The 'dash' – as an energetic bicycle courier referred to it – brought me to corners of the city I'd never visited, and fit around my jiu-jitsu schedule. I already had plenty of luggage space, and California is the only state that allows lane sharing, which makes scooting around the city a joy.

Not a bubble was lost.

I'd arranged to stay at the house my aunt inherited from her late father (much gratitude!). It currently sat empty in the sense that it was unoccupied by humans, but thoroughly populated by several generations of audio equipment, floor to ceiling drawers of cassette tapes, two dozen non-operational DVD players, nests of snaking extension cords just itching to catch fire, at least one drawer full of plastic bags, and... actually a lovely garden in the back. I was borrowing a house with a past life, a sanctuary of a 90's era Chinese-American childhood that I never had. The walls were pastel, the doorways rounded, and the floor was carpeted. While making curry, I found 7 can openers in the kitchen drawers, about 0 of which I felt were food safe. Ironically, I couldn't find any chopsticks.

No matter, any number of shops in the Sunset district would carry them, and everything else under the sun, packed floor to ceiling at low prices. This and the discovery of Kevin's Noodle House (Moose's favorite pho spot!), and I was all too easily enamored by the neighborhood.

Distracted in Sunset district shops. Buy it all!

Vespa headlight grill?

Joined these awesome women for the Women's March. Thanks for the photo, Miki!

Umbrellas and pink.

Normally I hate milling around Market Street, but normally I remain apolitical.

Crossing 60k on a breakfast run with Pete.

My Postmates career proved short-lived though. In a lucky (and unlucky) break, Scuderia was short an employee due to a collarbone fracture. I already haunted the shop and the guys all knew I would be leaving for Alaska in 8-ish weeks, which happened to coincide with the healing time for a collarbone. Thus, I was hired to push some bikes around!

I got to do fun stuff like this!

Secretly, I learned to look forward to rainy days at the shop, because it meant I got to work on my own bike.

I never want to have to change a tubeless tire without this machine again.

It'd been 10 years since I held down a job with regular hours (I had to count, I can't believe I've been my own boss for that long). I feared for the worst, but Scuderia turned out to be a great place to learn about working in a shop, as well as pick up mechanical tips. My workdays began to take on regular rhythm – pack lunch to save money, ride to work, drink coffee/tea, ride back, change into gi and go to the late night Jitsu classes. On Wednesday nights, I joined Moose and Joe to go bouldering. All of it happened, rain or shine. Weeks took on a predictable and not altogether unpleasant shape. I only wished I could attend those morning Jitsu classes, regular job hours hogged an inconsiderately huge portion of the day. Aside from that I could coast like this for a while...

At the shop one day, a video was playing in the showroom of a group of scooter riders, gloriously gliding along a richly forested mountainside somewhere in Europe. The sun sparkled off the bikes as the camera tracked them, and the riders, presumably friends, stopped and removed their helmets to take in the scenery.

I wondered then, how many people stared at such videos from the seat of a secure job – the kind with regular hours, benefits, an upward trajectory – and longed for the feelings depicted in that video. How many hours are lost to longing, versus how many hours spent living. Or is it enough to shoehorn those feelings into a weekend, maybe a couple weeks every few years? Would it be easy for me to slip into a 'regular' job again, as long as I had a date picked out to leave it? For a couple months, I looked in from the other side.

Rebranding my new helmet. Yay for buying at cost.

Wednesday night became a regular climbing night with these two, with subsequent feast.

Oh, California.

Sunday became group ride day.

Postmods Valentine's Day group ride...Till Death Do Us Part, a cemetery tour (cackle).

Surprise birthday cake for Postmods founder and chief, Pete!

Fun warmups at Charles Gracie.

Fred had flowers delivered on Valentine's Day. Aww.

Now, how do I get them back to the house.

SF Burger Posse, special guest and fellow BGL client, Caroline!

Still making pickups, but for Scuderia now. Freshly re-upholstered BMW seat.

KTMbrella for runs on foot. Samovar Tea Bar in the Mission smells so lovely.

After hours, I set up time to work on my own bike. And help this guy with his tranny.
Thanks to Matt for loaning me specialized tools! I was exceptionally anxious about this job, but it went smoothly.
Check out what fell out of my front fork in my gear talk post.

Late night at Scuderia.

At Peoples Barber, you can sip on bourbon while waiting for your haircut. Oh, SF.

Interlude for a weekend in Vegas for the High Rollers Rally.

Due to work constraints, I couldn't justify riding to the Las Vegas rally... so weird! Fred and I flew in from separate edges of the continent, and rented a Triumph. This better not become a habit.

Seven Magic Mountains art installation. These giant fluorescent paperweights throw color on everything.

I spy a Fred!

Show and shine.

GL turn signals, so pretty, so fragile.

The rare helmet fruit blooms in clusters at the base of rental Triumphs.

Tamales at Broadacres Marketplace, a cure all.

I knew I should have gone right down to metal on mine.

Back at the Sunset shops, must refrain from buying all the Engrish things.

Sometimes you just need a Mission burrito and some reading at Scuderia.

Smile House Cafe has Laksa noodle! I love the Sunset neighborhood...

Rainy day scoot is ready for massage?

The mouse and the motorcycle.

Another quiet day.

Upside down, is says GOGOG.

Oliver tolerates the new lounge at Scuderia.

Sweet lofts above the shop.

Moose, Lucy, and I joined Pete for a scooter dropoff at Morgan Territory Road.
The recent rains caused mudslides, isolating communities along quiet country roads like this.

But with some local pointers, scooters can pick their way through.

Got some city riding in with jitsu friend, Haley, on his Ninja 250.

Blue scoot peeks through the barrier at Ocean Beach.

Grillin' on the beach, thanks for organizing, jitsu Josh!

Happy birthday, Matheus! The hardest part about leaving Sunset won't be leaving the food, or shops full of trinkets.
It will be saying farewell to the family I made at Charles Gracie. Thank you guys.

A visit to Bagel's home in Santa Cruz. I want to cut custom vents into my case now.

Bagel walks Moose through a rear tire change.

Bagel invited me to be on the Motorcycle and Misfits podcast, out of Re-Cycle Garage! You can listen to it here.

Re-Cycle Garage is a non-profit co-op garage where you can learn to work on your bike.

It was fun to poke around the garage and meet Emma, Liza (briefly), and everyone!

I enjoyed the decor. I don't know if Moose realized what he was sitting under.

(snicker)

I was very nervous. To be honest, as of writing this post I still haven't listened to the episode.

Moose works in the food industry, so I was spoiled for food even at home.

St Patrick's Day cluster at Scuderia.

Making some mock-ups for my new crash bars.

Group ride to Point Montara Lighthouse.

Come ON, California, this is unreal.

Not even fair.

Point Montara Lighthouse has a hostel, for future reference.

It's views like this that make me think of that Black Mirror episode, and how San Junipero was such a perfect amalgamation of the best parts of California.

Moose is outdoing himself in the kitchen yet again.

Colin was in town from Boston for an afternoon! I played tour guide with this giant on the back of my bike.

We watched the sun set from one of my favorite spots, the Sutro Baths.

More city sightseeing, Haley and I were on the hunt for bison in Golden Gate Park.

250s team up. I swear he did this pose on his own.

Remember Gina?

Two years ago, when both of Pete's wrists were broken, I stood in for his arms and legs for Gina's scooter riding lesson. Fast forward to 2017, and Gina is 2 motorcycles in and planning a cross country trip on her Bonneville T120! You can follow her trip on Instagram. We planned to ride south along the coast together for a day, as a send off – how cool, I get to send someone off instead of being the one leaving!

Verna and I had a quick Presidio scoot.

It looks like our scooters are on a date.

The elusive Verna.

Weekends at Joe's are spent mastering corn hole technique.

Scooted to South Bay to meet family for Grave Sweeping.
Among the graves visited was my grand uncle's, who's home I was staying in. I said an extra thank you.

My parents were in town for Grave Sweeping. Hi, Mom!

Hi, Dad! It occurred to me my parents have never seen the bike in person.

Often I'm asked, "What do your parents think about your trip?" My gut reaction is to tell them to ask my parents themselves next time they see them, because I'm not the authority on that. I don't know what the questioner wishes to hear; that they support me even if they don't understand, or that they're concerned in the way parents are obliged to worry about their offspring? Until this April, my parents had never even seen my Vespa in person. Perhaps it spared them some worry when it was merely an abstraction, one of many inscrutable enterprises that Steph, the artist one, engaged in on the other side of the world. To confront them with the object that altered the course of my life so much (for the odder, but better!) felt unreal. It was more awkward than introducing a boyfriend, and for a while they stood about 6 feet back. There's a particularly Chinese brand of guilt that comes from making parents worry, and even my hyphenated American identity cannot escape it.

I'm thankful for their support, but I'm also thankful for the space and independence they gave both my sister and I. It's hard enough to leave loved ones, if I had to ride away from my parents as well all the time, I don't know if I could have embarked on any ambitious overland journeys.

...Nah, I probably would've managed.

Moose is down for a Rick & Morty marathon, with cheese and salami and wine.

Helping Gene, my sister's friend, settle into his new home city by finding oyster happy hours.

Packing for bear test ride.

Finally, my last day of work at Scuderia was behind me, my boxes were shipped off, and the house was cleaned up. All my eggs were in a row, or were those ducks in one basket? Idioms are better scrambled. All my eggs were in one Vespa basket-case, time to get cracking and make an omelet! Let's get to the good stuff.