made it! my first century ride! 110 miles from oakland to sacramento. left around 6ish, arrived at capitol lawn 15:30. about 9 hours.

allayed all my fears, almost. Got up early, got up the berkeley hills, pushed myself up pigfarm hill on my lowest gear, and the rest wasn’t too bad, except the heat gave me hives on the inside of my elbows. now that I’ve cooled down they’re mostly gone, though.

yee~ not going up any more hills for a while. switching back to my fixie—on the flatlands, yeah! ahah

what i am doing right now. ride for a reason. oakland—sacramento. my first century ride.

I went all the way up that! can’t even see the top from here—it gets a bit steeper, but I did it on my second lowest gear. Trestle Glen rd. in oakland/piedmont.

on the way to this area though, I was waiting at the red light on park blvd across from oakland high, and a guy behind me honks at me. ughh wtf, I just wave back without looking. Then he passes me at the intersection after the green, and then hogs the right side of the lane,

so I bike to the left of him since I’m going straight. and he yells at me “you gon’ get run over!” and gestures at me that I should be on the right side or the sidewalk or something. managed to yell back “you’re taking my space!” before he drove off.

some old black guy in an old big white pick-up truck with a disabled license plate. army veteran?

ughh whatever. can’t wait for that area to have bike lanes and intersection markings. I hate stupid old “men” who make girls almost wanna cry.

(Source: Flickr / dianneyee)

so that’s the route of the hill training ride (my first hill ride!) i did sunday morning.

shiiiit i went over the hills to moraga and orinda! on my bike!! fuhhhh

and on my vintage road bike, too! a couple people kept saying i should get a lighter bike with more gears.. yeah yeah whatever—i did it!

my first time on those roads, as well. there’s really no reason to ever go up the hills, and even less to go to orinda. that’s where rich white people live. and i’m not a “weekend warrior” all kitted out on a carbon fiber bike going out on 90mile rides down the coast or over the hills every weekend just for kicks.

went on and completed my first hill climbing ride. (40 miles)

at the first rest stop after the first set of hills, the ride coordinator guy tried to talk me down to taking a shortcut and then taking the BART back home. and that i should probably do the 67 mile ride on saturday instead of the 100 so i can skip the hills.

wtf??! you don’t know me.

there was another girl on the ride. she told me people always underestimate her, too, because she’s small. (around my height, maybe a tiny bit taller). she added that, If i were a guy, with a carbon fiber bike, he wouldn’t have said that to me.

ended up taking the long way, then riding past BART, and back up over the hill and finishing the ride with the intended route.

yeah. fuck yeah

later the guy apologized for underestimating me. said If i just get a wider gear range I’ll be all over the place.

thanx maaaang but i’m not about to buy a $1000 bike within the next five days.

ughhh middle-aged white men. and it does suck to be a young, small, asian girl. at least better than being overestimated?

(photo above: no one i know; people from other rides)

I’m all signed up for my first century ride next saturday (11.05)! from Oakland to Sacramento. protesting at the state capitol against funding cuts for california public schools. 

please make a donation to support oakland public schools! especially if you’ve attended (or are attending) a CA public school, this is a chance to give back.
i was going to suggest $5 if you’re a student, and $10+ if you’re working. however, on the website, the fixed donation is $25. so if you would like to donate more or less than that amount, you can paypal me at dt8k[dot].yee(at)gmail[dot]com and i’ll input that through my account. Thanks!

As of this morning, together we had raised about $30,000, which is a great start. To get to our goal of $80,000 though, we need more people to be involved and everyone to push a little harder. Ride for a Reason is the largest single fundraiser for Oakland International and Emerson Elementary. It’s also an important fundraiser at Oakland Tech [High School] and Claremont [Middle]. More than 50% of the students at each of the schools that are beneficiaries qualify for free or reduced price lunches. Our efforts are important to ensure that all of these students have access to high quality enrichment programs. Keep pushing. Working together we can make a difference.

ripped my shorts today on the way to work. don’t know why this hasn’t happened earlier, or why it happened at all since I bike nearly every day to work. my bike seat has never snagged my pants before today.

patch or new pair of jeanshorts? or get some skinny guy’s used selvedge jeans and cut them?