World Cup Fever

I played soccer beginning in the 2nd grade and played 4 years of varsity high school "futbol." I never did, however, become much of a fan of pro or World Cup futbol. Nevertheless I was sporting my yellow #9 Ronaldo Brasil jersey for my Wednesday weekly bike commute. My parents got it for me when they vacationed in Brasil a few years ago.

It actually is pretty good as a cycling jersey since it is close, if not identical, in hue to the hi-viz yellow many cyclists wear, anyway. This was not the first time I've ever worn the Brasil jersey for my bike commute. Even though I certainly chose to wear it consciously knowing the World Cup was underway, I didn't think much about it once I had it on.

So there I was not even a couple minutes into my commute and I encountered a Latino guy riding toward me on the sidewalk. I looked in his direction 1) because I had just seen another cyclist pulled over on the sidewalk changing his tire, and 2) because he was a "sidewalk salmon," a common variety of the bike salmon. The guy shot me a blank look and then yelled something unintelligible at me with, oddly, still no change in his expression. I was perplexed until my brain reprocessed what it had heard. I still don't know exactly what he said, but it definitely had "Brasil" in the middle. I then took a look down at my chest. Duh.

Brasil was still in the tournament when this happened. As you may know, in the time it took me to write this post, Brasil has since lost to the Netherlands in the quarterfinals.

More on Kearny Villa bike lane

For anyone interested, I've got some tidbits to share about the Kearny Villa Rd bike lane repaving...

I was back on schedule with the bike commute this past Wednesday. It was my first day riding on the newly paved bike lane. What a difference!

The repaving begins south of Miramar Rd, right where Kearny Villa Rd starts to straighten out. The southbound side from here to Miramar Way was by far the stretch in the worst condition. At the time it looked like they had just begun to mark the lane for re-striping (or maybe painting the full lane?). On Friday I drove up & down and noticed they had marked all the southbound side and I saw a crew out in the process of marking the northbound side.

Ahh, fresh asphalt!

The bike lane was repaved all the way down to Harris Plant Rd on both the southbound and northbound sides of Kearny Villa Road. It was nice to see that the City did a complete job and didn't just half-ass only repave the really bad portions of the bike lane, as was the consensus opinion after the City did the initial patching to the cracks north of Miramar Way earlier this year.

One more interesting note is that they actually repaved the southbound side all the way through to the SR-163 entrance/Harris Plant Rd merge. For those not familiar, this is not currently the official bike lane, though I believe it was in the past. The current bike lane takes you up the Harris Plant Rd exit and back down to re-merge back to Kearny Villa Rd. I actually find this to be more dangerous, so I just take the straight ahead route, which is why I was pleased to find that section repaved, too. However when I drove by, that section was not marked for striping/painting. Oh, well.

Bike Lane Repaved!

I was out of town this week on vacation and thus missed my bike commute. I did ride last week and there was no indication at the time of the work that would come to pass, though the City had stated previously that the bike lane on Kearny Villa Road was to be repaved in June. I was pleased to see this post in Bike San Diego about the freshly repaved bike lane. From the looks of things, it appears that they still need to go back and re-stripe the lane. There was some mention in the past on the SDBikeCommuter forum of the possibility that the new bike lane would get painted, too. I guess time will tell if that indeed will become a reality, but I am eager to get back on Kearny Villa to check out the bike lane for myself.

Stop and Smell the Flowers

This is what I should have done today. Or at the very least, stopped to take a picture.

I was riding on my way home this Wednesday afternoon and glanced to the side of the road expecting to see the dry brush that is typical of this area I ride through or just some weeds. Instead I was greeted with some bright mats of color: yellow, purple, red. I noticed what appeared to be some smaller variety of sunflower that seemed oddly out of place (small in flower diameter, that is, though the stalks were tall). I thought about stopping and turning back to get a picture with my iPhone, but kept going. The further I got the more I lamented not stopping. I sought out more of the sunflower-y plants I saw, but there were no more to be seen.

Hopefully the flowers will still be there the next time I ride by that spot, and then I will stop and take a couple snaps.