On Bicycles, and.... what else is there?

I've done my friend Murphy's "San Mateo Wheelman club ride" each of the three times he's led it. A group of friends get together, ride at a liesurely pace to somewhere, then ride back to the city via public transportation. Or something like that. Anyway, with my focus on running right now, and not very good at deviating from a focus, I volunteered this year, because his ride is such fantastic, relaxed fun that I felt important to support it even if I wasn't going to participate as a rider. This year's route started in San Francisco and worked its way in a dirty, indirect manner to the Ibis Cycles headquarters in Santa Cruz. Consistent with the leasurely, informal nature of the ride, the route was chosen only the day before. It's always exciting to see where Murphy's going to send his friends. After a flurry of reorganization related to who had a car and who was was able to drive a car, I was assigned to checkpoint 2, a new parking lot (empty in...