Alright, so they’re not trying to oust that very favorite cafe that exists only in your imagination. But rather, Actual Cafe promises that they’re “not just another wi-fi shack.” I’m totally on board with this idea, because my favorite thing to do in a cafe is to chat with a friend (or a few friends). But think about how many times you’ve gone to a cafe to see everyone with faces buried in laptops, especially at the chain variety of cafe (think Starbucks, Peet’s). It’d be great if people could interact, and not just via social networking platforms.

Actual Cafe provides a place for people to really get together and connect. Sure, there were a few loners on laptops, but they’ll find that it’s no quiet place to work. While there are a couple booths, most of the seating is either at a long bar, or a series of tables that have been pushed together into one long table. You’re sitting right next to whomever else is there, and you’re bound to have to talk at some point. Plus, there’s a high likelihood that you can talk to each other about bikes. That’s because many of the patrons are also cyclists. The cycling community is drawn to Actual Cafe because they have this beautiful indoor bike parking on the wall. You can just see my yellow Colnago in the picture (the second bike from the right).  I have to apologize for the photo quality. My camera was out of commission, so I used my phone.

Anyway, Actual Cafe also has a separate bike entrance that goes right to the indoor bike parking. The bikes are protected from wayward chairs and such by a metal railing. It’s really quite wonderful for the coffee drinking cyclist. The prices weren’t cheap, but the vibe was good, the indoor bike parking amazing, and the food quite tasty.

Actual Cafe also has rotating art exhibits on the wall, and a a bike set up on a trainer with a generator hub that will play a movie for you while you pedal. It’s a pretty cute little hang out spot, and it’s locally owned, so I feel good about that. I may even try to do some of my blogging there–but to avoid being one of those laptop people, I’ll probably try to talk to those sitting around me. Maybe I’ll see you there….

It’s been a wild year for me–driving 2000 miles from Wisconsin to California, then flying back to Wisconsin to get Orion and driving the 2000 miles again (I should probably buy some carbon offsets for this year, huh?).

For me + cycling, it’s been a wild year, too. Some achievements:

• mastered bigger hills here in California than even exist in Wisconsin
• entered a mountain bike race–something I’d been promising myself I’d do again for the past few years
• shed a few pounds (like 20), though I put a good chunk of it back on over the holidays–less weight means faster climbing!
• started working with a personal trainer, who has made me able to endure more pain than I thought possible, which has pushed me to become a better cyclist simply because my power has increased so much.

But of course, there have been some not-so-great cycling moments this year too:

• I planned to ride my bike to BART most days, but have failed. I usually take a bus or occasionally walk, though it’s only a mile.
• I haven’t been on a road ride in over a month, I think. Fail.
• The mountain bike race was hard. Too hard. I realized my skills (and bravery) in technical situations are severely lacking.
• That weight I lost? It’s not so good that I put half of it back on.
• I haven’t increased my stamina much. I have more power, and can get up hills better, but haven’t added any distance to my rides. I’m still happy at around 25 miles–depending on the terrain, of course. 25 miles of straight up is not my cup of tea.

The time is ripe for making New Year’s Resolutions, so why not some that are cycling related? And everyone recommends making your resolutions public–it will help you follow through. So here’s my plan for 2010:

• Trainer riding in the morning! I already run with a friend in the morning a couple days a week, and I really enjoy it. But the other days I plan to do some time on the trainer. Starting with just 45 minutes or so, and working up to more. The “working up to more” part is less about stamina, and more about having to wake up that much earlier.
• I’m going to ride my bike to the very last BART stop before the hills that separate me from work. It’s only a mile to the closest BART stop to me, but it’s a couple more to the next stop. I can’t commit to riding up and over the hills every day, but I can at least ride up to the hills before I get on the train.
• Mountain biking! I desperately want to be good at this, so I need to make an effort to hit the trails. At least once every other week to start, and hopefully once a week in the summer. I want to tackle that Lake Sonoma race again next year, and do well.
• Shed more pounds. So stereotypical, right? But it will make me a better, faster cyclist. And I won’t be embarrassed to post pictures of me cycling on here once I lose my gut!
• Figure out how to make my bulleted text the same size font as the rest of my posts. This is unrelated to cycling, other than with respect to the fact that this is a cycling blog.

What are your plans for this new year of cycling? Any big changes you’d like to make?

If you need some tips on how to keep your resolutions, check out the links below. I find most of the advice given on these blogs to be good advice, and they’re full of insightful information the rest of the year, too:

The Definitive Guide to Sticking to Your New Year’s Resolutions
from Zen Habits, by Leo Babauta

More Tips About Making and Keeping New Year’s Resolutions Than You Could Want
from The Happiness Project, by Gretchen Rubin

**side note: Gretchen Rubin is one of my very favorite bloggers, and her new book, also called The Happiness Project, just hit stores this week.

Congratulations, Grechen!

Keep it in mind if you need some reading for the upcoming three-day weekend!

**Happy New Year image courtesy of: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sally_12/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

The paths will link parts of town that cyclists could previously only get to by riding on bumpy roads in need of repair that are also heavily used by motor vehicle traffic.

I’m hoping Emeryville will catch on, and make more of an effort to link itself to the Berkeley paths so I can use these new routes!

You can read more about the details of the expansion in the article from today’s Contra Costa Times.

photo courtesy of: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nafmo/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

The Hundreds is one of these projects. It’s a simple idea: 100 days to meet and write about 100 cyclists, each in 100 words. The 100 words aren’t about the bike, either. It’s not about who has the latest technology, or the coolest fixie. It’s about the person on the bike. What a great way to showcase the variety of people who ride! The commuters, the racers, the hipster fixies, the Dutch-esque city bikers, the mountain bikers….the list goes on, and they’re all captured on The Hundreds.

Blake Kasemeir does a great job getting the essence of a person on a bike into 100 words. I’d love to see this project turned into a book–the photos are sometimes a little grainy, but that lends to the realism of them–these cyclists are just like the rest of us, they’re real people. Yet while the photos are very real, the sepia tone makes the subjects seem as though they are special–somehow apart from the rest of us, because the colors of their world don’t match with the colors of our “real” world. In short, he conveys that each of these people is an individual. Each one of them is unique and special, each has a unique bike, and a unique story. Yet they’re just like us. Very cool.

I know if each of these 100 people was given a page in a book, I’d have great Christmas presents for many of the cyclists on my list this holiday season. Plus, you might think that Blake would be bored after completing his 100 cyclist project. What to do now, besides work on getting a book published, right?

Wrong.

It seems that Blake has started a new project, called Know Good Deed. He’s only on deed number two, but it looks like he’s doing something similar to The Hundreds. He’s documenting the good deeds that go on out there in the world. Looks like something worth keeping an eye on–though I’m still holding out hope for a book of The Hundreds.