Ride Recap: Bay Vistas and Lunch at Tabla

It’s a sign of the times: not only do we post rides at the last minute but folks send their RSVPs at late as possible too. Two days before our Social A Ride Roger and I thought we were going to be doing it alone. By Saturday morning there were eight of us! Rarely do I not produce a cue sheet, but this ride, which takes in the multi-use paths along the Bay through San Mateo County, is a convoluted mess that would cause headaches if you really tried to do it by cues. So I skipped it. It’s a social ride anyway so I figured we would stay together. Perhaps that was a mixed blessing because my navigation was rather wonky.  The group might have done better if they had followed cue sheets rather than my confused leadership. Roger and I hadn’t ridden the route in a year plus I had altered it to include more paths in Foster City. To add insult to injury I was using a Garmin Edge 1000, which I already knew was prone to navigational mishaps (the topic for a future long blog posting), and mid-ride it experienced—mirabile visu!—a major meltdown that had me nervous for the rest of the trip. Thankfully Roger was using an older Garmin 800, which is near bombproof, and between memory and frequent consultation we were able to complete the ride with only slight delay. Mea culpa! Next time I’ll prepare better.

We had four new club members join the ride—Frank, Stephen, Greg, and a returning former member, Bill—in addition to Mr. Mileage (David Sexton), Roger, me, and Omar. The weather was near-perfect with no wind, low 80s, and abundant sunshine. Highlights included the wind sculptures at Seal Point, Larry Ellison’s America’s Cup winning sailboat in the Oracle lagoon, and an intimate tour of Foster City architecture. Better see it now before global warming has it under the Bay (just as it was before 1960). Of course the real highlight was lunch. This time we partook of a nondescript looking Indian restaurant, Tabla, which serves south Indian food, i.e. spicy. The place was full of South Asians so we sensed we were in the right place. Boy, was it good. The service was spotty—Greg and Stephen finally got their lunch—but the kitchen knew what it was doing. This was probably the first Indian restaurant in the Bay Area we had eaten at where the food arrived spicy, i.e. we didn’t have to request that it be made hot. Lord knows what would happen if you asked for it Indian-hot—probably we’d become flamethrowers. On a whim I ordered medu vada, which was described as an Indian donut. Yes, it was shaped like a donut and it was deep fried but that was the end of the resemblance. Made from ground lentils it was distinctly savory rather than sweet.

After lunch we rolled back to Millbrae BART. Frank commented that after all that hot food cycling was difficult. Well, I was definitely needing a nap!

Next month we’re off to the Napa valley to ride the Silverado Trail and slobber down some delicious panini at Sogni di Dolci in St. Helena and some baked goods from Bouchon Bakery. See you there!