Last night we made and then feasted on lots of veggie food: vegi chicken ham soup (above), fried potstickers, and 'Dragon Sauce' with brown rice and japanese sweet potatoes, avocadoes, kale and red pepper. Pure health food before the bike race today :) The fixins came from the grocery at 8th and International in Oakland and the Saturday farmer's market in Berkeley.

Today I finally went to my first Alleycat - here's my crew beforehand (Becca, Sam and Alicia). I was stoked that this race was a food-drive; I definitely prefer to mix goodwill into hedonistic fun when possible. We pedaled from the Embarcadero up Nob Hill down to Bernal Heights and all over in-between for four hours stopping at certain grocery store 'checkpoints' in the city buying donatable food at each one out of our own pockets.

The weather was absolutely perfect! Crisp and cool and clear. By the end, our bags were stuffed with Jiffy baking mix, canned goods, pasta, rice, beans, mac and cheese, etc...and we lugged it to the final stop which, conveniently, was a bar.

Although we didn't end up winning the competetion to bring the most food to the finish line, we did manage to fill up three garbage bags full of food amongst the four of us. Yay, Riders!