OnABike With The Dead

Aug 10, 2025

San Francisco was abuzz last week with talk of the Grateful Dead. “That man Jesse Garcia and his band the Grateful Dead from the 50s are closing down Haight Street this weekend” said a guy on the bus as we barreled through the Tenderloin.

Close enough.

This year is the 60th Anniversary of the Grateful Dead, and last weekend Golden Gate Park was host to a huge, three day festival featuring the Dead and Company. The Park and the Dead have a long and storied history together, including several groundbreaking concerts. Jerry Garcia found constant inspiration from it, saying that the park “hangs seamlessly from one thing to another. It’s just a beautiful work: to walk from one end of Golden Gate Park to another, you go through all these different worlds … It’s the work of an artist.” I’ve never really connected to his music, but that quote resonates deeply with me.

Usually I try to avoid giant events in this city, but I had to go through Golden Gate Park last Sunday to get to a gig for my band. Knowing that driving would be a nightmare, I hopped on my bike.

The first indication that The Dead were in town were the cars on Fell Street. Usually when I bike down Fell along the Panhandle, there’s a mix of Honda Civics and Priuses and the occasional Tesla parked along the bike lane. But on Sunday, it was all conversion vans and VW busses and covered pickup trucks with mattresses in the back. People (and their dogs) splayed out on the grass of the Panhandle - a tie-dye riot of color.

As I biked into Golden Gate Park, I noticed new art on JFK Promenade. The aggressively heteronormative dog and bunny statues were joined by stacks of tires and a weird hubcap display that, I learned a few days later, lights up at night.

The park was busy, but normal busy for a Sunday. As I biked deeper into the Park, things started to get more lively; eventually I came to a stretch of road with a long line of vendor tents on it. The crowds of people inspecting the wares were more plainly dressed than I expected. Shockingly, I didn’t even smell weed. Had all the Grateful Dead’s fans turned into nice couples with mortgages and Roth IRAs? The price for the three day concert started at over $600, so maybe the demographics made sense…

As soon as I hit Transverse Drive, the road was blocked off for the festival, so I had to turn and make my way out of the park. I bike this little stretch of road weekly on my way to band rehearsal, and my favorite bit is coming off the road and through a little tunnel of trees and plants, emerging out of the park next to a rather spectacular fuzzy flowered tree called Showy Honey-Myrtle. Showy indeed!

I biked up a small hill to the bike lane on Kirkham Avenue and started to feel quite hot. I stopped to peel off my flannel shirt and jackets. I don’t think I’ve ever had to take off layers before while biking in the Sunset — it was an especially glorious day. Clad only in a t-shirt, I flew down Kirkham, glad that after the doom and gloom of June and July, we are enjoying an unabashedly glorious August. I turned left just past Sunset Boulevard (not the famous one) which is a busy road fronted by beautiful stretches of gardens and trees, and rolled up to our gig at the Farmers Market. Usually we have to weigh our stands down and employ all sorts of devices to keep our music from flying away, but it was remarkably calm — I think only one person lost their music to the wind, a true miracle this close to the ocean.

The Sunset Community Band after our gig at the farmers market

After the gig, Andy and our friend Peter decided to head towards the ocean for a beer. Peter and Andy rented electric bikes from a nearby Lyft stand. It was Peter’s first time on an e-bike; I’m an e-bike evangelist and I think I’ve got another convert.

The sky was a perfect blue, not a cloud in sight. We flew downhill, the ocean spread out before us. It felt close enough to touch. One of those spectacular days that make you forget the gray and fog, that make you feel so unbelievably lucky to live in such an astounding place.