This post, we’re bringing you an overview on one of the best parts about cycling: riding with other people! We dive into: preparing for your first group ride, finding other cycling communities, and group riding in San Francisco for our Bay Area readers.

What to know before going to your first group ride:

Terminology

Typically, if you’re biking with an organized group (i.e. a club, association, or team), the ride leader should include a a description of the route and what to expect.

Cycling can feel like it has its own language, but the key terms to look out for include drop (everyone goes at their own pace, groups tend to form, no one is obligated to wait for the slowest person, no regroup points along the route) or no-drop (no one rides alone, i.e. someone will always hang with the back of the pack or make dedicated efforts to regroup the peloton). One cycling club Megha rides with in the city, Fat Cake, has a cheeky term for one of their weekly group rides – dropped but not forgotten, meaning that people will wait at the top of climbs to regroup before continuing on the route.

Group ride etiquette

Global Cycling Network has a few good videos on group ride etiquette (see here and here) – which you should check out before joining your first group ride. Good group ride etiquette isn’t about manners. It’s about safety and predictability when riding with other people. Other riders create additional variables, and much like driving, sometimes another rider’s intentional or unintentional actions become your problem as well.

Hand signals are a big component of this; signaling to other riders you may be slowing, indicating an obstruction or hole in the road, or calling out a stop. Oftentimes when you’re riding in a pack, you can end up being close to the rider ahead of you, which means you’re not able to see what’s in front of you. This is why it’s important for the front of the pack (and any rider) to call out things on the road as they see them, so those behind can safely respond.

Group ride culture generally varies between rides and clubs; when Megha raced on a team, all group rides were very formally treated – they had expectations on average speed, paceline formation, and water stops.

But with range comes opportunity! Do some research and reach out to group ride leaders over email, Instagram, or Strava to find the right fit for you. Or if you have a friend or acquaintance who is more experienced in cycling and group rides, don’t be afraid to ask if they’d join you on your first group outing to help soften any nerves (social or cycling!).

What to bring or pack

Cyclists are expected to be self-sufficient when joining a group ride, so if you have a mechanical issue, you’re expected to be able to fix it by yourself or be able to get yourself home (who here has not called a partner for an unexpected pickup!).

That means that even if a ride is labeled “no-drop”, you may end up alone on the side of the road if you get a flat. It’s important to bring essential tools with you, not just on a solo ride, but to every group ride, as well. We recommend bringing the following tools, at minimum – most of this can be neatly stowed away in a saddle bag. Outer Shell’s bags come in nice colorways and are durable.

Essential cycling tools:

• Multi-tool

• Tire levers (Pedro’s are popular)

• Extra tube (if your tires have tubes)

• Hand pump or CO2 cartridge to inflate your tires

• Dynaplugs (recommended for tubeless tires)

General bike maintenance and bike mechanics are learned skills – and even the most experienced cyclists can get stumped by a blown-out tire in the middle of a ride. Research is helpful, but practice is the real game-changer when it comes to these skills. Take some time inspecting and maintaining your bike at home, so that you feel confident when – not if, when – something happens on a ride. Park Tool’s YouTube channel is an excellent resource for all sorts of bike maintenance.

If you have questions about bike tools and maintenance for group rides, leave a comment and holler at us to be included in next week’s Q&A roundup.

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Get comfortable on your bike, then start to ride with bigger groups

First, get comfortable riding your bike and make sure you get reps within a small group of people. (Some of your most fun cycling can happen with smaller groups of friends or friends of friends!) Once you feel more confident, look for group rides labeled “no-drop” or beginner-friendly. Especially if you live somewhere that is rife with cyclists and you are trying to get integrated, a lot of the local triathlon and cycling clubs may have options for beginners or things to be more accessible. This is a great way to not only build your confidence on the road, but also meet more riding buddies.

If you’re a femme or non-binary cyclist, we also recommend specifically looking for clubs that are committed to being accessible in their mission, as well as female-focused rides hosted by local clubs and bike shops. For example, Fat Cake Club hosts a weekly femme, trans, women, and non-binary ride (FTWNB) that is both an excellent starting point for beginner riders, as well as a community to keep coming back to.

These types of rides and organizations tend to be more welcoming and structured, so it’s less intimidating and easier to follow for folks newer to cycling – without compromising on technique, strength, and stoke.

We’re lucky to live in an area with plenty of recreational cycling clubs that organize group rides without focusing on racing. If there aren’t many clubs near you, consider joining a local team instead. When Megha lived in Ann Arbor, she joined the Ann Arbor Velo Club, which hosted several weekly rides. Being on a team was an enjoyable and novel experience – teams often have more consistent and structured training sessions, often flanked by long weekend rides and socials.

Cycling and group rides are an incredible way to make friends wherever you live. Some of the best conversations we’ve had have been over post-ride coffee and pastries, or chowing down at lunch in the middle of a long weekend ride.

One thing to note is that it may take some time for people to warm up. Just like many organized social communities in adulthood, it takes people some time to get to know you, trust you, and understand who you are – so if you’re looking to make friends, it’s helpful to be as consistent as you can with showing up.

If you’re also based in San Francisco, here’s a few local cycling communities that may be the next spot in your cycling journey:

Group rides in San Francisco

• Fat Cake Cycling: Hosts weekly group rides that end at local bakeries. They hold a women’s and non-binary ride on Mondays.

• Rapha: The British cycling brand’s San Francisco clubhouse hosts weekday rides through Marin and occasional longer weekend rides.

• Ornot: This SF-based bike apparel brand hosts multiple group rides weekly, including a women/non-binary ride on Wednesdays.

• 707: Weekly Friday morning ride (departing at 7:07am) through the Marin Headlands.

• Thursdays Cycling Collective: A friendly, faster-paced group that rides through the Marin Headlands every Thursday. Just launched a women’s training ride on Mondays.

• Tribe SF: A queer- and femme-friendly triathlon club. Fill out an interest form to join.

• SF Critical Mass: A leaderless ride held on the last Friday of each month. It’s equal parts protest, group ride, and block party.

• SF Bike Party: A celebratory group ride held on the first Friday of each month.

Any questions?

We hope that Part 1 and Part 2 of our How to Get Into Cycling series have been helpful, informative, and maybe a bit inspiring to get you out and riding.

If you’re coming out of reading these with any questions, let us know! We got some great ones in the comments from Part 1 and anticipate a few more after this drop so we plan on pulling together a little AMA/Q&A piece next.

Don’t hesitate to reach out if something comes to mind… or if you have updates and wins related to getting your cycling journey started. We’d love to hear from you.

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-Megha + Katherine

August marks the Tour de France Femmes (TdFF, the Tour de France for women as part of the UCI Women’s World Tour. There’s never been a better time to become a fan of women’s cycling and to dive into the stories of athletes who will take the Olympic stage in 2028. If you’re looking for a who’s who of the TdFF), Catherine Jones wrote a great guide here.

August is also an ideal time to get into cycling as an athlete too. The late summer days are still generous with daylight, whether you’re an early bird or prefer a ride pre patio cocktails. With the fall shoulder season ahead, beautiful rides await so what better time to get ready than now.

Cycling is something we, and so many love, because it gets you outside with stunning routes, alongside great people, and in ways that can challenge you physically and mentally. It’s a sport that you can love and lean into across a lifetime. A sport you can savor alone and with groups, near home or during travels.

We started to notice anecdotally that many women get into the sport by way of dating (no judgement! Shared hobbies are stellar for relationship happiness!). But in the spirit of Sporty Spice Summer, what better way to get more women into the sport than by demystifying the gear to get started. Because situationships are temporary, but saddle sores are forever.

Why Trust Us

Katherine — I’m someone who loves the sport in ways that outpace my skill. I grew up riding on bike paths around Boston and Cape Cod, which were flat routes ideal for the flat pedals of my Trek hybrid bike (which I continue to ride when I’m visiting family on the east coast. It’s somehow coming up on 20 years old?! Do I now own a “vintage” bike?!).

When I moved to San Francisco, hills took on new meaning and I was a true original in dating a founder x cyclist (thank u next). Much like his soon-to-fail startup, there were unrealized promises, of bike assembly and clipping practice and scenic rides. Post-breakup, a friend’s husband helped me find the Canyon bike I have to this day (lovingly named “Fika” in honor of the Swedish practice of coffee + treat breaks, which is an ideal post-ride routine) and connected me with a stellar bike fitter. Friends hyped me up as I got used to riding alongside cars (SF is MUCH friendlier to cyclists than Boston), had the inevitable falls that come with clipless pedals, and got into chamois and jerseys. Today, I’ve still got a lot of room to upskill on the bike but part of the journey is embracing what types of rides and gear make cycling feel fun.

Megha — Funnily enough, signing up for a marathon led me to my bike — and to seeing the world differently. Years ago I registered for the 2020 SF Marathon, which, as you can imagine, kept getting rescheduled and eventually canceled. Frustrated after all the work and discipline I’d put in logging 40-mile weeks , I found myself drawn to the gorgeous photos of San Francisco filling my Strava feed. As a deeply views-motivated person, cycling seemed like an incredible way to combine moving my body with seeing something beautiful every day.

One problem: where exactly do you get a bike? Acquiring one in 2020 was not for the faint of heart. The explosion in the sport, combined with supply chain disruptions, meant hours scouring Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist and visiting local bike shops with almost nothing on the floor.

After a few months of searching, I found it. All carbon, old but good components (Shimano Ultegra), and most importantly a 49cm — a bike that was actually my size. At the time, someone close to me said it was too much money, too nice for something I’d barely end up using. But I had a gut feeling that adventure awaited me, knowing that I’d stick with the sport.

Years later, I’ve logged thousands of miles, made lifelong friends, raced domestically and abroad (in a most casual manner, mind you), upgraded my bike, and fell in love with the version of myself careening over hills on two wheels.

We are writing the guide that we wish we had when we first started cycling – an introduction to the gear that gets you on the bike, and the culture and community that keeps you riding.

Where To Start

Step 1: The Bike

Buying the right road bike is a bit like buying an investment wardrobe piece. It needs to fit into: 1) your budget, with road bikes starting at a few hundred dollars and reaching $15K+ and 2) your unique fit and preferences, where instead of options of fabrics and silhouettes if you were buying something to upgrade your wardrobe, road bikes have technical specs like material (aluminum vs. carbon vs. titanium) and geometry (will get into that below).

Your first road bike will be a bit of a tension between price and comfort/speed, where more expensive bikes win on those factors and could keep you riding. But as a newbie, you may not want to drop more than $1000 on a bike. And we’re here to say THAT’S OKAY!

We think there are good beginner/entry-level bikes that are nice enough and within $500 and $1,000. As you look at bikes, you’ll notice the difference between a typical cruiser and a road bike. Whereas cruisers are made for comfort and leisure, road bikes are built for distance, climbs, and speed. This is where those technical specs come in, namely weight and material. Most entry-level bikes will be aluminum and more often than not, cyclists upgrade to carbon at some point in their cyclist journey. Carbon is lighter and thus your bike will ride faster. So think about the budget and speed trade off you’re willing to make with your first bike. One good way to assess this (and derisk the purchase) is to try out different bikes and get a feel for what you like and what feels worth paying for.

Live in SF? Here are some bike shops where you can rent and try out some options:

• Sports Basement

• Avenue Cyclery

• Pink Puffin

Renting or borrowing a bike is a fantastic way to try before you buy. Don’t be afraid to call or visit your local bike shops to see if they offer rentals or trial rides (even if it’s just around the block).

Beyond material, make sure you also work with someone at a local bike shop to get fit. Bike geometry (reach and stack are horizontal and vertical measurement standards for bikes) should be considered against things like your height at the very least.

With more skilled bike fitters, they will consider your wingspan and length from your foot to your hips. At the end of the day, these measurements will map on to different sizes depending on the brand. For Megha, she can be a 49cm (XS) in Cannondale but she ride a 51cm (S) in Cervelo, for example. For Katherine, she was fit initially based on her height alone and ended up with a S in Canyon but learned later in a bike fitting session that with more height in her legs, she should be in a XS (c’est la vie!).

Another option for try/borrow is local cycling and triathlon groups. It’s common for people to post on behalf of their friends getting into the sport, and asking around if anyone is open to lending or renting their bike out for a few days so that a newb can try it out.

Don’t sleep on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist, and definitely ask cyclist friends for advice and vetting if you end up seeing something.

If you know that you’ll be pretty serious about biking, consider upgrading your budget to include a professional bike fitter session. Bike fitters are specialists who measure your body and position to determine the right components, frame size, and adjustments needed for an optimal and pain-free position on the bike. It’s more common to do a fit once you have a bike, but bike fitters are also great resources to generally measure your geometry before and then recommending bike frames and models that would work best for you.

Popular bike fitters in San Francisco:

• Paragon Fit Studio

• Clubhouse Velo

• Fitted by Pedro (Katherine’s go-to)

Saddle

So you have the bike and should be good to go, right? Well, almost. Buying a well-fitting saddle is essential for ensuring you can do long miles on the bike. We cannot recommend enough looking for and installing women-specific saddles – the Specialized Mimic is a popular choice.

Most factory and stock saddles are uncomfortable and can lead to saddle sores, bruising, and even lower back pain. Saddle sores are common though not inevitable, as long as your saddle fits properly and you use chamois cream/body glide liberally.

Pedals

You may hear terms like “clipless”, “flat pedals”, or “mountain pedals” thrown around. Let’s break it down.

“Clips” initially refer to “toe clips”, the leather and metal straps on pedals that keep riders’ feet to the pedal.

Whereas “Clipless” pedals require cleats on cycling-specific shoes that allow riders to clip in and clip out of the bike pedal (and bike) by swiveling and snapping their ankles in and out. Riding clipless allows riders to pedal with more efficient power, by minimizing float and futzing of the feet as they make contact with the pedal and propel the bike forward.

So what does “clipping in” mean? Clipping in means that your shoes have a cleat that clips into your pedal. You don’t clip into a flat pedal – flat pedals can generally be used with any type of regular sneaker, and you’ll see these commonly on mountain bikes, commuter bikes, ebikes, and cruisers.

You can “clip in” to two main different types of pedals – mountain/gravel and road pedals. Most road cyclists opt for “clipless” or “road” style pedals – also known as SPD-SL. Mountain and gravel cyclists will have SPD pedals, which are generally easier to walk in and more comfortable – the cleats are recessed vs. SPD-SL cleats that stick out and are generally less comfortable to walk in.

Step 1b: The Cycling Shoes

Once you have your bike pedals sorted, you might need to invest in cycling shoes if you’re going for clipless pedals. Cycling shoes can range wildly in price – as a beginner, we’d recommend buying something on the cheaper end, around $100, such as the Specialized Torch road shoes. On that note, road and gravel shoes differ slightly – gravel shoes are typically darker colored (due to the mud and dirt on the gravel roads) and have grippier soles. Your bike fitter may also have shoe recommendations – Megha has a wider foot, and got a tip to try out the Lake CX238’s, which have been her go-to for the last few years.

Step 2: The Cycling Kit

Now that you’ve got your road bike, it’s time to put together your Cycling Kit. Your Cycling Kit has two key essentials: the jersey and the chamois/bib.

The Jersey

In cycling terms, a jersey is what other sports will call a top. Jerseys tend to have a full zipper front and you wear this over your bib (don’t worry, we get to that next). You can go for a long sleeve or short sleeve jersey, and they come in different weights depending on what climate you’re riding in.

Pockets are a go-to feature with jerseys, where you can store your favorite snacks (like Hummingbird Fuels, Honey Stinger waffles, or a rogue baguette from Acme Bread), spf chapstick, whatever you need on the ride. Jerseys are also the piece of a cycling kit that has the most personality so don’t be afraid of embracing color and pattern.

Here are some jerseys we recommend for a starter kit:

• Samsara Cycles Transition Long Sleeve Jersey (Link) –

• Rapha Women’s Core Jersey (Link) – great first jersey, guarantee anyone who’s ridden thousands of miles on a bike has owned this jersey at some point. Deep, well-made pockets. (see note below on scoping out sales!)

• Ornot Women’s Long Sleeve Micro Grid Jersey (Link) – perfect degree of warmth for when you need a long sleeve layer on top, but no gilet or jacket.

And the wishlist jerseys we’re eyeing for ourselves:

• Tan Line Superb Jersey (Link)

• Pas Normal Women’s Essential Jersey, Light Olive Stripe (on sale!) (Link)

• Velocio LUXE Ultralight SE Jersey (Link)

The Chamois / Bib

A bib is a cycling short or tight that has shoulder straps. Think like sporty suspenders and bottoms all in one. The shoulder straps help your kit to stay in place when you’re cycling. The chamois is padding that provides cushion on the saddle and typically has wicking capability to reduce chafing. The chamois is your best friend and what makes a long ride comfortable. So instead of wearing leggings or compression shorts, cyclists reach for a bib or bottoms featuring chamois so they can ride for hours without issue.

Here are some bibs we recommend for a starter kit:

• Samsara Adventure Bib Short (Link)

• Velocio Women’s Foundation Short (Link)

• Rapha Detachable Bib Shorts (Link)

And the wishlist bibs we’re eyeing for ourselves:

• Ornot Droptail Cargo Bib Shorts (Link)

Where should I go to buy cycling gear?

For newer cyclists, buying 1-2 quality pieces of each gear category is a great way to ensure that missing laundry day doesn’t hold you back from going on a ride (0/10 recommend rewearing sweaty–even dried– gear on a second ride).

Insider tip: don’t be afraid to eye the sales at cycling brands! Cycling kits can be super fun to style and express personality, but there’s no pressure or need to rock the newest colorways with each drop. For example, popular cycling brands Rapha and Specialized often run end-of-season sales with good discounts on their core offerings (in one sale, Katherine got a Rapha higher-end performance jersey for a third of the full-price!)

Some of our favorite brands include:

• Samsara Cycle (female-founded + focused!)

• Ornot (SF-founded)

• Velocio (has a trade in/worn wear program - good for discounted prices!)

What’s next?

What happens once you’re all set up with gear and kits? Rides! Stay tuned for Part 2, where we’ll dive into group rides. If you’re feeling fired up and ready to head out for a group ride, two local San Francisco cycling groups are hosting TdFF-themed rides on Wednesday, August 5th – Ornot (women-led Wednesdays ride, typically through the city) and Rapha (“camel ride” through the Marin headlands). Say hi to Katherine or Megha if you swing by either!

Want to get more plugged into cycling, feed your frenzy for women’s sports, or just tag along for the ride? Here are some authors we recommend reading:

• — Spinning Tails

• —The Sweat Lookbook

• – Built on Bikes

• KMC —

This guide is a glimpse into the excitement and adventure I feel when I ride and travel abroad — inspiring you to believe that a bike is the best possible way to see a beautiful place and have interesting experiences.

So, I present to you: Hot Euro Cycling Summer.

I’ve been taking cycling trips across Europe for four summers now, bringing my own bike the last two, and I’ve made a habit of returning to the places I love. I owe the idea to my friends in San Francisco, who kept coming home from these trips with incredible vistas, stories, and new perspectives on life.

I also recognize the privilege, luck, and flexibility of this particular stage of my life, enabling me to essentially sod off for a few weeks and work in the evenings after a long day on the bike. I don’t expect it to be my life forever; maybe not even next year.

Realizing this inspired me to write down what I’ve learned and hand you, dear reader, three options for a cycling trip built around my favorite places — along with the rides, the towns, the food, and the logistics to actually pull it off. All are repeat visits, tried and tested many times over. Bring your own bike, or pick one up when you land.

why europe?

My European — excuse me, Danish1 — friends rightly lambast me for the broad strokes whenever I say “Europe”. So, fair apology up front: I’ve cycled in Denmark, Spain, Italy, and France, and those are the cultures I’m actually speaking about. I lump them together only because, coming from car-centric America and its infrastructure’s open hostility to anyone not behind a wheel, the culture around cycling across these countries is so uniformly friendlier that it’s easier to just call it the European way…

in this guide, recommendations for a euro summer for

…the historian & foodie: Girona

…the hiker & shopper: Dolomites

…the beach girl: Mallorca

and beyond the paywall: a sample 10-day itinerary across these three destinations with routes included

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for the historian & foodie: girona

Girona can give Bushwick, Denver, Mexico City, and Copenhagen a run for their money in the yuppie-takeover-of-a-town department — but it earns it. It’s a beautiful medieval city, once held by the Moors and steeped in history, wrapped in quiet country roads and mountains.

Catalunya’s cycling roots run deep (the Tour de France is honoring them this year by opening in Barcelona with a team time trial), but Girona itself became a cyclist’s town once the pros showed up, because it quietly solved every annoying problem in a professional cyclist’s life: train year-round, ride mountains or coast on the same legs, fly almost anywhere in Europe in an hour, and pay rent that isn’t insane. Lance Armstrong and George Hincapie — of USPS World Tour fame and USADA infamy — made their homes here years ago, and much of the peloton followed.

What separates Girona from every other cycling resort town is that the pros never left; they retired and built things, making the city’s cycling culture feel like an integral chapter of its history. The clearest example is Christian Meier, a Canadian ex-pro who opened La Fàbrica with his wife Amber in 2015, back when Girona didn’t have a single specialty coffee shop.

La Fàbrica inspired other cycling-driven establishments to open up, like Hors Categorie — creating a small economy of local businesses that are extremely friendly towards bikes without compromising on quality. I can vouch personally, because our Airbnb was directly above La Fàbrica, and the oatmeal there is life-changing.

the riding

Four minutes out of the city and you’re either pointed up Els Àngels or loose in the quiet farm country. Most of the riding is gently rolling — lanes through the Empordà, the Ter river path, the lake at Banyoles — so you can have a soft week and never grind up a steep gradient if you don’t want to.

Els Àngels — ~6.2 mi at a friendly 3.5–4%, Girona’s version of Hawk Hill and the climb you’ll fall into a rhythm with all week: your morning warm-up, your easy-day spin, your reset when the legs are cooked. Even gradient, almost no cars, dappled shade, and a little sanctuary at the top with bathrooms and caffeine. Tip over the back into Monells — a honey-stoned tenth-century village — to fold it into the popular Hincapie loop via the Santa Pellaia climb, and do not, under any circumstances, skip a pastry (or some jamón ibérico) in the arcaded square.

Rocacorba — ~6.2–6.8 mi at 6.5%, ramping savagely to 12% in the last few. The region’s hallmark climb: call it two Old La Hondas stacked end to end, with a meaner finish. Half the WorldTour has a time on it, which means you’ll be passed by someone famous, breathing through their nose, while you suffer.

the Costa Brava lollipop — Worth it for the sparkling views of the Mediterranean and quaint coastal towns. You grind up Sant Grau, tip over the top, and drop through cork-oak forest and umbrella pine to the Mediterranean at Tossa de Mar — swim if you’re ready to brave soaked bibs, but definitely eat something salty and fresh. The coastal tarmac is glassy and the descents come fast, so keep your wits about you (and your hands near the levers) on the way down.

where to stay

Barri Vell, the Old Town — many tourists stay here within the beautiful Roman walls. Cobblestone-lined walkways, labyrinthine streets (though not as confusing as Venice), and gorgeous ancient buildings.

Barri Vell is also home to many of the favorite cycling haunts, making it the most convenient and cycling-friendly place I’ve been outside of Amsterdam and Copenhagen. I’ve also never had trouble finding an Airbnb here; recently, I loved staying in Apartment Gerani, a few steps from Espresso Mafia and Eat Sleep Cycle.

where to rent

Eat Sleep Cycle on Carrer del Vern is where I’d rent— fresh fleets, a friendly mechanic workshop, kit and nutrition, group rides, guided days, and a café terrace out front where you’ll watch people roll back in from their loops.

eat & drink

cyclist favorites

La Fàbrica — the living room of Girona cycling, and yes, have I convinced you to get the breakfast bowl / oatmeal yet?

Espresso Mafia — Great coffee from the La Fàbrica owners. They also have wifi and open relatively earlier than other cafes at 7:30am, making it a good spot to fuel up before a ride.

the splurges

Girona’s food is a genuine relief after a week of ham and cheese everywhere else in Spain — establishments range from three Michelin starred splurges to incredibly good mom-and-pops that service the university crowd.

My favorite way to celebrate a long day on the bike is a decadent dinner: both the foie gras sushi at Nomo (don’t knock it until you’ve tried it) and the tartar at SiNoFos have revitalized the legs and help me power through another climb the next day.

For something rowdier, get a glass of natural orange wine and the pad thai at La Garrina, a quirky Old Town wine bar that gets pleasantly loud at night. The headliner, if you plan months ahead, is El Celler de Can Roca — the Roca brothers’ three-star, twice named the best restaurant in the world — while Divinum in the Old Town is worth a lunch reservation.

shopping

For cycling kit, Rocacorba — the Girona-born clothing brand — and its Rocacorba Atelier shop in the Old Town are worth the suitcase space. Runners should make the pilgrimage to Overland Running Provisions — it’s Christian Meier’s trail shop (yes, the La Fàbrica guy, who switched to ultras and now races for Salomon), stocked with boutique brands like Norda, NNormal, Ciele, and On, with free group runs a few mornings a week (the women’s run finishes over hot chocolate at Espresso Mafia). For clothes, wander the old town: Public for a downtown-Catalan mix and its own Ams Pure label, Comunal for beautifully edited European and Scandinavian pieces, eseOese for easy dresses and shoes, and Sita Murt for the Catalan classic.

off the bike

Off the bike: a walking tour of Barri Vell to get the history, a yoga class at Wellness by Bon Dia to unwind your climbing legs, a day trip to the Dalí Museum in Figueres. Time it right and you’ll land on The Traka, one of the biggest gravel weekends on the calendar (May), or Sea Otter Europe in mid-September.

logistics

Fly into Girona–Costa Brava (GRO) if you can. Otherwise Barcelona (BCN) is quite close by and much more easy to connect to: train (~90 min) or a transfer (~€100–130, only worth it split 3–4 ways). Locals start late — you’ll typically see groups roll out at 9 or 10am. I hate the heat, so I try to leave earlier.

my perfect day

Be at Espresso Mafia when they open — 7:30 on the dot. A quick cappuccino and a pastry (don’t miss a xuixo if they have one), then head out of town. Ten minutes later the city gives way to quiet country roads — bales of hay, cows, golden fields dotted with red poppies. Pack bug spray! Climb through the hills and descend into Tossa de Mar, grab a bite, then save some juice for the punishing haul back up Sant Grau, the road snaking along the Costa Brava coastline. End at La Fàbrica, très chic to see and be seen, and order the breakfast bowl — oats, seeds, and berries I dream about constantly.

for the hiker & shopper: the dolomites

The Dolomites have been breaking cyclists’ legs and hearts for a century. The Giro d’Italia keeps coming back to these limestone giants that make you rethink what a steep hill back home is. Lately the region has blown up with Americans — but mostly with the hut-to-hut hiking crowd, so here’s my unsolicited advice: if a pack of cyclists rips past you on a pass, take the hint and go rent a bike.

The climbs here are serious. I’ve ridden most of the famous ones over a few repeat visits — Passo Giau, Passo Falzarego, Passo Pordoi, Monte Bondone, the Stelvio — and once strung them together doing the Haute Route Dolomites, an amateur five-day stage race totalling ~280 miles and ~47,000 feet of climbing that left me questioning my sanity.

An “easy” ride — anything under 1,000 feet of climbing — is basically not on the menu. Don’t let that scare you off: pick a couple of iconic climbs, commit a full day to each, and let the reward be a mountaintop cappuccino at an idyllic rifugio.

One geography note that trips up first-timers: the Stelvio, Gavia, and Mortirolo are not in the Dolomites — they’re ~100 mi west in the Ortler Alps, and you’d base in Bormio for those. The Dolomites proper means the Sella massif and its passes.

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the riding

Two things going in. First, it’s steep — climbs average 6–10%, not the steady 5% of the Alps, and not extremely enjoyable for beginners. I used to ride an 11-28 cassette and switched to an 11-34, for which I was deeply grateful while grinding up the Stelvio’s ramps. Second, the drivers are very… Italian — all, I assume, hopped up on espresso, given how close they pass. Take caution on hairpin turns, as drivers will often overtake you when they really shouldn’t.

Mountain weather turns fast, and the passes top out high (above 7,200 ft, with the Stelvio clearing 9,000), so pack a jacket even on a bluebird morning and keep a layer for the descents. My second Dolomites trip served up snow, rain, and then three straight bluebird days: I climbed the Stelvio and the Gavia in sleet, only to TT Monte Bondone in 80* temperatures a few days later.

Sella Ronda — the loop everyone comes for: ~32 mi over four passes (Gardena, Sella, Pordoi, Campolongo), ~5,600–6,200 ft of climbing from Selva. The medium day and the rite of passage. Time it around Sella Ronda Bike Day (6 June and 12 September in 2026), when all four passes close to cars between 8:30 and 16:00 and the roads belong to 20,000+ bikes.

Passo Giau — unbearably hard: ~6.5 mi at a 10% average grade. The views are unforgettable, and the rifugio at the top serves apple pastries that will make you forget about the last hour of pain.

Stelvio — the legend, 48 switchbacks (base in Bormio, not here). Average grade of 7.5% with a gentle start to warm up your legs

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where to stay (the towns)

The whole region speaks three languages (Italian, German, Ladin) and most towns have two names — Corvara is also Kurfar, Val Gardena is Gröden, Bolzano is Bozen.

Corvara in Badia — where I’d send a first-timer. It sits right on the Sella Ronda at the foot of Passo Campolongo and Passo Gardena, hosts the Maratona finish line, and is a proper town with restaurants, bars, rentals, and bike-storage hotels — you can ride a different pass every day from the door. Very busy sports town; you’ll see a lot of Arc’teryx. Nearby Colfosco, La Villa, and San Cassiano are quieter and similar.

Cortina d’Ampezzo — the “Queen of the Dolomites”: pricier and a large pedestrian centre to wander. Passo Giau is directly above town, Falzarego is a little further west, also close to Tre Cime.

Selva / Val Gardena — Great if you’re mixing in hiking (Alpe di Siusi and Seceda are right here).

My recommendation is to split your trip between Corvara and Cortina: Corvara for the Sella circuit and ride-from-the-door access, Cortina for Giau/Falzarego/Tre Cime and the shopping. Peak-season hotels often want a 3–7 night minimum, and Maratona / Bike Day weeks book out absurdly early. That said, prices are reasonable with a group of three or four — I’ve ended up paying €100–200 a night.

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where to rent

Logistics are easy because the valley is built for this. Your Airbnb may even have dedicated bike and ski storage (ours did, which made disassembly civilized for once).

Bike Rental Corvara (Sport Kostner, across from Hotel Marmolada) does road, MTB, e-bikes, and guided Sella Ronda days. They also had a quick turnaround for service on my bike when I messed up my disc brakes while rebuilding it last year.

the splurges

The villages here are stuffed with ski and outerwear shops. Last year I’d crashed in Mallorca the week before we headed to the Dolomites, and wasn’t feeling great on the bike. Reader, I shopped. Style Corvara had a fabulous selection — I walked out with Pepsi-cola Rolex shorts for my partner and, to soothe my own ego after bailing on a rainy descent, an electric-blue cashmere-mohair sweater and a little down jacket-vest from Moncler.

The stays are just as good. Book a few nights at Forestis, perched above Bressanone on Mount Plose, for stylish interiors and a relaxing stay after a long few days on the bike. If you want to be closer to the action and upgrade from a typical ski and bike lodge AirBnB, Hotel La Perla is Corvara’s nicest — Ladin-alpine soul, a 30,000-bottle cellar, and a locked bike room in the basement. And for the Aman-seekers (I can’t count myself among them, though not for lack of trying), the legendary Rosa Alpina in San Cassiano reopened in 2025 as a full Aman after a top-to-bottom renovation.

We dined one night at La Stüa de Michil inside La Perla and it was a fabulous reset from GU bloks — fresh inventive food, including a memorable salad that had over 40 (!) local and unique ingredients, as well as an abundance of flowers, and an incredible vegetarian menu for one of our friends. The tasting menu runs ~€200, with à la carte if you want to go lighter.

shopping

You’ve already read about my post-crash Moncler haul, so you know Corvara does a brisk trade in retail therapy.

But the serious shopping town is Cortina, the Italian Alps’ fashion capital since the 1956 Olympics (the 2026 Games only turned the dial up). It all happens along Corso Italia, the pedestrian promenade where the big maisons keep intimate seasonal boutiques. I have a horrible habit of treating myself to something indulgent after a hard experience — so after completing the Haute Route Dolomites race a few years ago, I scored a lovely bamboo 1947 from the G*cci store.

my perfect day

A pre-ride cappuccino, then the Sella Ronda. Take in the views! Stop at every mountaintop rifugio, especially for an apple pastry and a coffee. Say hi to the cows, rip down the descents (mind the tunnels), and end the day back home with yet another cappuccino and some people-watching. Rest up, do a little shopping at Style Corvara, then dinner at La Stüa de Michil.

logistics

Fly into Venice (VCE) or Milan (MXP). There’s a strong bus network hikers rely on, but if you’re traveling with a bike, rent a car. Last trip I flew into Munich, rented a car, and drove down through Austria — which, heads up, has automated speed cameras on the highways. I simply thought everyone was driving a tad slowly for my Californian standards. Distances inside the range are deceptive — a “short drive” between valleys is often an hour — so pick a base and ride out rather than chasing every pass by car. Best window is June–September; skip mid-August (Ferragosto), when all of Italy is on holiday at once.

for the beach girl: mallorca

Mallorca is my paradise: smooth tarmac, stunning ocean views, incredible beaches.

It has a reputation as an influencer-ready beach destination and a seedy party haven for Brits and Germans — and it’s also one of the great cycling destinations on earth. For someone who loves to party, take sultry bikini selfies, and rip incredible rides, it has it all.

Mallorca was my original Hot Euro Cycling Summer trip, and for that it’ll always have a special place in my heart. I first visited on a solo trip in 2023, and have returned the last few summers to bike, relax, and see friends.

The island is singular to me, because you can crush a gorgeous climb by noon, dip in a rocky cala, and finish with a juicy spritz with saltwater hair in the evening.

Similar to the Dolomites, I definitely recommend renting a car. It’s hard to get across the island without one, and unless you’re based in one of the cycling hotspots (Sóller, Fornalutx, Pollença, Andratx) you may have to ride just to reach the start of your routes.

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the riding

Much of the good riding is along the Serra de Tramuntana mountain range along the northwest coast.

A word of warning: that buttery-smooth tarmac, laid for soaring summer temperatures, turns into a genuine crash risk on wet days. I went down last summer on a rainy descent in Sa Calobra. Crashing bikes and cars alike is apparently common here on wet days, so take caution.

Sa Calobra (Coll dels Reis) — a cyclist’s bucket-list ride: 26 hairpins carving down the mountainside into a secluded cove, including the famous Nus de sa Corbata, where the road loops clean under itself. The trick is that you descend it first, then grind back up — ~6 mi at 7%, ramping to 12%. Budget about an hour up (less if you haven’t been skipping your hill repeats). On weekdays you’ll share it with five people; a summer weekend, with 200 and a queue of tour buses.

Cap de Formentor — the most beautiful road on the island, and the one with the best flow: you climb through a valley and drop into a natural park, snaking along a narrow strip of land with turquoise water on both sides out to the lighthouse. Do it at first light.

In summer the final stretch from Formentor beach to the lighthouse closes to cars, while bikes are waved through at all hours, which makes it car-free heaven. Save room for a slice of focaccia and a Coke Zero at the cafe at the lighthouse — but watch out for goats! I left my slice of pizza unattended and a goat happily helped itself to it last year.

Coll de Sóller — ~4 mi at ~5.7%, ~30 hairpins, mostly car-free since the traffic all takes the tunnel. A perfect interval climb; the south side is quieter (and hotter). Drop into Sóller harbor after for fresh fish and the famous regional prawns

Puig Major — the island’s longest sustained climb: a steady, endurance-builder, topping out in a tunnel at ~2,860 ft.

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where to stay (the towns)

I’ve stayed in all of these on cycling trips, and ranked them in descending order of recommendations.

Fornalutx & Sóller — gorgeous, and the move if you want to be in the mountains, close to Puig Major and Sa Calobra. Reynes Cycling and Tramuntana Tours in Port de Sóller are great shops nearby.

Port de Pollença / Pollença — the default northern base, and where most road riders post up. Foot of Cap de Formentor, easy spin to Sa Batalla and the Tramuntana loops. The Can Aulí hotel in Pollença town was cycling-friendly and serene, right in the middle of town.

Port d’Alcúdia — the beach town next door: busier, Brit-and-German-heavy, wall-to-wall sport hotels, close to Formentor. Fine if you want a resort with all the trimmings; I’d skip the tackier strip in peak summer.

Deià — I stayed at Hoposa Costa d’Or on a solo trip and loved its private beach and cala; it’s an easy hike into Deià itself, where I’ve also stayed at La Residencia, a Belmond property with bike storage and a beautiful pool, perfectly placed for rides along the coast or over the Coll de Sóller.

off the bike

A perfect day is a morning ride, then a sun-drenched afternoon at a secluded cala and endless gambas at an outdoor table as the sky goes pink. Swim the coves below Deià, wander the postcard villages of Deià and Valldemossa, poke around Palma’s old town and cathedral, and eat your weight in seafood at the Sóller or Port d’Andratx harbours. A few favorites: Hotel Corazón between Sóller and Deià, Bar Bodega in Biniaraix, and Es Taller in Valldemossa.

shopping

Even the shopping here has tan lines. The Palma cycling brand literally called Tan Line — named for exactly the badge of honor (or embarrassment) you’re cultivating on these trips — makes loud, punchy kit from recycled fabrics, and its flagship sits in a little cluster of cycling-lifestyle stores worth a rest-day loop: Rapha, with its Rapha Cycling Club rides, and Le Café du Cycliste, the French label whose Palma shop doubles as a very good coffee stop.

logistics

Fly straight into Palma (PMI). Best windows: April–May (Goldilocks, but busiest), September–October (the sleeper pick — July warmth, half the crowds, grape harvest inland), and June–August if you commit to 6:30am rollouts and afternoons at the beach.

my perfect day

Tackle Sa Calobra. If you’re staying in Port de Sóller, grab a sandwich from Forn de Barri in Fornalutx to fuel the way up. Climb past Puig Major, wind down the hairpins, and stop for a coffee and pastry at the bottom before winding your way back up. Cruise home to base camp and end with dinner at Hotel Corazón.

a 10-day itinerary & routes

After traveling the last few years, friends often ask for a sample itinerary. I’ve typically spent three to four weeks traveling, but I have a ten day itinerary for the ambitious and adventurous. If you have a penchant for some travel chaos and a desire to see the same sights within a typical summer vacation window, here you go:

the 10-day itinerary: dolomites → girona → mallorca

Start high and hard in the mountains, wind down into Girona’s rhythm, and finish salt-haired in the Mediterranean. West and south the whole way.

Day 1 — land in the Dolomites. Fly into Venice or Milan, drive to Corvara, build the bike, and spin an easy loop up to Passo Campolongo to shake the travel out of your legs. Head to Sport Kostner / Bike Rental Corvara if you have any issues with building your bike, or to pick up your rental.

Day 2 — Sella Ronda. The Sella Ronda (~32 mi / ~5,600 ft over Gardena, Sella, Pordoi, Campolongo), counter-clockwise from Corvara. Rifugio strudel mandatory!

Day 3 — Passo Giau. Take on Passo Giau — or the full Sella Ronda + Giau loop if the legs are willing. Shop Corvara (Style Corvara, Boutique Monika) on tired legs, and send off the Dolomites with dinner at La Stüa de Michil.

Day 4 — Travel Day: Dolomites to Girona. Drive back to Venice or Milan, fly to Barcelona, and train or transfer up to Girona. Drop bags in Barri Vell, build the bike back up, and — if there’s daylight and willpower — a gentle spin up Els Àngels. Otherwise, if you want a more relaxed schedule but still need some movement — book an evening yin yoga class at Wellness. Dinner at Normal (make sure to make a reservation in advance) or try to walk into sushi at Nomo.

Day 5 — The Hincapie Loop (Els Àngels + Santa Pellaia, ~40–43 mi), coffee and cake in the medieval square at Monells. Grab a bowl of ramen at Kan Ramen or a glass of natty wine at La Garrina afterwards.

Day 6 — Els Àngels + Rocacorba (~58 mi / ~4,460 ft); coffee at cyclist-friendly Cafe Aquarium before the climb up Rocacorba. Feeling superhuman? Make it the three-climb queen day (~93 mi / ~9,840 ft). Reward: a Rocambolesc and a reservation at Divinum.

Day 7 — Coastal loop to Tossa De Mar. Roll through the countryside, descend into Tossa de Mar, and climb out the winding coastal road through Sant Grau. Many do this loop counterclockwise, but I prefer clockwise, as you’re on the ocean side of the highway. End with a final oatmeal at La Fàbrica, and box the bike.

Day 8 — Travel Day: Girona to Mallorca. Fly Barcelona → Palma, pick up the car, and if there’s light left, the Cap de Formentor out-and-back at golden hour — the most beautiful road on the island. If you’re staying in Fornalutx, grab a reservation at Bar Bodega in nearby Biniaraix before your trip – they have a rotating selection of pop-up chefs and a fantastic vermouth list.

Day 9 — the queen stage. Starting in Fornalutx – climbing Puig Major, Sa Calobra, and ending with a little loop of Port de Sóller. Start early in the morning, as car traffic picks up on Sa Calobra past 10am.

Day 10 — Return or disassemble your bike. If you have any juice left in you, hike out to Cala Sant Vincent near Pollença, and settle down for a quiet dinner in the town square.

Welcome to Carb Queen! If you’re new here, I’m Megha. I freelance for early-stage startups as a software and product consultant, and I run Wave Floral, a floral design studio in San Francisco. I moved back to San Francisco six months ago, and have been writing about my adventures as a cyclist, florist, and technologist.

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A few months ago, I got a message request (always check your message requests!) in my Wave Floral inbox from someone asking if I’d be able to do some variation of the design below for a very important guest.

Designs like this — sculptural, funky, and modern — are totally up my alley, and in my opinion, an undersaturated style in the San Francisco floral market. I said yes, and figured I’d design the arrangement and perhaps find out who the intended recipient was along the way.

Imagine my surprise when I found out this was for Florence + the Machine.

One word came to mind: kismet.

Florence + the Machine’s recent album, Everybody Scream, has been on constant repeat. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the singles, “One of the Greats”, makes it into my top five songs in my Spotify wrapped.

I’d been listening to the album nonstop while contemplating moving cross-country and daydreaming about what life would be like in San Francisco.

Checking my email and seeing this inquiry while on a bike ride felt like things were finally starting to align.

The Chase Center team had reached out asking for backstage flowers for Florence’s dressing room for the Everybody Scream tour. How many times had I watched other florists on TikTok make gorgeous arrangements for artists’ backstage rooms? I kept pinching myself while dreaming up the designs.

In addition to the moodboard the team sent over, I took a lot of inspiration from Florence’s tour and set design.

Witchy, gothic, and foreboding.

I kept the order details under wraps from friends for a couple of months, half-believing at some point it would be dramatically revealed that I was being punked. Part of this also stems from brown culture, or at least my parents’ unique flavor of paranoia, which discourages sharing one’s successes for fear of nazar, the evil eye.

Nazar aside, this order was extremely affirming for me and my art practice. Gifting artists flowers is one example of a growing appreciation for arts and culture in San Francisco — something that feels directly at odds with the hyperoptimized, technocratic capitalism that permeates much of the city.

I hope this tradition keeps going and we see more cross-pollination of the arts and of makers in the city — after all, who keeps the city interesting? Part of this is the responsibility of institutions and businesses.

The Chase Center, and Thrive City more broadly, have become cultural and community anchor points by providing a mixed-use area for all sorts of programming. I believe Dogpatch and Mission Bay will become the new downtown of San Francisco within ten years, thanks to their ample retail storefront space, proximity to the waterfront, and the number of local favorites opening second and third locations in the neighborhood.

I want to see this continue throughout the community, as other cities don’t just appreciate arts and culture; their industries are built of arts and culture. That’s a meaningful distinction from San Francisco, but one I feel is shifting.

Businesses investing in floral design, and hospitality more broadly, is one way for people bring life to a gathering or activation. Spending money on something like flowers — ephemeral, beautiful, and frivolous — is not a frivolous use of money.

In a city obsessed with maintaining taste while pioneering the technology that may destroy it, there is, frankly, very little taste left. Many tastemakers can’t afford to live here anymore, leaving behind an echo chamber of tech yuppies who all bemoan only having friends in tech. It’s hard to detach myself from this culture, given that it pays my rent — but I actively try to deprogram myself.

As a creative and entrepreneur, I often feel that if I’m not getting the opportunities I want, I must be doing something wrong, or I’m not meant for that opportunity in the first place. But conflating a lack of inbound with a lack of demand is exactly what feeds the monoculture. My part in rebelling against that is to keep shooting my shot, running my mouth, and spotlighting the creators keeping San Francisco’s heart beating.

Sometimes you really do have to create the desire — create the culture you want to live inside of. A lot of opportunities happen that way. One thing I try to do each week is cold email and DM at least five people across my lines of work: software, florals, events, and sports. After the Florence order, I emailed a few other music venues around the city with examples of my work, the Chase Center reel, and my TikTok, letting them know I’m available for artist backstages.

what are my learnings from this exciting order?

Write down what you want to happen. If you are witchily inclined, write down what you want. If you are not witchily inclined, write it down anyway — because the physical act of writing rewires your brain and subtly reorients how you move through the world.

Create with the intention that whatever you make becomes your portfolio. Trust that your work and content, if authentically created, will find the people it is meant to.

Stack each win, brick by brick — but take a moment to celebrate first. A big opportunity is leverage that decays fast. Spend it before it expires: send the cold email, post the video, pitch the next venue. But I need to pause long enough to savor the moment, before setting the next goal ten notches higher.

The corniest lesson I will impart on you (but not include above) is: when life gets tough, make art, look hot, and go shake it out with a friend.

Outfit details: sheer mesh top from Nin Studios, bodysuit from Thistle & Spire, shorts from Zara (do you really need a link?), & new ring from .

Paid subscribers get an inside look into how I made the order, ingredients and cost breakdown, and an artist’s note on why this one mattered so much.

Behind the scenes

Ingredients:

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If you’re new here: I’m Megha. I freelance for early-stage startups as a software and product consultant, and I run Wave Floral, a floral design studio in San Francisco. I was previously co-founder of Whimsy, an AI-native backend for event professionals.

I write about my life across floral design, sports, life in San Francisco, and at times: programming! I started learning to code five years ago and feels empowered by the current paradigm shift, and wants others to feel that way too.

When I wrote “Free Range Apps” last summer, I was bullish on vibe coding as a populist force. I still am. But I’ve spent the last six months getting my hands dirty: freelancing for early-stage startups, consulting with companies ranging from stealth startups to Fortune 100s on AI adoption, running workshops to help non-technical folks ship their first apps, and watching every major vibe coding platform race to fill in the gaps.

Some of what I predicted has played out. A lot of what I worried about is still broken. And the part of the market that everyone is racing to commoditize, the prototype layer, is, in my view, basically over as a place to build a defensible business.

The interesting question now is: what happens after the prototype?

You may find this essay useful if you are:

• Building applications that let users generate code using AI, vibe coding or otherwise

• A product manager or engineer at a larger company who wants a landscape view of what’s possible and what’s actually happening

What’s saturated, and what shipped

The typical flow of building software, from idea to live product, looks roughly like this:

Idea → UI → Backend → Auth → DB → Payments → Deployment → Scaling

A year ago, vibe coding tools had gotten good enough at the first three steps, but were still struggling to chain together the remaining steps in hosting and maintaining a production application.

However, there’s been a lot of movement in the last year, with many existing vertical SaaS companies developing and shipping an AI product.

What’s actually shipped since last year:

• Payments. Lovable now integrates with Stripe and Paddle. Replit offers Stripe and RevenueCat (for mobile apps), so users can accept payments directly.

• Security. Most platforms have become SOC 2 compliant. Lovable partners with Aikido for pentesting and bridges the process for builders who need SOC 2 and PCI compliance.

• Auth. Google Sign-On and basic identity and access management (IAM) have become standard. MCP-based auth providers like Clerk and WorkOS slot in cleanly with agentic flows.

• Email. Transactional email, the kind of service that used to require setting up Sendgrid or Postmark, is increasingly bundled as an embedded feature in the platform. Lovable sends from your branded domain; Replit integrates with Resend.

• Deployment. Vercel’s V0 and Replit’s hosting have made “your app is live at this URL” the default state. I’ve started calling this deployment-as-a-prompt: getting builders to the happy path of sharing their product. It requires obfuscating CI/CD, DNS, and a lot of other plumbing.

If you only needed software to look pretty and accept a credit card, we’re roughly there. The prototype layer is a commodity.

This saturation point has created a workflow arms race, which means much of the defensibility now lives in platform lock-in and in owning the rest of the pipeline.

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The messy middle: where vibe coding still breaks

Anecdotally, I’d argue market penetration of vibe coding is close to maxing out. Whoever is curious enough to start using these tools now likely already has. By the time the rest of the population gets there, AI-embedded tooling will just be normal software. The Internet is already littered with hundreds of personal to-do apps, the canonical first vibe-coded project.

One useful way to think about programming (borrowed from Shravan Suryanarayana’s framing) is in three layers:

• Service layer — what your application does (when a user does X, the app does Y)

• Infrastructure layer — the plumbing (how data is displayed, who can see what)

• Deployment layer — the delivery (how the app moves from your machine to many machines)

Vibe coding platforms have commoditized the service layer. But context windows, leaky memory, and the current state of AI-driven code mean the infrastructure and deployment layers still need work. The way that large platforms choose to solve this problem now will likely define how exactly a commoditized AI-native world will look for our software in the next decade or so.

Given we’re heading toward saturation at the top of the funnel, the next natural step is figuring out what to build for people who want a real, working, often-monetizable product.

Everything between “this works on my machine for one user” and “this serves 1,000 paying customers without falling over” is what I’m calling the messy middle. It’s where vibe coding without software knowledge still mostly fails, where the next wave of differentiation will happen.

Concretely, the messy middle includes:

• Multi-tenant architecture. AI-generated code overwhelmingly assumes a single-user application. It loads one person’s data, runs one person’s session, and breaks the moment two users hit the same endpoint. There is no implicit understanding that “users” means “many people, isolated from each other, with permissions.”

• Concurrency and latency. What happens when ten people submit the same form at once? When a database query gets called from twenty sessions simultaneously? Most vibe-coded apps haven’t been stress-tested past the original builder’s local machine.

• Database design and migrations. Schemas built by prompt tend to be brittle and susceptible to row-level security breaches, especially between production and dev environments. In plain English, users may be able to see other users’ data on applications with AI-built databases (and human-built databases, for that matter) Just to start, what does a row-level security (RLS) issue mean to a non-technical user? What’s a better way to communicate that?

• Version control. Many platforms abstract Git away entirely, which feels great until you need to roll back a bad change or collaborate with another person. This is where the recurring “will GitHub become obsolete?” question shows up, and I think the answer is no — but its interface might. People may never have to learn how to rebase a change ever again.

• Security and secrets management. Knowing what an environment variable and API key can not be expected of the average vibe coder; yet most platforms lack in-product education around this. The consequences of an AI agent reading environment variables, especially in the hands of a bad actor, could mean getting hacked.

These aren’t sexy problems. They are also the entire reason software companies exist as companies, which is why whoever solves them for non-technical builders captures the actual long tail.

Vercel vs. Lovable vs. Replit vs. Base44: a breakdown

A quick read on where the major vibe coding platforms sit, and what I think each is best positioned to win:

Vercel

Vercel is a dark horse for non-technical builders, given its long history as a hosting and deployment platform. That edge is what I think makes Vercel the best positioned out of all vibe coding apps in terms of staying power. Vercel’s core business is hosting, deployment, environment management, secrets, and edge infrastructure.

That is the messy middle. V0 is a relatively commoditized no-code app builder, but it doesn’t have to win on prototype quality. It just has to feed the rest of the Vercel stack. The hard part of running a real application is what Vercel has been quietly building for a decade.

I’ve used Vercel in the past for my old startup, and currently use it for my side projects, such as Hawk Hill PR. This application uses wind data to calculate whether or not it’s favorable to attempt a PR on a popular cycling segment in San Francisco. I wanted to try v0 to quickly add a feature enhancement that I’ve been putting off: displaying the wind and PR conditions by hour.

v0 checked out a new branch, made a consistent design change, checked with me, and then deployed the feature.

What I especially liked was being able to directly deploy on the platform, though I’d be curious how this scales in a large engineering team.

Given that, v0 and Vercel are likely best for more technical folks due to the long tail of hosting, deployment, and server features that are the platform’s core offering.

Lovable

On the other hand, Lovable is the most design-forward and clearly built for non-technical users. They recently shipped Lovable Aesthetics, giving users more autonomy over the design system.

Their templates remind me of website builders like Squarespace or Framer, with landing pages that are designed to convey to users, building your own product is easy and beautiful. Additionally, Lovable moved fast on integrating and/or building payments, auth, and email.

Tellingly, they let you export a project to GitHub but not import one, a product decision that tells you everything about who they think their user is: someone starting fresh, not someone with an existing codebase.

Replit

Replit is the inverse. They’ve leaned into technical users with code import, a real IDE, and Vercel deployment integration. What’s most interesting to me is how aggressively Replit has in-housed the messy middle: their own database, app storage, auth, and domain handling. This is either a brilliant moat or a giant maintenance burden, depending on execution. I suspect many of these were features the Replit team had already built for their original IDE business, which makes the strategy more defensible than it first appears.

Base44

Base44 is in an interesting position, as their parent company is Wix, the website builder giant. Unsurprisingly, they’ve built a robust template marketplace featuring both free and paid templates from the Base44 team alongside power-user submissions. This is the Squarespace/Wix playbook applied to apps.

The pattern across all of them: the prototype builder itself is becoming a loss leader. The business is in what comes after.

The product questions that will define this category

If you’re building a vibe coding tool, or working at one, I’d push on a few questions.

Is everyone really a builder?

Perhaps a better way to frame this question: does everyone need to be a builder?

The original promise of vibe coding was that anyone could build their own software. However, the more workshops I run, the more I see a bimodal distribution: some people genuinely get it and run, others want the outcome without the building and get frustrated when their prompts don’t generate the output they wanted. Both types of users are valid to build for, but require a completely different set of product features, user interfaces, and integrations.

Currently, vibe coding platforms seem to be facing the same question when figuring out how technical and self-starting their ideal power user is.

The honest move might be to develop a marketplace of power users who build for others — the way Framer and Squarespace eventually grew an entire freelance economy around them. This feels like it cuts against the founding pitch, but I don’t think it does. There’s always arbitrage, and skilled vibe-coders-for-hire are an extension of the long tail.

Bethany Crystal, founder of Build First (an AI learning lab where I am a co-facilitator), frames it well: are you a maker or a user of the tool?

So, the question builders of these platforms should be asking is: are we building with embedded AI for users or makers?

Who is the end user of your end user’s product?

Answering this question as a platform helps you unlock user retention. Put a different way, this is really the question of how your platform helps your users make more money.

Typical user personas in this space:

• Solopreneurs building a monetizable product

• Teams shipping internal apps for features that would have otherwise been deprioritized

• Curious tinkerers looking to build personal apps, typically for entertainment

• Tech-cautious users using generative AI as another search engine

There’s a real distinction between building for solopreneurs trying to monetize and building for internal teams who want to ship apps that would otherwise have been deprioritized. I’ve heard compelling versions of both use cases, and the product implications are different.

What’s the easiest way to describe cost and token usage?

Users are inherently mistrustful of the token and usage limits they keep hitting. Platforms need a better way to anticipate and communicate costs before they focus on reducing them.

Generative AI platforms are racing to build new features and user interfaces, while simultaneously iterating on token optimization in the interim. It’s possible that tokens become commoditized by the time that we figure out how to actually explain what a token is to your uncle at a dinner.

In the interim, there are some product user interfaces that could improve transparency, and therefore, user trust and retention in the product:

• Acting like a fuel gauge: translating the token usage into the user’s actual task, with some context on the previous prompts. E.g. “About 8 more long conversations” or “roughly 30 more code edits at your current prompt usage”

• Itemized receipts: Showing the cost after the prompt, itemized, the way receipts often are. Users may tolerate surprise pricing far better when they can see what they paid for. The worst version of this is the silent meter; the best version is the post-task summary that says “this run used X because you attached a 40-page PDF.”

How much should you configure for users versus letting them configure themselves?

Teaching workshops on AI adoption, in addition to scoping calls with consulting inquiries, requires a strong intuition of where I’m losing my audience vs. guiding them towards the vision or curiosity of what they want to build. I worry constantly about whether participants understand the workflows I give them, or are just copy-pasting their way to a finish line they can’t reproduce.

Platforms have the same problem. Too prescriptive and you’ve built another horizontal SaaS. Too open and you’ve recreated the original problem of non-technical users facing infinite decisions.

The trap most platforms fall into is treating this as a single dial — “how much hand-holding?” — when it’s really two separate dials that need to move independently. There’s the initial state dial (what does a blank canvas look like?) and the escape hatch dial (how easily can a user override the defaults once they have an opinion?). Most platforms get one right and the other wrong. Notion famously started with a blank page and a learning curve so steep that an entire YouTube genre grew up around it. Squarespace went the other way — gorgeous defaults, almost impossible to break the grid once you wanted to. Both are valid; neither is the answer for vibe coding, where the user’s goal often is to break the grid eventually.

The pattern I keep coming back to is what I’d call scaffolded defection. Start the user inside a working template — not a blank page, not a wizard — and make the act of customizing feel like a series of small, reversible defections from the default. The first edit should be one word in a header. The tenth edit might be a database schema. The platform’s job is to make sure step ten doesn’t require understanding everything between steps one and nine. The workshops that work for me are the ones where participants leave with something that runs and that they could, in principle, take apart later — not the ones where they leave with something they built from scratch and can’t explain to themselves a week later.

The deeper question is whether your platform is teaching a skill or hiding one. Both are legitimate businesses. But you should know which one you are, because the configuration choices flow from there.

Who do you partner with, and who gets left out — build, buy, or punt?

Vibe coding platforms are constantly making build-vs-buy calls. The companies that win partnerships will be the ones with clean API documentation and MCP servers, investing in a modern, agent-friendly tool stack.

The interesting wrinkle is that “agent-friendly” is becoming a real product category, not just a marketing claim. An API designed for a human developer to read once and integrate over a sprint looks very different from an API designed for an LLM to read fresh on every call. The former tolerates ambiguity, optional parameters, and “see the docs for more”; the latter punishes all of it. Stripe’s API was famously legible because it was written for human developers under cognitive load. The next generation of legible APIs will be written for agents under context-window pressure, which is a stricter constraint.

Agent-friendly examples

A small feature I love on modern developer docs is the “copy as markdown” button, offering a one-click way to paste docs directly into an LLM that’s coding on your behalf. Stack Auth and Stripe both do this well. If you sell to developers in 2026, this should be table stakes.

What does pricing look like in a world where everyone can build?

The old model was free for personal apps, paid for professional apps. That breaks down when a “personal” app might serve fifty people in a tight-knit community. The pricing model that wins is going to look more like usage-based metering than seat-based SaaS, but I haven’t seen anyone nail this yet.

The fundamental issue is that the unit of value has shifted. Seats made sense when software was a tool a person used. They make less sense when software is a small program a person deploys to do work on their behalf: sometimes for themselves, sometimes for a group, sometimes for an audience that never logs in at all. A wedding planner who builds a client intake form that 200 couples fill out a year isn’t a 200-seat customer; she’s a one-seat customer with 200 anonymous beneficiaries. Charging her per seat is absurd. Charging her per submission feels closer, but punishes her for success in a way that subscriptions don’t.

The pricing models I find most interesting are the ones experimenting with tiered usage with soft ceilings: a generous floor for personal use, metered overage for anything past it, and a separate (much higher) tier the moment the app starts generating revenue or handling regulated data.

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The biggest gaps nobody's filled yet

Better non-technical onboarding is the highest-leverage gap. Vibe coding apps should be asking users questions up front that flow into the infrastructure and security layers:

• How many users do you expect to visit this product?

• Do they all need the same level of visibility?

• Who is allowed to see what?

• Does your application handle sensitive data?

And a few specific product opportunities nobody has nailed yet:

• A non-technical terminal. Nearly every vibe coding platform is UI-and-frontend-heavy by design. This is a great onboarding strategy and a terrible teaching strategy. Concepts like deployment, branches, environment variables, and the command line don’t go away when you hide them — they reappear the moment something breaks. I’d love to see a “terminal for the rest of us” that explains why you’re typing what you’re typing instead of abstracting it away entirely. Docker’s recent MCP catalog hints at this kind of layer, but for AI infrastructure specifically.

• Multi-tenancy as a service. Plug-and-play identity, permissions, and data isolation for small groups. Not enterprise-scale IAM, not single-user assumptions. The actual constraints of an app serving twenty to two hundred people. Onboarding should ask about types of data, types of users, and the permissions each level of user needs.

• Natural-language database design with safety rails. Letting non-technical builders specify data models in plain English, with the platform handling migrations, consistency, and the inevitable “I need to change this schema after launch” moment.

• Operational handoff. The day a vibe-coded app starts making real money is the day its builder needs to think about monitoring, error handling, and uptime. Nobody is building “AWS for non-technical operators” yet, and the gap is widening. I would be interested to see a service line at vibe coding companies where builders could hire experienced engineers to audit applications and/or debug when things go wrong.

What stays, what doesn’t

A few things I think persist across whatever paradigm shift is coming:

• GitHub will emerge as a clear winner and never be vanquished. The interface might change, but version control as a concept is too fundamental, and GitHub is too central to integrating with anything on the internet. If anything, the GitHub-shaped layer is going to get more important as more non-technical builders ship code they don’t fully understand.

• Product sense stays, and becomes more important than ever. The cheap-prototype era doesn’t reduce the need for product thinking, it amplifies it. When everyone can ship a UI in an afternoon, the differentiator is what you chose to build and why. I’ll write more about this in the next piece.

• Companies in the productivity spaces need to invest in strong API documentation and MCP servers. Any personal/professional tooling company would strongly benefit from developing a MCP featureset, unlocking easy integration capabilities for builders who want to automate their workflows. Companies that don’t will quietly get routed around.

What I’m watching next

The most interesting thing about this moment, to me, is that the platforms racing to fill the messy middle are simultaneously racing to define what software is for non-technical builders. Whatever defaults they pick — about data, about pricing, about who gets to be a builder versus a buyer — will shape the next decade of how regular people relate to software.

I still believe in the free range apps thesis. I just think the year ahead is less about whether vibe coding works, and more about who gets to build the boring, essential, deeply underrated infrastructure that turns a prototype into a thing your friend’s bakery can actually run on.

If you’re building in this space, especially on the messy middle problems, I’d love to hear what you’re working on.

I consider biting into a good pastry a cornerstone of my weekend – no, daily – routine. That, in addition to getting movement and seeing something breathtaking and beautiful in nature, ideally before my first meeting of the morning.

Riding my bike and eating my way through the bakeries of the Bay Area have sent me tumbling head over heels in love with where I live – and I wanted to share my guide to my favorite rides and carbs with you.

I included options for beginners who are new to road cycling, such as gentle rides around ten miles. But if you’re a hardo who wants to spend the entirety of Saturday on a bike, ensued by a woeful lamentation of roasted legs over martinis later that night – you’re in for a treat.

Alongside the routes are bakery and restaurant stops that are popular with cyclists — mostly informed by my experience cycling thousands of miles over the last six years in the Bay, but in no means exhaustive. In fact, if you have any favorites that I missed, please comment below!

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My goal is to expand the cycling community, while making it tighter-knit — imagine a hand outstretched, pulling you into a crowd swaying to the same song.

When I first started out, I found that a lot of the places to go, people to know, and bites to eat — the bike-friendly hotspots where you actually meet other people in the sport — were passed down through tribal knowledge.

So, I wrote this guide for Megha of 2020–2021, who stumbled through the sport in San Francisco. I often think about how badly I wanted to be the current cycling version of myself — confident, supported, and strong — years ago.

At first, the sport and the people in the city both felt cliquish and intimidating.

Luckily, I slowly found my community. Over the years, our friendships have deepened, in no small part due to the conversations over a mid-ride pastry stop, followed by ruminations while grinding on the bike and ripping the rest of the way home.

A Few Notes

Surface. These are only road rides. I don’t ride much gravel here, but Ornot hosts a lot of gravel rides — check their Strava page. OBF 415 is also worth a look if you’re into cyclocross.

Geography. These are local to San Francisco and Marin, which is where I predominantly ride. There’s a wealth of fantastic cycling down on the Peninsula and in the South Bay, plus across the bay in Berkeley, Oakland, and the surrounding hills.

Safety and timing. I prefer to ride early. On weekdays, I’m on the bike by 6:30am; on weekends, I try to start before 9am. Less car traffic means I can focus on the ride instead of being hypervigilant about cars and doors.

The wind in San Francisco significantly picks up in the afternoons. Make sure you have adequate bike handling if you plan to cross the bridge when it’s windy — there are two tight spots around the towers that are a hotspot for pedestrian–bike accidents. A firm yet cheery “Bike up!” goes a long way for tourists and riders alike.

Gear:

• A bike computer that can load .GPX or .TCX files (I use a Wahoo Elemnt Bolt)

• Strava or RideWithGPS

• Epic Ride Weather, if you’re particular about wind

• Hawk Hill PR, if you’re planning a PR attempt

Beginner

Golden Gate Park Loop

Route | 7 miles, 200+ ft of elevation gain

An ideal route for beginners. Ditch the carbon road bike and take a Bay Wheels if you really need to reinvigorate the sense of joy that comes with riding a bike.

JFK is closed to cars, the roads are wide, and the grades are gentle — which makes this an exceedingly nice route for getting comfortable on the bike. You can also get over to the polo fields: a cycling track with two lanes that people often use for interval training. I’d recommend riding out there if you have good etiquette, i.e. don’t hog the center of the lane, move to the right if someone is passing, signal if you’re passing another rider, be aware of other riders. Nowhere do I say you have to be fast.

Stop for a bite at:

• Flywheel Coffee, right at the edge of the park and get a mango chocolate donut from Dynamo Donuts. Flywheel is a popular cafe for cyclists, and deserves a ton of love for how many bikes they have not-so-willingly suffered inside of their store.

• Devil’s Teeth for a breakfast sandwich if you want to venture into the Sunset. The aioli-drenched biscuits are a dream.

Twin Peaks

Route | 13 miles, 800+ ft of elevation gain

You can attempt Twin Peaks from a variety of directions (Sloat, Clarendon, Buena Vista, etc.), but my favorite is coming up from Sloat and heading north. It’s a beautiful view of the San Francisco skyline — I love looking left at the rolling hills toward the ocean, then whipping my head right to see the skyscrapers superimposed on the Bay.

Be mindful of car traffic. I prefer early mornings or mid-afternoons. 8am–10am is busy with traffic along Sloat, school drop-offs, and neighborhood commuters, while sunset is also crowded because it’s a popular viewpoint.

Stop for a bite at: Cafe Reveille on the way down for a breakfast burrito and a pourover. If you’re peckish by the beach, Andytown is a great stop for a snowy plover.

Medium

Hawk Hill

Route | 16 miles, 1300+ ft of elevation gain

Hawk Hill is a classic ride, so much so that the segment has been ridden a whopping 900,000+ times. The rolling green hills in the Marin headlands, the death-defying descent down Conzelman Road.

The first part is the steepest section, but the view of the Golden Gate bridge rewards your punchy efforts.

The backside descent down Conzelman Road is exceptionally steep but one of the most life-changing pieces of tarmac you’ll ever zip down.

If you feel comfortable descending and confident in your bike handling skills, I’d recommend doing the full Hawk Hill loop. This route includes the backside descent of Hawk Hill, in addition to a loop at Rodeo Beach. You finish by climbing up McCullough Road (a fantastic segment for intervals).

Stop for a bite at: Arsicault, a classic. As I mentioned in my guide to spending a weekend in San Francisco, I recommend the ham and cheese croissant here, over the almond croissant that draws lines.

Four Corners

Route | 31 miles, 1900+ ft of elevation gain

Four Corners is my go-to when I’m short on time but still want to cross the bridge, hang out on Mount Tam, and get out of the city. I feel crazy saying this, but my ideal weekday morning ride — when I have just enough time and the right amount of willpower — is Four Corners. If I leave at 6am, I can reliably be home and showered in time for a 9am meeting.

The climb up Marion is challenging but gentle. I feel idyllic biking through quiet streets and multimillion-dollar cottages while the redwoods tower overhead, transporting me a world away from the civilization just miles off.

Stop for a bite at: Equator Coffee in Mill Valley or in Sausalito – hey, you can’t beat a classic Bay Area chain!

Paradise Loop

Route | 42 miles, 2000+ ft of elevation gain

A rolling, relatively flat ride for an easy weekend spin that can get spicy if you want to put down the effort. Great house hunting, quiet roads, gentle grade. When my legs are fatigued from climbing or interval training, but I’m itching for a longer ride, Paradise Loop is a go-to.

I’ll admit I’m not the biggest fan — I get bored on a route that’s mostly rollers. However, some folks are geared differently; if that’s you, I trust you’ll enjoy it.

Stop for a bite at: Pizzahacker in Tam Junction on the way back. All of their pizzas are incredible – but what I love more is the Intermezzo salad, a nod to the heaping mounds of sprouts and chickpeas in the salads at Cafe Mezzo in Berkeley, where I believe the owners attended for their undergraduate education.

Advanced

Stinson Beach Loop

Route | 49 miles, 4300+ ft of elevation gain

If I were to create my perfect weekend day, it would start with this route. This is my favorite long ride, due to the amount of time spent both on the coast and in the forest. Stinson Beach is also an ideal mid-ride stop – the thought of inhaling an egg croissant motivates me to skip snoozing my alarm. I also love ending up in a beach hamlet a short drive away from the city – one that most people get to by car.

As a lifelong proponent of “see ocean,” climbing out of Stinson alongside the Pacific on Highway 1 is also a defining feature of this route for me.

Check the wind forecast before you commit. Highway 1 is exposed, and a brutal headwind can turn the climb out of Stinson into a type-2 fun situation. This ride convinced me to upgrade my Epic Ride Weather membership to avoid headwinds in the future.

Stop for a bite at: Parkside Cafe, where the egg croissant is not to be missed.

Alpine Dam

Route | 55 miles, 4600+ ft of elevation gain

Fairfax and Alpine Dam is a classic Mount Tam route. Expect to see everyone you know out there on this route on a sunny day; it makes for a cheery group ride vibe grinding up Bolinas-Fairfax road, even though everyone is doing their own thing. I would recommend counterclockwise, i.e. climbing up out of Fairfax, vs. descending into it, as the road has tight turns, horrible pavement, and consistent car traffic. The other thing to note is that you spend about an hour riding through the neighborhoods of Marin, before hitting any major climbing. Fuel up at the Coffee Roastery in Fairfax before the climbs.

Stop for a bite at: M&H Bread and Butter in downtown San Anselmo. If the line at M&H is too long, scurry down to LONGWAY for a good cappuccino and eye some delicious clothing.

Point Reyes Loop

Route | 78 miles, 5000+ ft of elevation gain

A great route for those looking to put on serious mileage. The roads north of Stinson Beach turn into rollers, which can be fun with a large group. If you can stomach it, head up a little further past Point Reyes and grab some oysters at Hog Island Oyster Company.

Stop for a bite at: Bovine Bakery for a pastry, as well as The Market in downtown Point Reyes for a sandwich and soft serve. You’ll be starving by the time you get back to Fairfax, and most certainly by Sausalito; I recommend refueling again at Fairfax Roasters. If you’re starving on the way back, snag a quesadilla from the hot bar at Good Earth Natural Foods in Mill Valley.

What about the rest of the Bay?

Like I mentioned, this guide focuses mostly on San Francisco and Marin because that’s where I primarily ride – but there is great cycling in the Peninsula (Woodside, San Gregorio, Pescadero), as well as the East Bay (Berkeley, Oakland, Orinda).

However, I will give you my favorite Berkeley route + the best pastry in the Bay Area in my humble and well-carb-loaded opinion. A treat, after you’ve ridden thirty miles and climbed more than 4,000 feet…

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Welcome to Carb Queen! I’m Megha — this quarter, I’m experimenting with shorter, more frequent pieces on some of the many passions and squiggles in my life as a cyclist, florist, software engineer, and sunset devotee in San Francisco.

Today’s post is a quick bite on how you can be the most popular and papped pair of legs on the group ride.

In a sport rife with overpriced kit, socks are the great equalizer of cycling fashion. Due to their relatively low price point, combined with the visibility and surface area for being noticed on a strapping pair of calves, socks have become a great way to express one’s personality and dictate the tone of a ride.

Cycling socks tend to be relatively thin – even the winter editions – in order to fit under tight, compressive cycling shoes, making them extremely comfortable to wear out in “civilian” settings. I’ve been papped before with a Pas Normal Studios logo peeking above my trusty Stella McCartney curb stomping boots while on a night out.

My cycling sock collection also skews towards the mischievious. I don’t take life too seriously and used to love wearing mismatched socks.

Cheeky sayings on socks remind me that for many of us, we’re just amateurs who like spinning wheels, going up mountains, and eating a croissant.

Sometimes when you’re grinding up a hill staring at the same person’s rear for the last four hours, it’s a little uplifting to see an inspirational phrase on the backs of their legs while your eyes glaze over their umpteenth pedal rotation.

Irreverent socks also feel like a stand against the dudebro, kit-obsessed culture of watt weenies who only wear pristine white aero socks to match their white road cycling shoes — feeding into a prissiness and elitism that divides roadies from gravel and mountain bikers.

You may find other sock guides that will tell you the best fashion or bang for your buck in terms of durability, but this post is simply a look into my sly sock drawer – because I love being the person to show up to the group ride and put a smile on someone’s face when they catch my socks.

Brands to check out:

Fingers Crossed

Fingers Crossed is a cheeky cycling brand out of Germany with exceptional quality and range across colors and prints. Their socks never slide down my calves, even after an eighty-mile day. The fabric is extremely breathable yet durable – I’ve worn their socks for hundreds of miles, and have only just recently acquired my first hole. And most importantly, I have accidentally washed many pairs of their white socks with a load of colors, with no discoloration (yet).

Fingers Crossed is predominantly known for their HELL YEAH socks. I first saw this pair on my friend Shreya while on a long ride in Marin. She’s an absolute shredder, and was one of my first friends that I made through cycling who felt relatable – i.e. someone who works hard, cares about their job, likes to go out and have fun, other interests, and most of all, is a nice and normal human being.

The HELL YEAH emblazoned on the socks are very emblematic of her personality, and always gave me a spot of joy whenever I saw them on her legs leading me up climbs.

@carbqueenmeghaif my socks aren’t funny then what was the point of the ride @FINGERSCROSSED #cyclist #cycling #biking

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Ostroy

Ostroy is a cycling brand based out of New York City, known for their patterned kit and breezy resort shirts, perfect for a chill ride or gravel rip.

If you thought Fingers Crossed was a bit crude, wait until you see my favorite pair of socks from Ostroy Cycling:

Without a doubt, my highest complimented pair of socks and most worn. Every time I put this pair on, I’m overcome with a fresh wave of perspective.

Screw sitting at my laptop typing letters on a plastic keyboard into the ether!

I’m gonna go get the wind in my face, salt dripping from brow to lip, and touch grass and see ocean on my bike, even if it’s just for an hour.

BONK Cycling Club

Founded by Astrid Heggerick in Belgium, Bonk combines streetwear and cycling references, giving the sport a breath of fresh air.

Bonk predominantly features anthropomorphized cycling bottles and wine bottles, and images of cyclists chowing down a bowl of pasta — lending the brand a warm feel.

Their collection is limited to casual wear and accessories; I think that’s more of a strength for them, as they don’t overextend themselves by going into sports apparel (for now).

The mottos are adorable: EAT PASTA RIDE FASTA. Who can disagree with that?

DeFeet

An honorable mention for cycling sock veteran brand, DeFeet. Started in 1992, DeFeet’s socks have adorned some of my most shreddy and down-to-earth friends, always giving me a decidedly positive flavor on the brand.

One thing I appreciate is their extreme dedication to all sorts of sock technology – just look at that list of product categories:

I really enjoy their current National Parks collection, in collaboration with Steve Wolf – I might have to scoop this pair with the words, Everyday we grow a bit more.

If you’d like to peruse any of the socks, I have a collection here.

Any funny socks I missed?

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While I’ve been working on a few blog series for cycling and florals, I decided to dust off this topic from my drafts from last fall, and finally indulge the little rat in my brain that jumps every time I see paisley while out and about.

Today’s post is dedicated to this gorgeous print; if you are itching for more cycling or San Francisco-specific content, I invite you to read these two pieces I got to write earlier this month. And really, keep scrolling — you’ll learn something, I promise.

the people's passport

megha's guide: san francisco

for more locals-only hidden gems…

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6 months ago · 25 likes · 3 comments · amber parlow and megha

The Sweat Lookbook

Florals for Spring Cycling? Groundbreaking.

This week, TSL’s cycling correspondent megha returns! Since her last missive, she’s moved back from to San Francisco from Michigan. The cross-country move comes with many perks – like envy-inducing March weather…

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6 months ago · 32 likes · 2 comments · Lee Glandorf and megha

Given that trends tend to come back every decade or so, paisley’s resurgence was bound to happen, and I’ve been waiting. The last time I recall seeing paisley was during the 2010s, amidst the wave of boho fashion. Even Jonathan Anderson did a whole collection inspired by the motif!

At the time, I was but a wee child, spending precious pocket money on flimsy, yet gorgeous paisley shorts from Forever 21. I remember going to school and wearing matching paisley flare boho pants with my friends, often sporting an elephant print or a mandala as well – a far cry from the boring minimalism wave of the 2020s that we’re now firmly moving away from. I have a strong feeling those gap-year-in-Bali trousers will be making a comeback soon.

However, most people’s forays into paisley are relegated only to bandana print. Swivel your head to the streets and the runways: bandanas are everywhere. Neckerchiefed hipsters in New York, red quilted Vera Bradley totes among the coolest denizens of San Francisco, classic Americana bandana print showing up across designer collections and mall haunts alike. The western-wear revival has brought paisley back – but mostly in its stripped-down, simplified bandana form.

From Boteh to Bandana

The motif we call “paisley” was originally known as boteh, Persian for “shrub,” and commonly thought to represent a cypress tree. It dates back over 2,000 years, traveling through Afghanistan and into Kashmir, where it became the defining motif of the coveted pashmina shawl. Mughal Emperor Akbar popularized gifting pashminas as robes of honor. Napoleon himself brought a pashmina for Joséphine.

How did boteh become bandana? As with many bastardizations – and evolutions – of ethnic designs, we can look to the global flow of commerce, specifically the Industrial Revolution.

Europeans long coveted these painstakingly woven textiles. With the invention of the Jacquard loom, the Scottish town of Paisley mass-produced them, and the town’s name became synonymous with the pattern. To broaden the market, producers printed these designs onto small, durable cotton squares, creating affordable neckwear for laborers, miners, and cowboys, coming to be known as “bandanas”. The word “bandana” itself traces back to bandhani, a South Asian textile dyeing technique from Gujurat.

The Etronaissance Is Here

From the mills of the 1800s to the runways of today, designers are taking notice. Call it the Etronaissance. Etro, the maximalist Italian brand known for their paisley, has made a comeback. I credit , who’s always had impeccable style and a prescient eye and has been bringing more Etro back into rotation. New investors are bound to try to expand the company further. Either way, the Italian fashion house’s signature paisley is suddenly everywhere again.

But it’s not just Etro. Paisley has cropped up in Doen’s new spring collection, featuring a ravishing blue set with a paisley print, and in Chloé’s fall collection last year, featuring rich paisley jacquard fabrics.

I’m obsessed with paisleys. I love the way they bulge, the innards of the motif, the way they delicately curl into themselves. I love how extremely intricate they are. They are one of the most visually interesting and complex prints while being surprisingly ubiquitous for something drawn from nature – you don’t see nearly as many peony, tulip, or daisy prints on articles of clothing. Paisleys speak to me of maximalism and of color.

Bandana print is already everywhere. If not this fall as part of the western-wear revival, then next summer, rebranded as fun, flirty dresses and sarongs – it’s coming for all of us either way. But my push? Go beyond the bandana. Dive into the full maximalism and color of paisley.

How I’m wearing Paisley

recent discoveries

Aaram Se

Aaram Se – Founded by Meghan Chatrath in NYC featuring stunning quilted jackets made from vintage saris. Perfect for layering on top of denim or a mini skirt.

Kartik Research

Kartik Research – Founded in Delhi by Kartik Kumra, their newest collection is currently under wraps but I will be keeping a close eye.

Hemant & Nandita

Hemant & Nandita – An Indian designer duo with delightful hues and prints across a variety of flattering silhouettes that will take you from brunch to the beach.

Anokhi

Anokhi – Rajasthani block-printing legends since 1970. Their cotton clothing and scarves feature original paisley designs printed directly by craftspeople in Rajasthan. I’ve been lucky enough to take a nap under an Anokhi quilt and can attest to the sweetest dreams it gave me.

Beyond the paywall — paisley pieces and musings on whether sports apparel would ever be bold enough to adopt the print.

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Thank you to Samsara Cycles for gifting the cycling kit featured in today’s post. Thank you to Robert Yu for photography and videography. All photos unless otherwise credited are his.

Happy Floral Design Day! Today of all days, I hope you rearrange your farmer’s market flowers from this morning, pluck a few stems on a park walk, or knock on your neighbor’s door and inveigle them to cut down just two of their blooming tulips.

To celebrate the holiday, I wanted to combine two of my passions: cycling and flowers.

I was inspired by a recent Pinterest doomscroll – unable to shake the image of a bike erupting in blooms, reminiscent of the old Farmgirl Flowers bike couriers. In the month since, I’ve been obsessed with the idea of creating a florally adorned bike and knew I had to try it on my own.

why flowers and bikes?

Florists are engineers of nature. Even something like a bouquet feels like a structural feat of stems, creating a specific shape, construction, and look.

On the other end, large-scale floral designs and activations, such as weddings with hundreds of attendees or corporate marketing events, often require significant mechanics for statement pieces — think floral arches towering in unstable sand, or hundreds of suspended calla lilies swaying above guests.

Whenever I get started on a large floral install, the first thing I face is the question of how to actually build. Reaching into my floral toolbelt reminds me of fishing out wrenches while working on my bike; I find that a lot of the care I have with bike mechanics extends to floral installation, and vice versa.

More than that, floral design and cycling activate the same part of my brain. I lose track of time on a good ride, and similarly when I’m designing.

It tracks that florals and sports go hand in hand; most sports are outdoors, or can be played outside, meaning nature is usually inherent in the mission and culture of sports participants and brands.

However — despite sports marketing being so outdoorsy and nature-focused, I have a hunch that we don’t see more flowers involved in activations or campaigns because flowers are so feminine.

I want to see more flowers in sports. Flowers in fashion, fashion in sports – brands and creators alike have proven these crossovers work ad nauseam. We just need to apply the transitive property here.

I want to see a hiking brand offering how-tos on seasonal wildflower bouquets by trail and region. A rowing team shooting in a pool of water lilies. Imagine a golf bag filled to the brim with an oversized bouquet!

Perhaps that’s why I was so taken with the image of a bike bursting with flowers – it feels like someone just plucked it out of the mountains next from you, farm-to-table, ready to roar and eat some dirt with you.

There are a few sports brands in the space who have been putting out exciting, floral-forward campaigns and products.

September Studio’s collaboration with The North Face comes to mind. September Studio, a Sydney-based florist that creates monstrous, funky, jaw-droppingly cool arrangements, helped The North Face highlight how awe, beauty, and adventure can be captured by something as simple yet electric as flowers in the mountains.

Pruzan’s new spring collection is another fantastic example (have something fun coming soon!), with an upcoming launch next week at ’s Running Wylder – an SF running store with the sickest product selection in the city, buoyed by design and branding that emanates the cheery confidence that only runners who truly love running possess. Next week, they’re hosting a neighborhood run followed by a floral arranging workshop, led by yours truly.

If I have so convinced you of our moral imperative to bring flowers and sports together — there are still a few spots open here.

I also find that arranging mini wildflower bouquets on hikes has been an accessible and spontaneous way to flex my creativity and be more in tune with my surroundings while I’m on the trails. Last summer, the hillsides of the Dolomites were carpeted in the most gorgeous array of wildflowers that constantly begged me to get off my bike and pluck one. The next day, a few friends and I mischievously collected a few and walked home, chatting away like schoolchildren with daisy chains in our pockets.

the kit

Samsara, another sports brand that's leaned heavily into florals, reached out earlier this year after reading my guest piece in TSL on cycling fashion — and offered to send me gear to test.

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Let's Talk About Cycling Style!

Like a true Millennial, I love email. I love sending them (hence the newsletter). And I love receiving them (hence the hundreds of newsletters to which I subscribe). I love email so much, my inbox is chronically overstuffed. I rarely clean it out and often leave read emails marked unread so I can come back to them later. Call it a half-assed to-do list…

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a year ago · 53 likes · 25 comments · Lee Glandorf and megha

Samsara is a Canadian female-founded cycling and triathlon brand, offering extended sizing, pregnancy-friendly options, and delightful colors with thoughtfully designed gear.

Upon seeing the floral prints, I was immediately inspired to design something based on the gear. While many cycling brands featuring florals work with handpainted designs, Samsara took an interesting approach using renderings from real cyanotype florals. This intrigued me from the start – I loved the fact that they actually incorporated real flowers and partnered with an artist with the most enticing patterns.

I often joke that most cycling kit for “women” is actually just tested on tiny men – I’m the president of the itty bitty titty committee and yet XS jerseys always unzip over my chest. Samsara’s approach feels unique in the industry – everything is designed with the female form in mind, working with multiple femme sizing models and offering colorways across all sizes.

You can tell the difference. They clearly thought about even something as simple, yet impactful, as the bib straps, which are comfortable, thick, and stay put. Lately, I’ve been living in their thermal bib tights for the frigid feels-like-28 mornings and adventure bib shorts for the afternoon rips.

the ride

The flower bike deserved a vista worthy of its majesty; it was only fitting that we shot it at Twin Peaks. The way up to the summit is dotted with bushes of pride of madeira – thick, colorful clusters of flowers that inspired me to use hydrangeas for this installation.

I’m constantly taking notes from the vistas I get to see in San Francisco while cycling.

I’m a San Francisco lifer; the poster child for the city that so artfully said, “drawn to living in a city purely for those types of visceral experiences.”

If you like nature, cycling, running, and skiing, I hate to call you a fool to live anywhere else, so I will simply bite my tongue for now, and ask you this:

Why not microdose awe regularly?

It’s good for our brains.

It’s hard not to feel like the main character, perched atop the hill and surveying the cityscape. If there’s one place in San Francisco where you could recreate La La Land, this is the spot.

We started with some static shots, then I took down part of the installation by the chainstays so the bike was rideable for the action shots.

As I rode through Twin Peaks, the installation fell apart a little. Fine by me – I didn’t try to strongly secure the installation, as I was worried about scratching the carbon or spending the next day fishing out hydrangea bits from my chainring and cassette.

I started looping through the peaks, weaving through the sunset acolytes. I would pass people up one way and startle them, only to see them clutching an errant hydrangea or delphinium that had fallen off with a look of delight by the time I looped back.

The floral bike became a fun conversation starter, and I felt the city grow that much smaller and cozier.

Cheers to my friend and photographer Bob who kept telling me to gas it on the flats to get the right motion blur. We finished right as the sky turned indigo, bathing the scene in dusk.

De-installing the flowers was surprisingly easy! I gave away what was salvageable, and composed the rest.

The fact that the bike was pretty rideable excites me for more activations – I think I could build an iconic top-tube installation and take it on a longer ride. Especially while planning some cycling trips in Europe this summer – I would love to forage wild bougainvillea and build something into my bike

The actual mechanics of how I built this are behind the paywall. I’m planning to keep most of my writing accessible, but I’d like to share more in-depth work such as floral recipes, recommendations, and personal writing in a way that feels commensurate with the effort deserving of them.

If you’re as geeked about flowers as I am – whether an eager floral fanatic or a brand looking to partner for an activation, check out my floral design studio Wave Floral.

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As a florist fielding inquiries, freelancing for other studios, and building my own designs, I get to see trends from multiple angles — what couples are asking for, what planners are moodboarding, and what florists are gently steering everyone toward.

The colorful, garden-style florals of the 2010s — peonies bursting open, ranunculus spilling everywhere, blush layered on coral layered on hot pink — have given way to something more sculptural and restrained. Cream and green have made a resurgence. Silhouettes are sharper. There’s more negative space, more emphasis on shape over abundance. The bride is less ingénue and more cool girl. Less meadow, more art gallery.

Weddings have also become more expensive year over year, and the aesthetic mirrors that reality. Instead of leaning into overt romance, florals now feel composed, editorial, slightly detached.

the stems of the moment

Certain flowers appear so consistently that they’ve become timestamps for the 2020s.

One popular stem is anthurium — glossy, slightly uncanny, undeniably phallic – with a design that resists sentimentality and has stolen the hearts of cool girls everywhere.

Fashion helped push it there. Loewe’s campaigns over the last few years styled anthuriums less like a clothing pattern and more like objects — surreal and architectural.

Amaranthus still surprises me in its ubiquity. It drapes and spills and feels faintly out of place for something as romantic as a wedding, yet the saturated light green variety fits seamlessly into today’s cream-and-green palettes. Amaranthus is distinctive but not loud — the kind of stem that doesn’t announce itself but elevates and dates a bouquet to the post-COVID era instantly.

Cymbidium orchids are the workhorse showstopper — large, durable, and easy to elevate a design while maintaining structure. Processed well, they last weeks, which matters when studios are prepping multiple events days in advance. For drama-per-dollar, they’re hard to beat.

For outdoor and beach weddings, coastal grasses have had a similar moment — they move with the landscape rather than fighting it, reading as both dramatic and effortless.

the cool girl bouquet

(1, 2, 3)

There’s a formula emerging across mood boards and inquiries. Orchid, anthurium, amaranthus, calla lily. Pastels, whites, and sweet greens, with perhaps one unexpected texture. Clean, imposing, and intriguing. It’s a formula because it works. I’m not above a formula!

Alongside it, more architectural stems are entering the mix — oncidium orchids for movement and whimsy, snake ball allium for something spiky, alocasia for bold graphic shape, and lady slipper orchids for something rare and slightly strange. If the 2010s were about abundance, the 2020s are about curation. Fewer fillers, more statements.

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trends i’ve been eyeing

Mounds and clustering

More arrangements with fewer ingredients and more repetition. Instead of complex recipes with ten different varieties, there’s restraint — tighter lines, more breathing room, designs that look less ‘arranged’ and more like they grew that way. Thirty stems of the same dahlia, massed together, can hit harder than a mixed arrangement twice its size.

Ikebana-inspired mechanics

The industry has been moving away from floral foam and toward kenzans and ikebana-influenced techniques — every stem has to justify its place. More negative space, more intention. It borrows the philosophy more than the tradition, but the effect is real. Sustainability plays a role, but so does economics: simpler recipes are easier to source and manage, and in an era of rising costs, restraint is both aesthetic and practical.

Wearable florals

This is the trend with the most momentum. Purse bouquets, wired florals integrated into garments, statement corsages — the bouquet is no longer the only way to carry flowers down an aisle. Holding a bouquet is, frankly, not ergonomic. It can feel performative. Wearable flowers free up the hands, move with the body, and feel integrated rather than carried.

Passionflower Sue’s wearable constructions are some of the most compelling work in this space — pieces that blur the line between floristry, fashion, and engineering.

Wiring flowers, more popular in the 90s, is also due for a revival in this context. Subtle wired elements that sit on the body like jewelry, flowers that feel integrated into clothing rather than pinned on as decoration.

how floral trends mirror the economy & state of affairs

Floral trends represent the national mood, to me. People are risk-averse, skeptical, and rejecting tradition. And the florals seem to reflect it — safe palettes, proven combinations, a gravitational pull toward what’s already been validated rather than anything personal or unexpected.

Some of this is algorithmic. Pinterest and Instagram compress aesthetics into a few dominant looks, and couples arrive at consultations with mood boards that are nearly identical. But I think it’s also emotional. The colorful, garden-style arrangements of the 2010s had a joyfulness and individuality that required confidence — confidence that your taste was yours, that color was worth the risk. The current direction is beautiful, but the collective move toward monochromatic cool may also reflect a reluctance to stray into something personal and risk being “wrong”.

what do i want to try this year?

A few styles I’d like to try my hand at this year:

Hyacinth chains are making a comeback, and who can blame them? They are so sweet and delicate. Think of a garland draped across an arrangement or looped down an open back. Dense, fragrant, and slightly unruly.

(1, 2)

I grew up around floral hair designs — they’re deeply traditional in South Indian culture. I’m circling back to them now with fresh eyes and finding so much to work with. I’ve been interested in hairpieces that feel sculptural rather than decorative — single stems wired into updos, orchids tucked behind an ear with intention.

Modern cascading bouquets that feel elongated and dramatic. Though extremely tedious for florists to create, as they have to wire each stem by hand and create the shape – the drama is worth it. I’ve seen this trend with French tulips and cymbidium orchids (pictured above).

quick hits

1. Eartha Kitt on Speaking Freely is exquisite. One of my favorite lines: “I never worried about whether you are the lead character or not. The audience always knows who is the star.”

2. I started consulting and dipping my toes back into eCommerce! I’m refamiliarizing myself with search, discovery, and personalization at eCommerce marketplaces. Etsy’s engineering team created a great write-up about using LLMs to understand their vast, single-SKU (one of one) inventory.

3. Somehow I’ve now watched Wuthering Heights a grand total of three (3!) times in the span of one week. I read the book as a kid and was both enamored and befuddled by the first toxic situationship in literary canon. I thought the movie did justice to just how awful Heathcliff and Cathy are to each other; the Charli XCX soundtrack however kept taking me out of the movie and puncturing my suspension of disbelief. Regardless, “Funny Mouth” is my favorite song from the album.

Welcome to Carb Load: a regular collection of my thoughts on technology, cycling, food, fashion, flowers, and whatever else catches my attention.

Today’s edition is all about my favorite flower – how to transform it, a behind-the-scenes arrangement recipe, and the themed goods I can’t stop eyeing.

Before Polymarket and Kalshi existed, we had to content ourselves with more charming commodities for speculative bubbles: tulips.

I polled a wide assortment of people in my life about what type of flowers were in this arrangement. A surprising amount responded with “I don’t know.” You do know what a tulip is — but I’ll take it as a testament to the before-and-after effect of reflexing. Baby botox for blooms, if you will.

Reflexing is a fancy term for flipping or peeling open flower petals by hand to achieve a fuller bloom, commonly used in event and wedding designs.

Peeling back a tulip petal feels like undressing for a lover. A flower’s petals can’t be rushed; they take time to become malleable in your fingertips. Too early and the bloom won’t budge.

I first started reflexing petals while freelancing for large weddings – it’s grunt processing work, the kind of thing experienced florists ask you to do to get comfortable with their working style and studio space. Typically, you are reflexing roses. However, last year, I saw a photo of reflexed tulips – the first time I realized you could reflex anything besides a rose – and I was transfixed. I created an arrangement that quickly went viral; turns out most people had no idea you could utterly transform a tulip.

Seeing tulips at the farmer’s market reminded me of that arrangement, and I knew I wanted to recreate it – deliberately in San Francisco 49ers red and gold over the Super Bowl weekend.

I picked up tulips two weeks in a row at Crane Creek Growers at the Clement Street Farmer’s market, which I would argue is the best farmer’s market in the city.

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The first weekend, I was with my friends in a cute outfit; the second weekend, I was fresh off a ride and in cycling kit, giving the guys at the stall a bit of a shock when I re-introduced myself. I like that they’re getting to know all of my personalities. We can take bets via Kalshi on which persona I show up in next Sunday.

At the market, when you’re looking to select a bunch of tulips, I’d recommend getting some that are closed up but have some vibrant color. They’ll open within a few days and reward your patience. In my experience, the tightly closed buds with more green take longer to open up.

The trick to reflexing tulips is to wait a few days for the flower to blossom. Once the petals feel soft to the touch – less rubbery – gently place your thumb at the base and flip open the petal.

I adore tulips. They are a workhorse flower, second only to the humble grocery store carnation. They are reliable; gorgeous even when closed up, consistently rewarding you with a fabulous bloom — unlike lilies, peonies, or poppies, which feel like playing with a risky set of odds. Tulips come in every color imaginable, and the varieties delight – parrot tulips and peony tulips are favorites.

Last fall, I maniacally planted a hundred bulbs in my old front yard in Michigan. Although we’re experiencing our spring of deception here in San Francisco, I’m looking forward to getting photos of my first tulips to sprout up in Ann Arbor, marking an end to this absurd winter for most of the country.

how to arrange reflexed tulips

I enjoy designing with reflexed tulips due to their visual weight, which you can also think of as surface area. Peeling back the petals increases the surface area, which means the flower’s petals hide mechanics, like chicken wire, beautifully. The bargain hunter in me also feels like reflexing a tulip gets you more bang for your buck – two flowers for the price of one.

I designed in this coupe — a straightforward yet chic arrangement option for your next dinner party or girl hang.

Start to place reflexed tulips at the base and layer as you go, similar to frosting a cake.

I left a gap in the middle where I knew I wanted to add some height to the arrangement. Initially, I wanted to contrast reflexed and normal tulips, but it didn’t pan out the way I had envisioned.

Fill in remaining gaps. I also left the leaves on the longer stems to add more visual contrast and give the arrangement movement and breath. While all-flower and no-greenery arrangements look chic and modern, they can also feel stuffy without something to break up the sameness.

Tulips always bring me back to myself. Many versions of myself have bought tulips – nineteen, awkwardly trying on adulthood; early twenties, overconfident; now, frontal lobe in hand and spreading the gospel of tulips to those who will listen. I like that they are consistent, yet contain surprises.

tulip tailoring

Floral-bedecked prints are on my mind, thanks to Danish darling Stine Goya’s seasonal sale marketing email landing in my inbox. I gravitate towards the brand for their loud prints, often featuring a hand-painted floral print for the season. I urge anyone with more closet space and square footage than I to buy something, in my honor. I’m wondering whether there’s enough demand in the San Francisco rental market for my closet such that I could free up space to fuel my shopping addiction.

However, their current collection’s floral print doesn’t feature tulips.

Always on theme, I was curious to see what kinds of tulip print goods were out there, and was pleasantly surprised:

This Clio Peppiatt dress may have to adorn my body for my next milestone birthday. Furiously scouring Depop.

A cheerfully slinky minidress from the Tyler McGillivary x Lisa Says Gah collaboration; would look darling with a cropped jacket and thigh-high boots.

A new-to-me brand that I will definitely be trying out – Estefania’s entire “Lirio de Tulipan” collection out of Cartagena.

The little old lady in me adores this Hermès Tulipomanie scarf.

If I had more space in my apartment, I would get this tulip vase from Mud Witch, a local San Francisco artist and a stalwart staple in my kitchen ceramics collection.

And lastly, a second set of bedding – Mosey Me’s tulip homewares collection is idyllic.

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Welcome to Carb Load—a regular collection of my thoughts on technology, cycling, food, fashion, flowers, and whatever else catches my attention.

Today’s edition is flower forward:

• What to design with the farmer’s market selection this week

• Valentine’s flowers for lovers and haters

• Floral inspired fashion

Spring is in full swing in the city of San Francisco! Say that five times fast.

The flowers have responded: thanks to the gorgeous January temperatures, there have been tons more flowers available each week at the farmers markets, and each street is in full bloom. Cherry blossoms and magnolias are showing off throughout the city. If you’ve never stuck your face directly in a magnolia, I urge you to — it’s paramount.

I will fully stuff my face in a magnolia bloom. Deeply smelling a magnolia feels like hugging your mom as a kid — plush, warm, sweet, barely able to wrap your hands around her midsection the way your nose is just enveloped by the petals.

Lately, I’ve been seeing lilies, daffodils, narcissus, hellebores, and tulips at the farmers markets — flowers I usually associate with the beginning of spring.

But a thatch of flowering broccolini caught my eye. I’d never seen it before — apparently the flowers are edible! The vibrant contrast of yellow flowers against the deep green reminded me of acacia, and I knew I wanted to make an arrangement with the two varieties.

I opted for a coupe glass that I often challenge myself to design in, since the delicate stem would contrast nicely with what I was envisioning.

I struggle with coupes. They’re incredibly aesthetic, very cool-girl, and are the current flavor of the day as far as flower vessels go — I’ve been seeing them more often at weddings.

But taking care not to overload them requires good weight distribution. Both the broccoli and the acacia have sturdy stems and even weight (vs. typical flowers, which are heavier at the end due to the bloom), so I could build a stable arrangement easily by layering them over each other.

I’ve been interested in designing using clusters of similar flowers recently; I find it gives arrangements a modern, elegant touch that contrasts with my typical whimsical, garden-style arrangements. The visual weight of it feels more solid — there’s less variety, so it begs you to stop and stare into it.

Valentine’s Day

One of my big hairy audacious goals this year is to grow Wave Floral to $50K in annual revenue, on top of a full-time gig. I don’t know how or if I will even have enough time to dedicate to this, but I’ve found that setting a goal I don’t fully believe I can hit activates something competitive in me. It just makes me operate better. With balance, of course — everything requires seasons.

Part of this is launching in the city with the most popular holiday for flowers. The relationship status distribution in San Francisco is the definition of bimodal – everyone is either extremely coupled up or extremely single. So why not have a Hater valentine?

Single people deserve flowers on Valentine’s Day too. In fact, I’d argue they deserve flowers more — people in relationships should be simultaneously expecting, repulsed, and grateful to receive flowers for the holiday. Your partner should also get you flowers on other random days! But I digress.

This year, I’m offering two Valentine’s Day products in my classic, colorful, bold style — the “Lover” and the “Hater,” each available as a bouquet or in a vase. Preorder here!

With Valentine’s Day coming up, it was finally time to tackle something I’d been avoiding: integrating a checkout flow onto my website. Most florists use a Squarespace or Shopify integration, which requires paying more money. I figured… if I’ve literally built payment pages using the Stripe API for SaaS products, why not do the same for my own site?

With how well-documented the Stripe API is, Claude made it super easy to integrate checkout, leaving the onus of design to me — which is exactly how I like it. One of the neatest things was that I was able to add all of the product and price variants using the Stripe API + Claude instead of manually creating each one on the dashboard. Instead, I got to put my old eCommerce product detail page (PDP) hat right on and obsess over the details.

I’m also planning to put up more cheeky posters at hotspots for young hotties throughout the city — outside of Balboa Cafe in the Marina, Hayes Valley, parts of the Mission, and Nopa — riffing off the ones I put up in downtown Ann Arbor.

Dressing the part

I’ve never shied away from color, and I’ve been obsessed with how florals have been infiltrating marketing across fashion, sports, and food this year.

I am obsessed with color; my apartment is a technicolor dream and yet it all works, because my love of color bleeds across mediums. One thing I’d like to start doing is make use of my expansive wardrobe (I moved to a 400 sq ft studio and need a justification for my clothes. Also considering Pickle!) while marketing and photographing my floral designs.

quick bits:

• The Chrome extension side project, Wedfill, I mentioned for couples tired of filling out endless contact forms for vendor inquiries while wedding planning is up on the Chrome web store. I consider this an alpha launch – I still need to update the user flows on the main site so that it neatly closes the loop between downloading and using the extension alongside the main dashboard. Feel free to check it out!

• I’m demo’ing some fun side projects I’ve been cooking up at AI Snack Club’s Galentine’s Vibe Coding Night with v0 – register here! has spearheaded an incredible community of women interested in building and learning together. It makes me hopeful for a future of populist, democratized, and creative software that I mentioned here.

• Skip takeout one night and donate the money to the Immigrant Defense Project.

Welcome to Carb Load — a regular collection of my thoughts on technology, cycling, food, fashion, flowers, and whatever else catches my attention.

Today’s edition is a grab bag of ways I’ve been living more analog and trying to make my world a little smaller:

• What’s blooming at the farmer’s market this week

• Becoming a regular at the local watering hole

• Rediscovering the art of listening to a full album

The recent obsession with analog living has reached a fever pitch. Starting with rawdogging flights (is this not just meditation?) and ending with people Bricking their phones (coming full circle from when we bricked our phones by jailbreaking them), I knew the trend was reaching its peak when I heard about it on the Morning Brew podcast while on a bike ride through the headlands this week.

Our dopamine pendulums are swinging back towards friction. Everyone I know is exhausted from constant consumption. We’ve literally coined the term “brainrot” on platforms that require it, to describe what’s happening to our attention spans.

I don't have a grand solution, just a small one. A case for making your life a little slower, a little more local. For me, that starts with flowers.

One thing I sorely miss about designing in Michigan was access to local flower farms, a ten-minute drive from where I lived. Moving to SF means the wholesalers at 16th and Mississippi are incredibly stocked year-round, trading creativity for complacency, thanks to convenience.

So I’m challenging myself to visit a farmer’s market every week, introduce myself to the vendors, spotlight them here, and share how to arrange what’s actually in season. Because while I love the accessibility of Trader Joe’s bouquets, it would be an infinitely cooler, kinder, and smaller world if you and I primarily shopped from local farmers.

This past weekend at the Ferry Building Farmer’s Market, I visited Cypress Flower Farm, one of my favorite vendors. It’s still early season but you can find acacia mimosa, protea, eucalyptus, crocosmia, and calendula.

Acacia

Acacia mimosa is that fuzzy, golden-yellow cluster you’re seeing everywhere right now — it smells like honey but only lasts about five days in a vase, so enjoy it while it’s there. Protea is the opposite: architectural, striking, and will last you two-plus weeks.

Crocosmia and calendula

Crocosmia was new to me — bright, fiery blooms on arching stems that add a wildflower quality and keep things from feeling too polished. And calendula, the bright yellow-orange ones, are edible — you can scatter the petals in salads, steep them in tea, or use them in skincare.

Protea

I did flowers for a wellness retreat led by Claire at Sage Pilates (I mean this in the highest of compliments – the presence of a very LA-feeling studio in Cow Hollow signals SF is definitely back) using eucalyptus, acacia mimosa, and two types of protea. These are long-lasting – a perfect recipe for weekly hospitality arrangements or bar displays.

The folks at Cypress let me know we should see the first ranunculus of the season soon! Ranunculus signals spring to me, with soft ruffles like a sleepy natural world slowly fluttering its eyes open. Icelandic poppies are also arriving — truly one of my favorite varieties. Poppies are so saturated, they remind me of working with linen in the best way.

additional analog forays

a lucky duck visits the Mucky Duck

I recently moved from Ann Arbor back to San Francisco, settling into a tight-knit neighborhood up a very steep hill — a friend described it as “out in the boonies.” I’m hopeful my bikes will never get stolen. At that point, if you want to break in and take my bike, be my guest. You worked very hard. Do you want a glass of water?

As part of living somewhere new, I made it a mission to become a regular at the local bar. One of my newly acquired loves from living in the Midwest is the art of chitchat — it’s jarring to be back in a big city where no one makes eye contact. But as one of the wizened regulars at the cozy coffee shop reminded me, the Sunset is a “little village where everyone knows each other.”

I love hanging out with regulars on the way home from work. The median age of bar patrons is 55, making for conversations with people I’d never meet if I stayed within my Hayes Valley – tech job – Infatuation-recommended restaurants bubble. I’ve become extremely bored talking to people who only think about their tech job and whatever new status-signal hobby they’ve picked up (vinyl and cycling, anyone?) — and the way this city is set up, in the midst of one of the worst rental markets in years and a flood of Waymos that have eliminated the last opportunity for sustained time with someone outside your income bracket, you have to actively seek out anything else.

When I mentioned I’d just gotten a record player, the patrons were tickled that a certified Youth™ was excited about something they’d grown up with. One guy remarked on how lucky we are to be able to listen to anything we want now. Isn’t that exactly the issue?

After reading Liz Pelly’s Mood Machine, I think so. My Spotify daylists, song radios, and daily mixes just reinforce the same sounds, making it easy to chase the dopamine high of yet another song that scratches my ears the same way. It’s been delightful forcing myself to listen to every song on an album and consciously decide whether to flip the record.

2016 is the new 2026

I got the record player to mark moving into a new spot, and because the walls I share with my neighbors are extremely thin — I can recite their teenage daughter’s grievances in excruciating detail. But I’ve also been obsessed with the idea since growing up on 2010s Tumblr and having hipster media injected into my brain. I’m fundamentally an old soul who wishes to exist in the ether of our social fabric as a whisper of a person.

I’ve been enjoying vintage vinyl stores for psychedelic cumbia, 2000s indie rock, and dogeared dollar-bin classical. While in Portland, I stopped by Dig Vinyl and picked up Led Zeppelin II — putting this record on reminded me of discovering them as a teen, when I couldn’t skip to whatever song I wanted.

On repeat lately: Orla Gartland’s Everybody Needs a Hero. “Late to the Party” reminds me of old Franz Ferdinand.

quick hits

work in progress

I’m working on a side project for couples looking for wedding vendors, inspired by wanting to test out a neat Chrome extension framework. While I’m definitively a junior developer and Ms. Claude Code has the engineering capacity of a cracked 10x staff SWE, I’m practicing how to become an engineering manager.

sunsets this week

Since moving to the western part of the city, I’m much closer to the beach, and have been exercising my human right to see the sunset as much as possible, especially on these 60 degree winter days.

On one of these sunsets, my friend Roz had a fabulous idea: SF needs a beach club. We must join the ranks of Ibiza, Miami, and Chicago.

I may make this my personal crusade for Daniel Lurie’s San Francisco – my quest to brand San Francisco as a beach town continues.

Welcome to Carb Load – a regular collection of my thoughts on technology, cycling, food, fashion, flowers, and whatever else I can throw in that catches my attention.

This evening’s piece is an antidote for any winter blues, and hopefully inspires you to sneak out from work to catch the sunset tomorrow. Or set your alarm early to catch the sunrise (if you’re a narc reading this).

I know humans are inherently good.

That’s because one evening, about a hundred of us gathered at the Berkeley Rose Garden. We came for the show, dressed in our finest puffers and Salomons, stayed for the encore, and applauded on cue at the finale.

It was December 31, 2018. I was alone in Berkeley over the bleak post-Christmas holiday period and decided to go to the rose garden to watch the sun close out the year.

There were dozens of other sunset worshippers—families with aunties getting photos taken by doting husbands, students, the typical Berkeley professorial townie types. We all paused to watch the sun vanish behind the hills in San Francisco, and collectively applauded.

None of us received an invitation, but we all showed up.

The first big winter storm hit Michigan this weekend, and I’ve been thinking about that evening at the rose garden—why we’re drawn to viewpoints, why we gather without being asked.

My dad once said that when he looks at the ocean, he knows he can solve all of his problems. I wonder how much of this is genetic, or shaped by the people that we are. All I know is that any time I watch a sunset over a body of water, I won’t be alone.

One time, I was viewing a particularly fantastic sunset in San Diego with my partner’s family, who grew up in Michigan. We raced to catch the last rays, joining a group of 30 fellow worshippers — some of whom had surfboards in tow, others clutching a glass of wine, having walked over from their homes.

His sister remarked — how does everyone know to show up?

We just do! I’m tempted to write it off as a coastal-kid thing, but I really don’t think so. Worshipping daily at the altar of nature must be something evolutionary within humans.

I worship the sunset. I can’t even exaggerate it. A day with a good sunset that goes unviewed—preferably over a body of water—sends me into an internal tantrum. Scintillating waves just scratch my brain properly. I love when the water turns pink.

Winter sunsets are stunning but bleak, in that they’re occurring while you’re locked to your desk inside a concrete box. So I’ve adapted my ritual: sunrises instead. I think they’re even more fabulous—the air is majestically crisp and clear.

Coupled with the fact that no one is typically out given that it’s absolute pits cold, I savor the feeling of being alone and one with nature, like I’m seeing a secret. When I lived in San Francisco, I probably saw the sunrise over the Marin headlands 4-5 times a week during January and February.

Sunsets are an event—you show up, you watch, you leave. But I’ve realized the deeper practice is returning to the same spot, over and over, until you know it. The practice of returning—daily, or at least a few times a week—has done more for my mental health than anything else. Something about it is extremely grounding. For years I couldn’t articulate why.

Then I picked up Jenny Odell’s How to Do Nothing. I generally hate self-help adjacent books, and from the name, I assumed it was yet another one. But in reality, it’s an utterly fabulous meditation on urbanism, bioregionalism, and attention—how to reclaim our lives and intention in our physical space, stepping between total disassociation and being completely at the whim of the attention economy.

At the beginning of her book, Odell describes an art piece called “Applause Encouraged” by Scott Polach. Guests in San Diego were checked in by a greeter to a cordoned-off section with chairs, perched cliffside above the Pacific. As Polach puts it, “At the last light the group applauded, and participants were offered refreshments.”

I had to put the book down.

Polach stole my idea! He’s commercializing our religion!

Jokes aside, Polach just cordoned off a cliff and told people to look—illuminating our inherent love for the beautiful, the naturally occurring, the awe-inducing.

Odell extends this impulse to the concept of bioregionalism. It’s a philosophy that advocates for organizing life around naturally defined areas—ecosystems, watersheds, migratory paths, instead of manmade borders. In Odell’s hands, it becomes a way of resisting the attention economy by rooting ourselves to the present. It’s about knowing your land: the birds that migrate through, the plants that bloom when, the way the light changes across seasons.

Bioregionalism sounds flat when I try to explain my relationship to it—isn’t this just a fancy way of touching grass? But touching grass is a single act. Bioregionalism takes us out of our digital and mental lives, and back to real life.

On a separate but somewhat related note, I’ve recently realized that we were never meant to have this many friends and loved ones. Being far away from people in my life and still deeply digitally interconnected is a uniquely modern phenomenon, and one that resists fully immersing myself in my present life. This sense of cognitive dissonance has felt bizarre, but one that I think seeing the same spot in nature every day alleviates.

It feels grounding to have “my spot”. I feel a stewardship and closeness when I visit the same piece of land every day.

Sunsets were my entry point—the thing that first made me pay attention. But bioregionalism a lá nature worship is where I’ve landed. Odell writes about her own experience with bioregionalism through birding, something I picked up in Michigan.

I’ve spotted bald eagles at the same crook in the Huron River on bike rides, months apart. They appear at the start and end of the cycling season during their migratory path, and I feel a kinship knowing that we are more intertwined than we have any right to be.

This weekend’s snow necessitates a visit to a temple in my religion.

There is a spot in the woods near my house: a pond that freezes over in winter, ringed by trees that sag under the weight of fresh snow. A family of owls takes residence in one of the the hollowed out trunks, and if you visit the area on a spring evening, you’re likely to run into fellow birders hoping to catch one of the owlets.

I’ve been visiting for two years now, and I know it in all of its moods—the pond when it’s green and murky in August, the bare branches in late fall before the first frost, the eerie stillness when the snow muffles everything. I know which trees in the riverbend the eagles prefer. I know where to stand to catch the light coming through the canopy.

I’m giddy thinking about traipsing through the trails this week, seeing the pond frozen over for the first time this season, wondering where that family of owls has migrated off to.

Sunset worshippers. Typing that phrase made me understand the real point of this piece—it’s not a habit, it’s a religion. My fanaticism could rival an acolyte’s.

Would you consider yourself converted?

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Welcome to Carb Load – a regular collection of my thoughts on technology, cycling, food, fashion, flowers, and whatever else that catches my attention.

Today’s format is a little different – I thought it would be fun to include short blips on what I’ve been thinking lately:

• Living in the fake utopia of a college town

• Fall gravel cycling

• Notes of jasmine: plants, scents, and tea

Peruse at your leisure!

Why I love being a townie

Something funny has been happening lately. People at weddings, friends downtown, acquaintances in my messages – they’ve all been asking what it’s like to move to a college town for their partner’s grad school. I like to think I’m a hotline now!

The question is always: what is it really like? Being a townie is fun as hell!

Ann Arbor feels like the fake small-town utopia people preach about online – everyone knows each other, says hi on the street, eats locally grown food, supports small businesses. About 40% of the population is students, and living on the townie side (away from South U’s chaos) gives me this peculiar vantage point as a “civilian” observing from the outside in.

What I’ve come to love is the microcosm of intertwined lives here: the man perpetually watching Netflix at Beer Grotto, the woman with the bob at my wine bar, the couple with matching greyhounds whose Burberry coats are my personal Punxsutawney Phil of autumn. These repeated encounters create something between friendship and anonymity – a sweet spot where you’re known in small ways. I often joke that there’s a cast of downtown characters, but it’s more than just a joke.

Something else that strikes me is how easily you find people across interests, social circles, and institutions. Everyone seems to have 18 different creative hobbies or organizations they volunteer with. There’s a thriving network of independent artists, but also the continuous return of people who grew up or went to school here. They just really love it.

Part of what creates this is the university itself. Students cycle through bringing fresh perspectives, not yet tethered to career pressures. One major facet of being in higher education is that you’re theoretically insulated from the real world – not yet in the workforce, at an institution dedicated to pure intellectual curiosity and academic knowledge (borrowing Veblen’s term). In a college town, those lines blur to the benefit of townies like me.

But universities also function as a kind of commons – they create gathering spaces, cultural programming, and shared resources that benefit everyone. Public talks, museums, performances. It’s community infrastructure built into the town’s DNA. And if we’re being practical, without the university we wouldn’t have a wealthy institution (Michigan is the wealthiest public school) and constant supply of students whose dollars help fund the diversity of local businesses downtown.

I wonder about sustainability, whether this can remain accessible to the artists and creatives who make it vibrant. But for now, I’m here for it. Maybe college towns work because universities accidentally create what every community needs: built-in spaces for curiosity and connection.

Fall riding

That sense of connection intensifies in the fall, when the town explodes with energy and everyone pours back outside. I’ve always known fall in the Midwest was supreme – cider mills, leaves changing, tailgating – but I was recently humbled by the Catskills, where I rode with a great group of folks across cycling and media. The gravel riding in upstate New York was stunning: 40-ish miles with 4,000+ feet of elevation, my favorite 10 mi : 1000 feet ratio. What made it special were the constant, short, steep climbs and the punchy, fast descents on well-groomed gravel. Some of my fastest rips down gravel roads yet.

Back in Michigan, I’m trying to ride until it becomes unbearably cold – likely below freezing. The real challenge is wind chill. Anything above 15 degrees is manageable with the right layers, but that bone-piercing wind cuts through everything. And everyone knows a Canada Goose is not aerodynamic.

This fall, I’m hoping to ride out to Dexter Cider Mill more often and compete in more gravel races. I’ve been relishing every opportunity to wear my gilets and long sleeve jerseys after sweating through bibs and short sleeves all summer.

I’ve been going for a gravel ride at least every other day to watch the trees change in my favorite spots. There’s something deeply satisfying about a near-daily ritual. It reminds me of watching the sunset over the ocean in California. My sense of self feels tied to seeing something in nature every single day – it’s grounding to have a routine that connects me to my surroundings.

Notes of jasmine

While fall here smells like crisp air and apple cider, there’s another scent that anchors me through places and times. Jasmine is my favorite scent – my parents grew a massive thatch of it on a trellis right outside our front door, and the aroma on summer evenings after a long day outside was intoxicating.

I’ve grown jasmine while living in San Francisco, but beware, as the plant grows rapidly and can quickly become rootbound. One of my favorite walks in that city is through Page Street, stuffing my nose in the gigantic urns of potted jasmine lining the streets.

Unfortunately, jasmine doesn’t thrive in Ann Arbor – it needs warm climates, specifically USDA hardiness zones 8-11. I am firmly in 6! I’ve never had luck growing jasmine indoors – I feel like the indoor climate is too sterile for jasmine to grow as it should: abundant, sprawling, and overpowering.

Despite all this, I recently acquired a jasmine plant – Trader Joe’s, for whatever reason, has been selling them. I imagine that whoever runs plant and nursery retail planning did not account for geographical variation. Regardless, I will keep people posted!

Since I am unlikely to successfully grow jasmine here, I’ve found other ways to keep it close. I love picking up perfume while traveling – the scent always locks the memory and place together.

Moonlight Rose perfume oil: Picked this up in a rocks and crystals shop (I can never resist them) in North Park, San Diego. Its top note is arrestingly grassy, perfect for slightly sweaty, breezy evenings by the beach or walking downtown.

NUXE body and hair oil: Acquired in duty-free at Toulouse Airport this summer when I ran out of moisturizer and forgot hair oil. My current favorite – I love an all-in-one product.

Jo Malone Jasmine Sambac & Marigold: You could drown in one sniff of this perfume. It feels very inky and endless. Intense jasmine and vanilla with a smoky undertone. I love it on a night out – it’s meant to be a delicious olfactory surprise for whoever gets close.

I was recently sent jasmine tea from Raazi Tea (founded by ), and it’s nursing me back to life from whatever primordial cold is wrecking my body. When I opened the box for my first cup, I immediately stuck my nose in the bag. The scent transported me instantly to my parents’ garden. I’m heading to New York in a few weeks to watch a friend run the NYC marathon, and I must make a pit stop at Happier Grocery to restock.

If you enjoyed reading this and want more, you can find more of my work on the following:

• Hotel wrangler, code pusher, demo queen, & co-founder: Whimsy

• Flower slinging: Wave Floral

• Algorithm worshipper: TikTok

Welcome to Carb Load – a regular collection of my thoughts on technology, cycling, food, fashion, flowers, and whatever else I can throw in that catches my attention.

This week’s post is a reflection on content creation after hitting an annual goal for my followers on TikTok. Enjoy!

As a devout acolyte of the Church of Self-Actualized and Visualization-Driven Productivity, I’ve hit many of my goals this year—but was surprised at how confused I felt when I crossed 5,000 followers on TikTok.

Earlier this year, I set a goal: 5,000 subscribers on either TikTok or Substack. I like to plan my years with ’s Annual Planning template—if you’re unfamiliar, it’s a yearly goal-setting framework that my friend introduced me to. This template steered my life through a few years of high peaks and undiscovered valleys: new marathon PRs, fundraising for a startup in the toughest market for female founders, scaling content creation.

I wasn’t sure why this number mattered to me at the time. I just knew that I liked making videos, documenting what I was up to, and wanted to stick with something outside of work that had some payoff to it—though what it would be, I had no idea.

I started making more videos based on my floral arrangements. Over time, I organically found a hook that seemed to resonate—transforming the flowers my boyfriend gets me on a weekly basis into an arrangement, often sculptural and using other stems leftover from my inventory. It took me months to iterate and experiment creatively before landing on something that hit. What’s funny to me is that the arrangements that have gone the most viral are often the simplest, and at times, boring, ones to make.

I see why these videos take off, compared to others that feel more engaging and creatively challenging to brainstorm, film, and edit.

They’re short, promise an immediate payoff to the viewer (before-and-after), have a slight dose of voyeurism and envy (wow, her partner gets her flowers!), and wish fulfillment (I’d love to do that with flowers at home, if my boyfriend bought me flowers.) A toxic combination!

Also, flowers are pretty and I am occasionally talented in a way that aligns with what people like to see.

My series “flowers my boyfriend got me vs. the arrangement that I made” has 2M+ combined views—a small number on the internet, and comically large when I envision all those people sitting in my home watching me make arrangements at home on the kitchen island.

Most of these people do not exist in my life after the video ends. They will never come by my house, receive a floral arrangement, or see me compost the leftover flowers each week. To me, that has started to feel more and more hollow, and leading me to wonder: what is the point of the artist — and the creator — in today’s society?

We’re in an era now where everyone is a creator, and many people are facing the same tension I am. It’s an age old question for artists—do you create for yourself or for your audience? Except now the concept of audience has expanded to include the faceless, all-important audience of The Algorithm, which purports to know your audience better than you do.

Recently, I’ve been reading Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death, where he builds on Marshall McLuhan’s famous claim that “the medium is the message.” McLuhan argued that the form of media matters more than its content—how we consume information shapes us more than what we consume. Postman took this further, arguing “the medium is the metaphor”—that our dominant medium becomes the lens through which we understand life and construct truth.

He’s eerily right. Short-form content hasn’t just changed how we watch videos; it’s changed how we experience everything. Postman, writing in 1985, cites how television shots last 3.5s on average. Reading this line, I was instantly reminded of a TikTok I’d seen where a creator recommended shots should last no longer than 0.7s. A handful of seconds feels like a little, but its impact and what it signals about our ability to care about things is massive.

I get sad thinking about all of the people living their lives, phone armed in hand, viewing life through a lens, scrolling and recording in the same gesture. In Postman’s terms, the device becomes not just a tool but a metaphor: to see is to capture, to know is to share, to exist is to be documented.

The tradeoffs are constant. Videos that feel gimmicky to make as a creator perform better. I realize it’s because people now crave simplicity in the content they consume, a consequence of living in a fragmented, constantly changing environment. Push notifications, Slack messages, an ever-refreshing feed, stop-and-go traffic, an always-on phone that beckons to you. Though I feel gimmicky, I try to make videos that also feel entertaining for me to watch while I do so. After all, I too am an avid consumer of quick cut slop.

That’s the paradox: I have a love-hate relationship with social media, caught in the familiar trap that ensnares many of us. We are invisible without it, we want to be known and celebrated, we want to make money from it, and yet, it is eating us alive.

Can this just be fun?

It’s funny to interact with someone after they’ve noticed you doing something online. One part judgment, one part envy, one part shame on your behalf—shame for what? Shame for trying? I find it very embarrassing to not do anything at all. People inevitably ask what I want to get out of this, and are unsatisfied when I say I’m just trying to have fun with it.

Perhaps this sounds naive, but my confidence comes from knowing I’m in a position where I don’t need content creation to be anything more than fun. Candidly, I never thought I would be as satisfied with life as I am now. A semblance of inner peace, my teeth are fixed, I am financially secure, I call my mother every week, and I have a fantastic career and able body. So why continue chasing something in the guise of ambition?

I also happen to be close friends with a handful of popular influencers before they went viral and decided to pursue content creation full-time (talking 500K+ followers.) None of them seriously enjoy their work, as far as I can tell from our catchups and surveilling their Close Friends stories. That alone scares me!

Content creation for the average person, like all hobbies, has to be fun. There needs to be some play involved, especially as people have creator fatigue and get fed up of consuming forced and/or contrived content. Watching my friends who are full-time content creators has clarified what I don’t want: to turn this into a job where I’m hawking links and roundups to buy more things when I stare at my endless cavern of a closet and am still throwing things out. None of them create this kind of content, actually, which is one of the many reasons why I love watching, hearing, and reading their work. Lately, I’ve been shouting from the rooftops that I don’t want to be known for having nice clothes or how fast I run a mile, I want to be known for my writing and my creativity: two things I don’t think people can just buy with an Amex, and unfortunately, more complex than the medium of algorithmic short-form content cares to support.

So after hitting this 5K follower goal, I’ve been introspecting on what my “content manifesto” is—if I have such an acerbic view of social media, why do I keep engaging in it?

Stop living in the digital world

I’m trying to make something entertaining for me to watch, and figure out how whatever I make can roll into a real connection or interaction—whether that inspires someone to get on their bike, place an order from Wave Floral, or do an arrangement at home. This is what I’m learning about: everything I create online has to correspond to something with resonance. Real orders. Real people in my community. Real customers. Real conversations. It must, it has to — otherwise I fear I will start to lose my soul in pursuit of pleasing an ever-hungry algorithm.

My manifesto is that I want to create things online that inspire people to get offline—or that are about being offline. This throughline explains why generic “lifestyle” content or “recommendations” listicle Substacks feel boring to me, why I like to write longform, why my content is about cycling, running, work. It’s even why I work in events and hospitality. I genuinely want people to connect and talk to each other.

I get gifted things to try out and more often than not, I end up using it, not liking it, and not thinking of recommending it. That reinforces what I don’t want to be—another voice telling people to buy more.

I got into TikTok when I just moved to a new city and had no friends besides the ephemeral and digitally-near yet realistically-far friends that the internet offered me. It’s not a coincidence that I tend to not post when I travel, especially with friends. When I have a real connection, the digital loses its pull.

Which is why I find it darkly amusing how many large creators on platforms take breaks from social media and find themselves feeling much better. We’re in an era of cognitive dissonance where people whose entire jobs are predicated on making videos that smooth your brain, are also telling you that you need to get smarter, ideally by reading these three books! subscribing to my Substack for tips! Influencers get big, get you addicted to their slop, then sell you stuff, then tell you you own too much stuff and spend too much time on social media. Our messages are twisted by the medium of short-form content and funneled by overconsumption and advertising dollars from brands.

Let’s get physical, physical

I wrenched myself from this doomerism spiral after reading this interview titled “Quit Optimizing for Algorithms. Make Something Weird.” between Alex Dobrenko and Robin Sloan, author of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore.

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Quit Optimizing for Algorithms. Make Something Weird.

This is the Sublime newsletter, where we share an eclectic assortment of ideas curated in and around the Sublime universe…

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a year ago · 39 likes · 2 comments · Sublime

Sloan says:

“When you submit to the internet game and say, ‘I’m going to take a shot at the internet math,’ whether you’re successful or not, you sacrifice that frame. The literal framing of what this thing is, what it’s about, and its goals. YouTube really thinks the number of views on a video is important, and therefore, they are important to you whether you like it or not.

The beautiful thing about the physical world is that, if you think of it as an API, it’s an endlessly rich and flexible API. The online stuff is just a little box for you to fill in, whereas the physical world is this completely open canvas. Things can be a certain size, a certain shape, and they can arrive in a certain way. I find it oddly exciting. The technology of the physical world honestly feels more interesting and flexible to me than the relative rigidity of the online world. It’s so odd that in the digital world, this perfectly protean thing could be made to feel so rigid.”

That’s what I keep coming back to—the online stuff being a box, an outlet, just a small part of our lives that is meant to open doors and funnel people, ideas, and connections into our physical existences.

Going viral and gaining a small audience gave me the confidence to treat my hobby seriously and treat it like a venture, not just a far-off goal. I’m still playing the game. I’m still posting, still iterating, still trying things. But with a new lens—no longer chasing or stressing about an algorithm, and wondering instead how I can inspire people to do things offline. Hopefully, my work inspires someone to do something, make something, try something.

The online is where we’re meeting. But I hope I’ll see you in real life.

before I let you go..some quick hits to add to your neverending list of content:

• I just finished The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley – wow! I hesitated to pick it up, as I typically don’t like reading romance, but I was mistaken. Truly genre bending and a satisfying read. Bradley seamlessly blended sci-fi world-building, romance, post-colonial discourse, and classic spy thriller elements in such a way that I can only imagine she grew up writing fanfiction. Something about throwing the reader into a rich, complex world and teasing out context clues + common romance tropes + a plethora snarky asides. She probably has thousands of kudos on an anonymous AO3 account.

• New Florence + the Machine album incoming! “One of the Greats” has been on repeat. The lyrics are scathing, and so literal at times that they harken to the new Taylor Swift album, but I will always give Florence Welch a pass for her vocals and electric guitar riffs.

• This conversation between The Onion’s CEO Ben Collins and one of my favorite journalists, Sam Sanders. Consider me influenced to start getting The Onion in print!

• Ann Arbor folks! My friend Liz has launched , a social club and community for deep connections in Ann Arbor. She is kicking off a series of events in October, including a supper club and a gut fermentation happy hour. For non-A2 folks — I highly, highly recommend still subscribing. Liz is one of the most talented people I know, and her ability to bring together a room of people is unmatched.

If you enjoyed reading this and want more, you can find more of my work on the following:

• Hotel wrangler, code pusher, demo queen, & co-founder: Whimsy

• Flower slinging: Wave Floral

• Algorithm worshipper: TikTok

Welcome to Carb Load – a regular collection of my thoughts on technology, cycling, food, fashion, flowers, and whatever else I can throw in that catches my attention.

This week’s issue is a little shorter than normal — I’m sharing how I rebuilt my website for Wave Floral, my floral business, using AI via Claude Code.

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I’m heads down in San Francisco for work, so if you’re itching for more carbs, I encourage you to read my piece published last week in the and while you’re at it — subscribe to Lee's excellent coverage of all things sports, fashion, and storytelling, with the sharpest eye in the game.

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Like a true Millennial, I love email. I love sending them (hence the newsletter). And I love receiving them (hence the hundreds of newsletters to which I subscribe). I love email so much, my inbox is chronically overstuffed. I rarely clean it out and often leave read emails marked unread so I can come back to them later. Call it a half-assed to-do list…

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a year ago · 38 likes · 19 comments · Lee Glandorf and megha

My main goal this fall was to get Wave Floral’s name out there. For small business owners, it’s common to hear, “wow, I love your stuff—I had no idea you did that!” The adage holds: if you’re not tired of your message, you’re not saying it enough.

I treat Wave as a marketing lab: experimenting with pop-up bouquet bars, installs for restaurants, and occasionally going viral on social media. But none of that matters if people can’t find or use your website to actually order flowers.

So, I decided to climb back into the sandpit that is redoing a website.

Instead of faffing with Squarespace and endless tutorials, redesigning my website was easy and fun thanks to working with AI.

Over a few late nights and one weekend—and less than ten hours total—I shipped a new version of the site that felt eye-catching, useful, and most importantly, representative of the Wave Floral brand and what we want to offer to our customers.

Our new website, paired with a flyering campaign through downtown, has resulted in consistent inbound traction (new inquiries, regularly!) the last few weeks, vs. prior when it was a ton of outbound and demand generation (reaching out to businesses and repeat clients.)

I don’t think this would have been accomplished in the timeframe needed — if not for working with an AI coding assistant.

I share this partly to push back against the two extremes I see: the “996 grindset” technologists trying to both escape and create the “permanent underclass” vs. folks, typically non-technical, who broadly dismiss AI as labor-erasing. I straddle both and want to build a bridge.

I didn’t steal anyone’s job—I was never hiring a developer for this. Could I have done it without AI? Sure—but it would’ve taken months, because realistically I wouldn’t have had time to build a new website for Wave with a full-time job and tons of hobbies.

This is the second essay in my series on learning to program and building in the midst of a software and tech paradigm shift.

Rebuilding showed me the real leverage: combining (1) design thinking (what), (2) fundamentals and execution (how) and (3) curiosity (why) to build something – because a website doesn’t just showcase your work, it makes it real.

If you’ve ever:

• Struggled with Squarespace or didn’t want to pay for it

• Been semi-technical and wanted help building your own application

• Been non-technical but curious about learning to program

• Had a side project you want to ship/publish

This one’s for you!

Step 1: Get familiar with web design fundamentals

Before working with Claude Code and other agentic programming tools, I spent time understanding web design basics and learning programming “from scratch” by taking courses. This made it much easier to ship working code and get a website running quickly, and I don’t think people can or should skip this before using AI to build something external-facing.

Essential knowledge to acquire first:

• HTML & CSS fundamentals - Not everything, but enough to understand structure vs. styling and not stare at an index.html document (the backbone to every website). Codecademy's Web Development courses are a great resource.

• Basic file management - How to organize folders, work with file paths, understand how websites are structured. The Odin Project's Foundations course is excellent for this.

• Command line basics - You'll need to push code to GitHub and troubleshoot issues. Learn basic commands: cd, ls, git add, git commit, git push. Once again, highly, highly recommend The Odin Project for the most comprehensive tutorial into how to work with your computer and start writing code.

• Design principles - Study websites you love. What makes them work? How do they use color, spacing, typography? Start noticing patterns before you try to build them. Some websites I like to use:

  • Awwwards

  • CSS-Tricks

  • Dribble

  • Godly

Step 2: The tools I used

Armed with a basic understanding of fundamentals and familiarity with writing basic HTML/CSS, now you're ready to actually build.

Below is a list of the tools I use to ship simple sites quickly (shoutout to and for setting me up on these years ago before I started learning how to program):

Essential Tools:

• GitHub account + Pages: Code repository, free hosting for your website.

• VSCode: My preferred IDE, have also used Cursor and Windsurf

• Claude Code: $17/month; other coding agents rates vary

• Squarespace (custom domain): $15/year (optional but worth it if you want your website to appear as www.yourwebsite.come vs. www.yourwebsite.github.io)

Hosting via GitHub Pages: You write code, push it to GitHub, enable Pages in settings, and your site is live. Sites on the free tier have public repositories (i.e. everyone can view your code) but you can upgrade to keep your repo private.

If you’re looking for a more robust yet simple option for hosting, I use Vercel for my startup and Netlify for my side projects (e.g. hawkhillpr.com).

Step 3: Curiosity drives, AI accelerates

After getting set up with your tools and firing up a coding assistant in your IDE of choice, what’s next?

This is where most people go wrong. They treat AI like a magic button instead of a collaborative tool that amplifies their understanding. It’s important to come in with a clear spec of what you want your site to do, mock-ups of rough layouts, and specific design elements.

It’s tough, because you have to both have an understanding of where it goes wrong, what it can do beyond your limitations, and when it does something beyond your limitations, you need to have the discipline, time, and curiosity to investigate it, reproduce it, and create something ultimately even better.

But as you do this, it’s an incredible compounding process that I believe, accelerates learning for most in their early stages of development.

I started by collecting inspiration, and I think this is one of the biggest differentiators and accelerators in AI development. Being able to identify and say certain characteristics on a website and web design is integral to prompting and working with AI partners correctly.

What I wanted to get from the inspiration was:

• Layout of landing pages — full-screen images vs. grid-style galleries

• Navigation: Types of menus (lists vs. hamburger), types of links

• Service pages: How different florists describe their services to the public

Some sources of inspiration:

• Calma

• Unwritten Florals

• Flowers by Karis

For each site, I noted specific elements: "I love how this landing page uses full-screen flower images" or "This navigation is clean but bold."

Building a new website

A scientific method, if you will:

1. Collect inspiration – be specific and take notes + screenshots.

2. Inspect what works – use browser tools to see how a site achieved that hover effect or grid layout. Copy snippets, test them on your own site, learn.

3. Understand principles – why does this choice matter? What user story is it serving? What questions is this answering for the user/customer?

4. Prompt AI agents with clarity – “make it look good” vs. “center content, grid images, sticky nav” will get you different results.

5. Stay curious – ask Claude why it chose certain design decisions (using your fundamentals that you’ve learned), dig into its reasoning.

6. Test + iterate – every change teaches something about responsiveness, compatibility, or UX.
   

The old website

My original site was mostly (80+%) hand-coded and served its purpose as a landing page when I only did pop-up events. It was a single page that didn’t feel very “Wave”, but it worked as something quick and dirty to be live.

Wave Floral 2.0

I wanted something that would reflect my creative energy with my favorite colors (hot pink and cobalt blue), feature large, attention-grabbing images of my work, include expanded service offerings with dedicated pages, work beautifully on mobile devices, and allow me to quickly test new landing pages and marketing ideas.

My goals for a new website:

• More images and expanded service offerings

• Move the ordering form to a separate page and optimize for mobile

• Have the ability to test new landing pages quickly

Landing Page

I wanted a bold, simple entry point, so I built a full-screen photo layout inspired by florist websites I admire. It’s straightforward but effective: one striking image of flowers sets the tone and makes the brand feel alive the moment you land on the site.

Floral Services Page

This page was the hardest because it forced me to clarify pricing and what I actually wanted to offer. I settled on a bullet-point list of services paired with photos, since floristry is as much about educating clients on what’s possible as it is about delivering the work.

Along the way, I experimented with reusable icons, started a mini design system, and even discovered “neobrutalism” when researching button designs.

Neobrutalism is utilitarian, sharp, and bold – and something I was drawn to, but hadn’t created before while programming. I read up on the design style via blog posts, figured out the colors and rough shape that I wanted my neobrutalist headings and bullet-points to be, and prompted Claude, which did a pretty good job!

UofM Students Landing Page

This was my most experimental page and part of a hyperlocal marketing strategy in Ann Arbor. I designed funny, student-focused flyers with QR codes that linked to a dedicated landing page—within a week, 15 people had scanned and inquired.

This flyering campaign was actually the entire genesis behind why I ended up redesigning my website. A week before classes started in August, I had an idea to do these funny flyers and put them up around town. I realized I wanted a student-specific, loud, and cheeky landing page that people would see when they scanned the QR code.

This is when design and research, as well as some CSS fundamentals, really came into play. I created a few mockups of the rough layout in Canva and pasted them into my Claude Code session. It took several iterations and a lot more hand-written code than I expected, but we got there eventually with this mobile-first style. Along the way, I learned more about mobile-responsive design (something I often don’t think about when just using Tailwind or React libraries that already account for this at my day job) as well as how to even design something that looked kitschy and retro like this by inspecting Claude’s iterations and adjusting.

There’s still plenty to improve on my site—standardizing navigation, cleaning up CSS, and adding an auto-updating gallery—but this project reinforced something I believe deeply: AI’s real power is in augmenting curiosity and understanding, not replacing them. The people who thrive won’t be the ones chasing quick prompts, but those who use AI to deepen knowledge and build real expertise.

I’m super bullish on this because I’ve literally seen how I’ve been able to get an uptick in business, aided by AI. Compare this to hiring a web developer (easily $2,000-5,000 for a custom site) or premium website builders like Squarespace ($200+/year), and the economics for a small business owner or an independent operator become clear. But beyond cost, there's something powerful about building your own thing, with a tireless assistant.

Think about it like learning a language with an exceptional tutor. You don't just memorize phrases – you learn grammar, understand context, and develop intuition for what sounds right. Claude became my design and development tutor, helping me understand the underlying principles that make websites work.

This connects to what Anu Atluru writes about in "The Self Is The Platform" – we're entering an era where individual capability can rival collective coordination, but only when that capability is built on real understanding. The future belongs to people who use AI to become genuinely better at things, not just faster at producing mediocre outputs.

I hope this piece inspired or changed at least one person’s mind on who “gets” to work with AI and how we can continue to be a part of the future by working, interacting, and building with it.

If you enjoyed reading this and want more, you can find more of my work on the following:

• Hotel wrangler, code pusher, demo queen, & co-founder: Whimsy

• Flower slinging: Wave Floral

• Algorithm worshipper: TikTok