Jerome, owner of Rides by Me: Classic Sidecar Tours, took me for a spin around the neighborhood and beyond. An absolute joy ride. This is a must-do, folks. Healing on wheels.
After our sidecar ride, Jerome sat on my stoop, relaxed and we talked shop — and life here in SF. Come listen in!
Take a ride with me and Jerome!
Jerome: I’m not from Paris so when I go to Paris, I’m a tourist. While walking in Montmartre, I saw some sidecars passing by and I said, “Oh, this is so cool!”
One night online I was checking out what’s going on with sidecars in San Francisco and I realized nobody does this. I thought, “Wow, this is crazy!” SF is such a beautiful city with all these different neighborhoods, European style. You have all the history, from the Asian history to the Latino history to the Italian history, and of course the beautiful Haight Ashbury. I realized this is the perfect place to put a sidecar. So, I got one cycle and started to launch my business offering tours to people who wanted to discover San Francisco – the best way to see the City.
I founded the business in 2019. During the pandemic when people didn’t want to go out, they realized that my tours are outdoors, with the wind and everything, We started to get a lot of local people.They couldn’t believe how much fun it is to discover their own city. You can live in a city but it doesn’t mean you’re going to be in every neighborhood. It’s like discovering something new.
HSV: It’s a wonderful thing you’re doing.
J: I want to make sure people see the beauty of SF in a good and fun way. We get a lot of tourists from all over the world who come to SF for the first time, and they want to see the whole beauty and history of the City. You have the Big Bus Tours, and that’s fine but it’s not personal. You go in, you get headphones, you sit down, you choose your language, you listen. You let the driver drive you. You have no conversation, you have nothing unique. I drive, I talk about a house, I talk about the park, we stop, we take photos, we go down alleys in the Mission, we go down alleys in Chinatown, we go places where the bus is not able to go. We cross the Golden Gate Bridge. Imagine being in the middle of the GG Bridge on a cycle with the wind and the bridge and the blue sky? Oh my god, it’s the best!
HSV: So, it’s good for YOU!
J: It is. It’s good for everybody.
HSV: What would you like to say to the Haight Ashbury community and to communities all over the world?
J: Come to San Francisco. Come to the Haight Ashbury. Support all the little businesses. We’ll show you what SF is, how good and fun and beautiful it is.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
June 19, 2023 on my stoop after amazing sidecar ride around the Haight.
Jerome: Rides by Me, Classic Sidecar Tour.
HSV: I’m going to do one more take just to make sure I got it. So the kids are out front on Page, but they’re not.
J: They just stopped for a second now. That’s the way it goes, you know! If you don’t get in on time, it’s out!
HSV: We missed the moment!
J: Missed the moment.
HSV: But the moment is here. We’re here with Jerome. Zooming in again on this sidecar …
J: I am Jerome. I’m the owner of Rides by Me: Classic Sidecar Tour in San Francisco, Napa, and Sonoma.
HSV: And you are from France.
J. And yes, I am from France.
HSV: But you’ve been here a million years.
J: Yes, close to a million. 25 years. As we say, time flies when we’re having fun.
HSV: Yes, absolutely! So I’ve just gotten an amazing tour of the Haight Ashbury and also the Castro. Just amazing how liberating it is to be riding around SF where I’ve been living a million years — a lot of millions going on — and have the wind on your face and have somebody driving you around is really …
J: Very unique.
HSV: It’s liberating. It’s heartwarming. It’s better than a spa.
J: Huh. Well, a spa would be more deep [gestures back massage; laughter] you know?
HSV: It’s therapeutic.
J: Therapeutic, yes.
HSV: We’ll say this.
So obviously, this is the Haight Street Voice [neighbor comes by with puppy, Wally] Oh look at the puppy! So my cat passed away and he got a new puppy.
J: Oh cool.
HSV: [To neighbor] How’s Wally, is he doin’ alright? You’re on video cuz I was just on a sidecar ride. You should definitely try this. I have a magazine called the Haight Street Voice so he took me for a ride.
N: Oh, okay!
HSV: Oh my god he’s so cute! Look at him, he’s tired!
J: Yeah, he had a big day.
HSV: Have a good one.
[to Jerome] So yeah, cat passed aways and then her backyard is taken over by a puppy. If she was around, she would freakin’ kill that thing! [laughter]
So, back to you. How long have you been in business?
J: So I launched Rides by Me in early 2019, March 2019, pretty much day for day earlier than the pandemic started.
HSV: And you came up with the idea cuz you were in France and you thought, “Ah, sidecar!”
J: Yes, so I went to visit some friends in Paris. I’m not from Paris so when I go to Paris I’m a tourist like you. And while walking in Montmartre.
HSV: I love Montmartre.
J: I know! Walking around in Paris, I saw some sidecars passing by and I said, “Oh, this is so cool!” And I took some photos without realizing it was a tour. And that night I started to look at my 150,000 photos from Paris I took that day, and of course I saw the cycle and I zoom in and I realize that it is a tour. And I was like, “Oh this is so cool!” And coming back to San Francisco, back in the restaurant world, business, one night I went on looking for —
HSV: Park Street Central he used to work at kids who live in the neighborhood …
J: Bistro Central Park.
HSV: Bistro Central Park, yes!
J: And one night I was on the computer just checking out what’s going on with the sidecars in the area for tours and I realized nobody does this. And I put California and it was only one guy down south in San Diego and nobody else. And I was like, “Wow, this is crazy!” San Francisco is such a beautiful cit with all these different neighborhoods, European style, you have all the history from the Asian history to the Latino history to the Italian history and of course the beautiful Haight Ashbury, I was like this is the perfect place to put a sidecar.
So I got one cycle and started to launch my business and offering tours to people who wanted to discover San Francisco the best way in the city.
HSV: And you were saying have a lot of people that are local who want to do this …
J: I do have. During the pandemic when people didn’t want to go out, they realized that my tours are actually outdoors, and with the wind and everything it was fine. And we started to get a lot of locals. People doing that tour. And they all couldn’t believe how fun it is and also for locals to discover their own city.
HSV: Like me? Hello!
J: Yes! We can live in one city but it doesn’t mean you’re going to be in every neighborhood all the time. So for them it was like discovering something new.
HSV: And like you said, you’re going to the restaurant or to the store or whatever, and you’re in all these sort of little pockets instead of taking it in, opening to it.
J: Yes, exactly.
HSV: And let it be on your face and all that, yeah.
J: I talk to guests and they say, “Oh I’ve been living here 40 years, but then you drive in the neighborhood and they go, “Omg! I haven’t gone into this neighborhood in 25 years!” And it’s like 10-15 minutes from where they live but it’s just not the place that they go. So it’s fun!
We get a lot of international tourists from all over the world who come to San Francisco for the first time and they want to see the whole beauty and the history of San Francisco.d
HSV: That’s a good segue for what we were talking about earlier. You said your friends in France are saying how they think San Francisco is a mess and it’s a nightmare and it’s all of these things. So can you speak to that?
J: Well, you know, unfortunately when all over the news the only thing you hear about San Francisco is about homeless, or crime, about how dirty it is, or drugs. Those are the top 4 things you hear on the French news and all over Europe and the world you hear this. But I’m really pushing for people to see the beauty of San Francisco because yes, like any big city in the world — Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Paris, London — they all have bad neighborhoods. And they all have crime. And they all have drug addicts. And that’s never going to change. This is just the way it is. I’ve been in San Francisco over 25 years, and people keep talking about the Tenderloin, the Tenderloin, the Tenderloin. And in the last 25 years it’s been the same!
HSV: That’s true.
J: It’s been the same, and it’s been like this before me and it’s maybe going to be like this after me. Unfortunately it is like this. You have cities where the problem is more on the outskirts where you don’t really see it. But in San Francisco, the problem is right in downtown. So when you have tourists come for the first time to San Francisco and they stay in some of the little boutique hotels right on Union Square and the Tenderloin, that’s the first thing they see and that’s the first idea they get about San Francisco.
HSV: Yeah. Well, that’s interesting because this edition is about, for me, Cali passing away — I love you Cali, shoutout to Cali — it’s about between the dark and the light.
J: Yes.
HSV: Or as I say, “All you gotta do is close one door and open the other — but it sure is hell in the hallway.” Being in the hallway is where those people are, taking drugs, they’re lost.
J: Yeah.
HSV: And so healthcare, trying to help the people who really just somehow ended up there instead of ignoring it.
J: Oh for sure.
HSV: Oh that’s a bad area, we just won’t go there.
J: Oh yeah yeah.
HSV: It’s all over the world, this isn’t just San Francisco. It’s a sadness on the planet.
J: And as I always say, the U.S. is supposed to be one of the richest countries in the world, and when you see that they’re spending money on things I kind of think they shouldn’t be spending so much money.
HSV: Like driverless cars?
J: That’s different because it’s a company. But I’m talking about the U.S. government that spending money on arms, military, weapons, whereas you could spend money on healthcare and education and all this.
When you look at people on the street, the homeless, and you can have every age, unfortunately. You can have some young kids to some elderly people, but you don’t know their story.
HSV: Yes, thank you.
J: Everybody has a different story. It doesn’t mean they got into drugs just because they wanted to. Some did, and they took a wrong path and they got addicted and now they have a hard time to get out of it. Some people got derailed or they lost their job …
HSV: Or their parents died or something horrific happened.
J: We don’t know the whole story from anybody. And sometimes you’ve got to listen to these people. Of course the city is trying to help, you know, but the problem is you take them out of the street, you put them somewhere.
HSV: A lot of these kids who hang out on the corner of Haight and Ashbury, they’re housed but they put them in the Tenderloin!? There’s a really great girl, Elena — shoutout to Eleni and Wiley and her dog Franklin — and she’s like, “We come up here because it’s horrible down there.
J: Yeah.
HSV: Yes I have a bed and a room but the energy is so wrong. Not to go too far down that path …
J: No not at all.
HSV: But to go back to your tour which is a very liberating, therapeutic, the feeling of the wind on your face in the City, it’s great! I think it’s a wonderful thing that you’re doing. It’s almost like you’re a therapist. [laughter]
J: For me, I want to make sure people see the beauty of San Francisco in a good and funny way cuz I, I love
HSV: To feel joy.
J: Yes, cuz I love to talk to people and I love to know people. And it’s funny because since I launched my business in 2019, at the end of the tour I always tell people, “Hey, follow me on instagram, post pictures, tag me, blah blah blah” and I talk to people too, we get a connection, we talk. And, for example, when the pandemic happened, everything shut down, the world shut down, I have people from Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan, South America always sending me messages: “Hey Jerome, we hope you’re doing well. We know the world is in chaos right now but we wish you all the best.” It was so funny that in 3 hours time when you do the tour of San Francisco, you become friends like this.
HSV: Cuz your heart is on your sleeve. You’re open.
J: Yeah. You know you have the Big Bus Tour in the City, and that’s fine. Any big city has it, that’s fine. I took it in Paris, I took it in Barcelona, but it’s nothing personal. You go in, you get a headphone …
HSV: It’s like a shopping mall more.
J: You sit down, you listen, you choose your language.
HSV: You’re not engaging, yeah.
J: You let the driver drive you. And then you listen to what the City has to say but you have no conversation, you have nothing unique.
I drive, I talk about a house, I talk about this, I talk about the park, and we stop, we take photos, we go down little alleys in the Mission, we go down alleys in Chinatown, we go places where the bus is not able to go. We cross the Golden Gate Bridge on a cycle. Imagine being on the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge, on a cycle with the wind and the bridge and the blue sky? Oh my god, it’s the best!
HSV: So it’s good for YOU!
J: It is. It’s good for everybody.
HSV: So awesome. Well, thank you!
J: Yeah, no problem!
HSV: Again, what would you like to say — the magazine is “hyper-local with a global perspective” — to the Haight Ashbury community let alone communities all over the world? What would you like to say to everybody?
J: Well, you know, come to San Francisco. San Francisco is a great city. Come to the Haight Ashbury, support all the little businesses, and we’re going to show you what San Francisco is, and how good and fun and beautiful it is.
HSV: Peace!
