Things to Do in Discovery Bay

Bicycle Plus’s staff, a group of avid cyclists, brings an acute awareness to bike sales and tune-ups, garnering the store a series of awards for excellent bicycle retailing. Veteran mechanics work their magic on ailing frames throughout basic tune-ups and complete overhauls in the service department while finding time to teach curious DIYers how to fix a flat tire with peanut butter during free weekly bike-maintenance classes. The sales team pairs up shoppers with glossy rides from Trek, Specialized, and Colnago using the doctor-devised Body Geometry bike-fitting system to ensure maximum riding comfort.

Now that eating on an ordinary table or atop a stack of Chinese acrobats seem horribly passé, adventurous foodies are seeking the next unconventional dining experience. Today's Groupon puts a little motion under your meal with two gourmet dinners on the Napa Valley Wine Train for $99 (a $198 value for dinner, $188 value for lunch). Treat yourself and a loved one to a three-hour ride through Napa Valley on an antique locomotive engine, accompanied by a delicious gourmet meal in lieu of the traditional mysterious murder.

The many stigmas surrounding the sluggishness and spitball susceptibility of school buses and public transit are rendered inane by the sleek comforts of Blue Groundways' buses. Each Blue Groundways bus is an indulgence-vessel on six wheels, offering the musicality of Sirius satellite radio, the connection of on-board WiFi, five-star service from friendly attendants, beverages to hydrate your journey, and the most recent movie releases played on a slick video system. Scheduled routes include a Friday ride that starts in Santa Rosa and travels along Route 42 to Petaluma and Sacramento before arriving in Lake Tahoe and then later in Reno, returning back home on Sundays. The San Francisco to Reno route leaves on Fridays and Sundays with return trips on Saturdays and Sundays, making stops in both Lake Tahoe and Sacramento. Check out the route map for pick-up locations.

City Lights is an innovative, intimate (100 seats), nonprofit theater company that produces six main-stage plays per year. Each play runs for a five-week period with four shows per week. Coming up in the current season is a production of Billy Aronson's First Day of School, a farcical look at the behavior of suburbanites in autumn (September 23–October 24); an irreverent, interactive, and totally historically accurate play titled Abraham Lincoln's Big, Gay Dance Party (November 24–December 19); and the horseplay of the drama Equus (March 17–April 17), the winner of the 1975 Tony for Best Play and a favorite of horse whisperers and hoarse whisperers everywhere.

A charter member of the MLS, the San Jose Earthquakes played their first four seasons as the Clash before claiming the MLS Cup in 2001 and 2003. Though the team moved to Houston in '05, the franchise was reinstated in '08, bringing professional soccer back to the Bay Area. Buck Shaw Stadium serves as the team's current home, though a new stadium will shoot skyward in 2014, complete with luxury suites for fans and exhausted referees alike.

The history of wine in the Livermore Valley spans 250 years. Spanish missionaries planted the region's first grapes in the 18th century, and Robert Livermore sowed the first commercial vines in the mid-19th. These early efforts led to America's first international gold medal for wine at the 1889 Paris Exposition, when California grapes beat out bordeaux in the annual race to the top of the Eiffel Tower.

The guides at Livermore Valley Wine & Cycle Tours lead cyclists into this historic, scenic valley in which some 40 wineries currently reside. Rides between them follow moderate routes, letting peddlers soak in views of the canyons and ridges that rise and fall between the clustered rows of vines.