The Glorious Golden Gate

Perfectly blue skies and stunning views of San Francisco provided a perfect welcome to the Golden Gate and a return to the bay area. It could not have been more perfect...except that we inadvertently rode on the pedestrian side instead of the cycling side of the bridge. There cannot be a more beautiful urban bicycle ride than through Marin county and San Francisco. Great bike routes and gorgeous scenery. That probably helps explain the amazing number of "commuter cyclists" that seemed to be coming over the bridge into Marin County in the evening. Nice commute.

Of course, getting to the Golden Gate from Mendicino (our last post) was a little trickier. Here is the typical rythym of the 170 miles we covered in the two days to get here:

• Up
• Down
• Up
• Down
• Way up
• Way down
• Up again
• Up, down, up, down, up, down, up (always seems to end on "up")
• Ridiculous "up" on vertical cliff that drops into a foggy oblivion in the ocean
• Screaming, swerving downhill out of the fog leading to another....
• UP

Other highlights of the journey:

• Attack of the cows. What are they doing on the bluffs above the ocean? They surrounded us and didn't seem to know what to do about cyclists
• Rolling into camp on bikes in the fog
• Susan chose the one night to camp with us...and it rained, of course
• Speaking of Susan, it has been amazing to have a "support van" full of cliff bars, fruit snacks and real, freshly made sandwiches
• Cute towns with libraries and bakeries
• First view of Northern Cal surfers (water temp: 49 degrees)
• We found "Sport Beans"!

A look at the diverse scenery:

• Craggy ocean bluffs,
• farmland,
• foggy fishing town,
• cliffs,
• thick forest,
• barren rocks,
• dry fields,
• low lying river valley,
• long ocean inlet with crab fisherman,
• suburbia
• the glorious Golden Gate.

DISCLAIMER:

This post was written by Jim and I apologize, in advance, for any misrepresentation or lack of writing skill (especially compared to Jen). I would also like to go on record that Jen and Chris have are officially part of the cutting edge baby boomer "boom" in cycling