The sky was clear this morning so we blew the dust off our cycling things and got ready to pay a visit to the Golden Gate Bridge. To celebrate I fitted my new saddle, what will it be like? who knows? who even cares?
The descent down to Castro is very easy by bicycle, then we cycled the length of Market Street all the way to Fisherman’s Wharf along a mixture of cycle lanes, normal road and restricted traffic areas, and of course about a hundred sets of traffic lights. Well it feels like a hundred.
From Fisherman’s Wharf we went left towards the Golden Gate Bridge along nice cycleways. The riding was mostly flat and we saw an increasing number of cyclists as we got closer to the bridge.
Cycle Lane outside Fisherman’s Wharf
At the bridge cyclists are split from pedestrians, we were on the west side (pedestrians on the east, he says stating the obvious). To get to the west side you have to go under the bridge and get on the other side to start the crossing. It is really nice just having a cycle path only, even though it was very busy there was still plenty of opportunity to pause and admire the views or just savour the moment.
6 lanes of busyness
We made it at last
A few “bridge” facts:
- It is 1.7 miles long
- Started in 1933 completed in 1937
- 110000 cars use it daily
- It cost $37 million to build, and was under budget
- It is the second most used bridge suicide site in the world, you hit the water at 75 mph (mechanics students you can now calculate how high it is)
- It has been destroyed at least 20 times in films.
Once across we continued uphill to the Golden Gate overlook with very nice views, there is also historic civil war gun emplacements here as well.
From here it was a coast down into Sausalito, a lovely town, made lovelier still with a Blueberry and Nutella Crepe.
“All aboard the ferry” the captain cried, not actually but your imagination can always make a journey better. The ferry took us around Alkatraz, where I dropped Janet off for the long stay tour! All the while the views were spectacular.
Happy and relaxed before being locked away
After being locked away
A nice place to sail
Alkatraz
Back on land it was an easy cycle back up to Castro then a not quite as easy cycle back up to Tim’s apartment. Just as we got there Tim pulled up fresh from his thanksgiving celebrations.
Bread and butter pudding is on the menu again tonight, you can never have too much bread and butter pudding (well I suppose when it runs out of your nose that might just be enough!) along with our curry.
And of course some general reading and more relaxing and good conversation to finish the day off.
Cycle Travellers 