SF Sly Dog Day 3-Another Doozy of a Day

We managed to get an earlier start today. We knew we had quite a few miles (even though a good chunk were paved), and we were about 2 miles short from yesterday. Today was the Golden Gate Bridge, but first we had to get there. 

Packing up for departure at 0800

Right away we were back to climbing, but it was a good surface. I didn’t have to push much, but I did have to take breaks. 

The views were pretty awesome. We popped out with the Golden Gate Bridge in view. 

There it is!

We stopped for a few photo ops on the way down. When we got to the bridge, the route had us going across the west side, but it was closed. This same thing happened to me 16 years ago when I did the Pacific Coast. This time, we opted to do the stairs. We had to help each other get the bikes up the stairs on the other side. 

This photo was an attempt to recreate the photo I took the last time I was here. 

We had a snack of fruit from a vendor. Jana had a hot dog of which she gave me the last few bites, and helped me eat the fruit. Then it was time to head across the bridge. 

There were a lot of people on the bridge (just not when I took this photo). It’s fairly slow going, but most of the people were pretty good. 

We worked our way through San Francisco on pretty quiet streets. 

Cool “Slow street” infrastructure

Catherine’s sister, Betsy, lives right along our route, so we stopped for a great break and visit. Betsy had all kinds of food for us. It was wonderful

Betsy’s house on the Great Highway. 

After Betsy’s, we made our way to the old Great Highway that has been turned into a huge multi-use path. When I was here before, the road had been closed because part of it fell into the ocean. Well, it seems like they just turned it into a multi-use path rather than continue to fix it for cars. A win!

We had to ride the busy Hwy for a bit, but then we were off on a side road bike route. It was a long steep climb up, and a long descent down. Catherine and Jana had stopped at a gas station to use the restroom. I continued climbing. I worked my way through all the towns, mostly on bike paths. When I got to Mar Linda, the route was a little confusing so I waited for Jana and Catherine so I could show them. 

This was an interesting switchback path up from the beach

The confusing part. It was hard to see the bike path was on the other side of the road.

Jana realized she was missing a camp shoe, so she went into the Mar Linda shopping center to find a new pair. Catherine and I continued on up the next climb. 

The climb was old pavement from an old road. It was 3 miles long, but not too bad. 

The views were pretty amazing.

We had been all the way down at he ocean. 

The top of the climb

Heading down the other side

At first the descent was nice. Then after pushing up a steep bit, the route descended down a completely rutted, no good, horrible single track. Jana caught up to me. Even she couldn’t ride it! It was ridiculous!

These two photos don’t do it justice. 
In the lower photo, Jana actually took my bike for me. I don’t know how I would have made it down. I had to back climb down the hill to make it safely.

We were very much done with this route. Jana looked up alternatives. We could have just stayed on the road we had been on for the climb! We gave up, and took the road down to Hwy 1. Jana took a gravel part, but Catherine and I just rode the Hwy. Jana was planning to stay in a hotel to get a really early start tomorrow. She has to teach an online class from Palo Alto tomorrow at 3:00. She will leave at about 6:00. Catherine and I were running out of daylight, so we decided to stay in the hotel too. So, here we are at the Harbor View Inn, about 4 miles short of our planned Half Moon Bay State Park. 

We rode 39 miles today. At least there was more riding than walking!