SF Sly Dog Day 5-So Many Things

We woke up this morning to…rain. We pulled out our rain gear, but more importantly, we realized we would need to alter our route. The trails we were supposed to be on today didn’t work if it was raining (mud). We had a tentative plan. I google mapped us to the beginning of the route. We would at least be able to do the route as far as Union City…so we thought. 

We started on the route. It was raining, then it quit for awhile. We were riding solely on bike path, some paved, some crushed gravel. 

By the time we got to the Dumbarton Bridge, it was raining pretty hard. Going over the bridge on the bike path, a truck went by and sent up a huge wave of water that landed smack on top of me. Catherine was a bit ahead, so she didn’t get quite as much as I did, but still a lot.

On the other side of the bridge the route came back around, under the bridge, to a shoreline trail. Jana, who had been a little behind had joined us. Catherine was concerned about the trail, but we decided to give it a go. It looked okay, but oh no, it wasn’t okay! Catherine rode past me and her rear tire was fishtailing in the mud. I had stopped, and as soon as I put my foot down into the mud I said, “Nope nope nope!” I managed to turn around without getting too deep. Catherine was not so lucky. She had a hard time getting her bike out of the mud. I just walked my bike back and forth through a big puddle that was under the bridge. It cleaned my shoes too. There was a bridge worker under the bridge at the same time. He let Catherine use his broom to get some of the mud off. Her drive train was so muddy that the chain wouldn’t stay on. The photo below is AFTER she had cleaned most of it off. 

Billy came out pretty clean
Below is the puddle I walked through. 

Once Catherine’s bike was functional again, we rode back to where we had come down off the bridge. I had seen a bike route sign to downtown Fremont. We figured we would work our way there, then to Union City. We were hankering for some lunch. 

We found a diner in Union City, and had a hearty lunch. Over lunch we figured out what we wanted to do. First, we knew getting to Anthony Chabot campground was not in the cards. Jana called her friends to see if it would be okay if we came a day early (it is also forecasted to rain tomorrow). They were fine with that, so we set about deciding on a riding plan (the rain had let up for the time being). Jana and Catherine found some routes that went from BART station to BART station, but there was nothing in Union City. So, we decided to take BART to Hayward. 

It’s really quite easy!

We got off at Hayward, and loaded up the route on our gps units. It was a pretty good ride, through bike friendly streets.

After around 7 miles we arrived at the San Leandro BART station. We loaded up the next route from San Leandro to West Oakland. This one took us to the San Francisco Bay Trail (we had been on this trail early in the day).

We even went across the water on a dedicated bike bridge. 

After 15 miles we arrived at the Merritt Lake BART station in Oakland. 

We took BART to the station closest to Jana’s friends’ house. Jana had the brilliant idea to fire up the Garmin and have it route us to the beginning of the route from Crow and Sara’s house. 

So, due to mud and rain, we finished a day early by riding 50 miles. It was a long day, but pretty interesting riding through parts of town on really great infrastructure. 

This was, surprisingly, a very difficult bikepacking trip! The physical demands were pretty high, but the scenery was spectacular! 

SF Sly Dog Day 4- Our “Easiest” Day So Far

Jana was up and gone by 6:00 something (she had to teach a class online at 3:00). Jana and I were a bit more leisurely. We had breakfast at the coffee shop/cafe next door to the hotel, and left Half Moon Bay at about 8:30.

Ham and cheese croissant and a cherry pastry (I did have a banana and some hot chocolate in the hotel).

Riding the Coastal Path was great!

We stayed on the Coastal path through Half Moon Bay State Park and to a road named Poplar. There were these cool two trees. 

From there we had to get onto Hwy 1 for awhile. We were not following the SF Peninsula Travers route after yesterday’s trail debacle. We were not going to be duped twice!

We did meet up with the route, and rode up to Purismo Creek Trailhead. We had decided we would do that part, but not the other trail part. 

The first part was really nice. We were even able to ride most of it! Then we came to the turn for Grabtown Gulch Trail. From there my Garmin said it was 3 miles with an average grade of 10%! Well, time for some hike-a-bike…

since I k ew I would likely be walking the entire thing, I just took off my helmet and hung it off the back. It was a long walk! I ended up being able to ride about 150 feet, and that was at the end of the trail. We still had more climbing on the road, but it was a measly 6% average grade. 

In order to skip the second trail section, we headed over to Skyline Dr via a very steep road called Swett Rd. It was paved, and we still had to push our bikes up!

 

Fortunately, it wasn’t too long. We popped out to Skyline Dr. It wasn't all downhill, but it was more down than up. When we started the Purismo Creek Trail, we met a woman on her mountain bike (Jana met her too), who was very familiar with the area. She told us about Alice’s Restaurant at the intersection of Skyline and La Honda. She also recommended we take La Honda down to Palo Alto. 

We stopped at Alice’s Restaurant and had a good meal. 

From there it was a screaming good ride downhill. We decided to get to our hotel via Stanford campus. It was a little crazy, but after I fired up Google Maps voice directions, we finally arrived at our hotel. Jana was waiting for an old friend to pick her up for dinner. 

Catherine and I went to the Hilton for a quick dinner. I didn’t want to walk too far as my left knee is kind of resembling what it looked like on the AT. See? I don’t really like hiking! It doesn’t really hurt, it’s just very swollen. There will be some more hiking tomorrow, but a bunch of flat miles at first. 

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!