SF to Sausalito Ride

One of the cool thing’s about Helen’s job, besides the loads of free salami and cheese is that she gets to travel to some pretty cool local places, such as Las Vegas, Santa Barbara, SD, and SF. When she’s about to go to SF, my ears perk up because it gives me a chance to come out to the Bay. This time around I scheduled a bike ride with Martin and Peony. Since I was getting into biking, I was able to convince my brother Curtis to get a bike. He was able to get an old used bike from one our aunt’s friends. So when I go to SF, I have a bike to ride. The bike is an old, old clunker: a Schwinn High Plains mountain bike. The bike is heavy, the gears are off, the brakes squeak, but it feels indestructible and its equipped with Forte Slick City MTB tires so its commuter friendly. These shiny tires make me feel like I’m riding on oil there so smooth, but I probably wouldn’t trust them on a wet surface. So we met in the Sunset and decided to take a trip out across the Golden Gate Bridge. Even though I was born and raised in the city, for some reason I’ve never walked or biked across the bridge (only driven) so it was a pretty exciting ride.

We first went through Sea Cliff and battled the hill there. After that we entered the Presidio crossing through the Legion of Honor. Most of the roads in the Presidio lead to the Golden Gate Bridge if you have just a little sense of direction. We finally made it to the Bridge after a few hills and crossed it. The weather was really typical SF weather: cold and foggy. It was so foggy that we couldn’t see the ocean. As soon as we crossed the bridge, the sun was out (typical weather in the Marin). We decided to go out further to Sausalito and went pretty far. As soon as we all got pretty tired, we turned around back to the bridge. We also copped out and walked up the hills toward the Bridge. On our way back to the Sunset we stopped by The Sports Basement. This was my first time out here. I really wish they had one of these in Orange County. Its huge and the prices are really good and the people were pretty nice.

Here are some notes:

1. It was a pretty good ride. In total we were out for about 5 hours and rode about 30 miles taking a lot of breaks and a long stop at The Sports Basement.
2. The Sports Basement is pretty awesome.
3. The last time I went for a long ride, I noticed my left ring finger and my pinky getting numb. This was probably from gripping too hard. I was wearing gloves this time, but the numbness still came. Fortunately it went away a lot faster this time. This reminds me of something I read on the Bike Noob, where his toe got numb. I’ve only been riding for a few months, so I’m hoping my body gets used to it.
4. San Francisco is known for its hills. This bit of fame never really meant anything to me until the ride. I now bow down to the many hills of SF.
5. Really like riding on slicks.

Here was the route we took:

View Larger Map