San Francisco – Cycling the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito

Shall we shan’t we?  Can I…..will I be able to do it…?  Rosie was full of trepidation and then thought, what the hell lets go for it!  The Operator was willing to take control and bare the load if need be so off we went and hired a tandem bike to traverse the Golden Gate Bridge and cycle to the town of Sausalito.

Helmets are optional in California but like The Operator says, its the only thing that stands between your brain and the road plus, it will keep the sun nicely off his balding head. The bike was thoroughly tested and inspected by the Operator, brakes good, tyres tight, tread abit worn, seats adjusted and off he went for a quick ride around the square to road test the gears…gotta keep his Rosie safe and sound.

The rules were established; The Operator had full steering, brake control and navigation responsibility…Rosie followed along for the ride and pedaled when needed or instructed, Rosie also made the call for photo stops and rest breaks……of which there were many…..but hey, we are on holiday and it wasn’t a race.

So, Rosie threw her leg over the bike, strained her groin from the offset and in a three, two one we wobbled for 10 seconds and off we went.  It was easier than I thought….just like…riding a bike, never could a saying be so true.  Although we were on the wrong side of the road in a city of 850,000 where every one of them seem to be on the road that day….Rosie shut her gob (for once in her life) and let the Operator work his magic through the traffic.  Within 10 mins we were on the cycle path….whew!

Bridge View across Fort Mason

Marina Boulevard

Rosie is kind of making this journey to be epic…did I say it is only 8 miles from A – B?  When I saw the bridge from the first photo stop across Fort Mason it looked miles away…. but as you can see it quickly became closer and closer.

Fort Mason is one of the cites earliest military installations dating back to the early 1850s, the Naval presence is huge, between 1941 and 1945 1.6 million American Military men passed through Fort Mason on the way to the front.  It was Fleet Week while we were here and the mighty US Navy were in town showcasing what a huge machine it is with Naval ships on show, aircraft carriers and the |Navy’s own flying squad the Blue Angels doing sequences over the harbour.  The town was full of sailors in uniform…man they had shiny shoes and looked so smart…and young.  The irony of the huge propaganda wheel turning on the feel good factor for the general populace with millions being spent on these displays….when the country is broke…..

Marina Boulevard has some of the most expensive real estate bordering it in San Francisco, the beach though is very small and quite empty.  The cycle path winds it way through managed Eco wetlands which is very picturesque!

Fort Point

The bridge is getting closer!

The Operator and I parted company at Fort Point…..the road took a really steep incline up to the bridge entrance, Rosie knew she couldn’t do this hill so decided that The Operator would ride the tandem up the road and Rosie would walk a hill track to the top and we would meet where the track met the road at the top of the hill……man, that sounds so simple.  However, 25 minutes later Rosie was raging on the side of the road in the blazing sun with no Operator in sight.  The Operator had taken off on the pushbike as if he was conquering the Pyrenees on the Tour de France as Rosie lumbered up a steeply staired track…..I waited and waited by the roadside at the top of the hill.  Fuming, sweating and looking stupid carrying a bike helmet and not having a bike whilst being passed by hundreds of people on cycles Rosie grew tired of waiting and stomped further up the road.  Here comes the Operator….bell ringing and a bashful look on his face…..he thought I would have walked further up the road…you have got be joking!  The funny side was The Operator, all alone on his tandem, was passed by a cycle group being lead by a guide.  The guide said ‘ have you lost someone, or are you looking for someone?’  Operator replied ‘ I have lost my wife’, the guide came back with ‘now folks, this is why we all stick together and why I don’t go cycling with my wife’.

Photographic evidence for all those who still can’t quite believe it……

The Golden Gate Bridge has three lanes of traffic going each way, it is 1.7 miles long and was opened in 1937 at a cost of 35 million dollars and eleven lives.   Cyclists ride on the left side while walkers are on the right with the city view.  Crews work continuously sandblasting and repainting all year round, when they get to the end, they start again.  The view was awesome!

Sausalito

A lovely breezy downhill run from the bridge saw us seeing our first snake…it was a small, we presume, grass snake, it wriggled from one side of the road to the other…The Operator swore it was a baby rattler…. but….we cant talk that one up.  We detoured to the pier above and asked the fisherman what they caught in the bay, they had caught two salmon and had a cooler full of crab.  They reckoned you just had to throw the crab pot in the water and fifteen mins later you had a potful.  The crab was delicious, it tasted like crayfish and went down well with a cool beer when we arrived in Sausalito.

Sausalito is the first town off the bridge and its beautiful houses flow down the hillside to the sparkling bay, it has a Mediterranean feel and was bursting at the seams with cyclists and tourists. We sat back at a harbour side cafe had a couple of well earned beers and enjoyed the sun.  We browsed around the boutique shops and galleries and then started to que for the ferry….I wasn’t exaggerating at how many bikes passed us us en route to get here….

This is the Sausalito bicycle parking lot!  The que for the ferry must have been a mile long for all the cyclists looking to get back to San Francisco, we were halfway down the line and Rosie was beginning to worry we wouldn’t get on the ferry……how wrong she was, they kept stacking the bikes in!

The whole bottom deck of the ferry was full of bikes all racked together……and yes, it was ordered bedlam getting off the 15 min ferry ride at the other end.  The ferry ride itself was fantastic, we sailed past Alcatraz, and the skyline just kept growing as we approached the city.  Yachts, catamarans, and clippers in full sail were plying the bay and it looked magnificent!  It was an awesome day…Rosie has a feeling she will pay for it tomorrow….hope I will be able to walk…….