Keeping up with the Bragassas: Biking the Golden Gate Bridge

I know this is the second post of the day, but being that it's our first official rainy day since we've moved here, I have nothing better to do than to blog about my super exciting crazy life that I know thousands are itching to read about. So to continue where my parents vacation left off...

We went to the Jelly Belly factory on Wednesday, Sept. 28, and decided that we needed to work off all of those Jelly Bellies that we ate the next day by biking the Golden Gate Bridge. Now many people have a misconception as to what it means to bike the bridge. It's not just like you get a bike on one side of the bridge, bike across, and then turn it in on the other side. This is a serious adventure...it's 8 miles one way from Pier 39 to Sausalito and it's not a flat 8 miles by any means. It's flat for part of the way, and then it's straight up part of the way, and then it's straight down part of the way. Either way, we didn't really know what we were getting into when we rented our bikes. I know, I know, I just bought a new bike but bringing my bike down to San Francisco on the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit - like MARTA) was more of a hassle than it was worth. Anyway, we rented 21 speed comfort hybrid bikes, as opposed to the triple tandem that we were thinking about, to get us from one side of the bay to the other. The bike rental guy lied to us and said that the whole thing was easy...I beg to differ. Our journey begins at Pier 39...we had to weave in and out of oblivious tourists for about a mile before the bike trail officially started. Once the bike trail started, there was immediately a huge hill that caused us some problems. I managed to make it up the hill without having to walk up but someone else decided to abandon ship early and walked the entire way up the hill...needless to say, I got a nice little breather when I made it to the top! After a short break we continued our trek to the Golden Gate...hoping that we just conquered the only hill on our journey.

For the next 2 miles or so, the trail paralleled the beach and was really nice. We were enjoying looking at the scenery in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area when our trip took another giant hill decided to sneak up on us. Looking back, I should have known that these hills were there...If you look at the Golden Gate Bridge from sea level, it is soaring about your head! That means, that where the bridge attached to the land is wayyyyyy about the ocean right? Right! And that means huge hills to get up there! This time, there was no bike path to follow up the hill...instead it was just a skinny road without any shoulder or bike lane and blind curves...great. The only good motivator behind making it up this hill was that we knew the entrance to the bridge wasn't far. Eventually, we made it up the hill and to the bridge...a little more than half way on our 8 mile trek.

The bridge wasn't a bad bike ride at all...aside from weaving in and out of tourists and the 100 mile per hour wind...ok not really 100mph but it was strong! The views from the bridge were beautiful - we got lucky it was a clear day. Once over the bridge, everything went down hill...literally. The road that we had to take to get to Sausalito was downhill for 2 miles, which was nice, but there was no bike lane and no real shoulder. Not to mention, the wind was crazy and I seriously almost got blown off my bike into the ditch - at least it was blowing me into the ditch and not into the cars. Anyway, my dad and I made it down the hill into the cute little town of Sausalito. We both stop and wait...and wait......and wait for my mom but she just wasn't coming. Finally, she made it down! She said she got scared and had to stop and walk because she was afraid of getting hit by a car which I don't blame her! Either way, we made it down safe and sound. We managed to find the ferry that would take us back to San Francisco, but not before we stopped to get something to eat at a cute little Italian restaurant. After a long day of biking, we were on the ferry heading back to return our bikes...there was no way we were going to bike back...considering the first two miles of our trip would be uphill if we decided to go back. All in all, we had a great time and we were exhausted!