Headlands and San Francisco first Act

As of yesterday, I was not sure whether to go for a loop from Petaluma to the Coast and back, or as to cycle the Marine Headlands and then over the Golden Gate Bridge into SF. As in the inner land the temperature mounted to 33 Degrees I reckoned that SF with some lower temperatures would be the better option.

I started my tour at the Horse Shoe Bay (very convenient parking) with a magnificent view of what I could expect from my ride today.

First I drove away from the Bridge and took the “Tunnel road” to reach the summit of the Hawk Hill "from behind" and the view again speaks for itself and any comments are simply superfluous.

The decent with SF and the GGB always in front is simply breath taking. Of course the constant pull out of cars from the parking lots prevents one to pick-up real pace, but who cares?

After the decent crossing the bridge of all bridges was next up. 

My left knee gives me trouble since a few month now, that's why the bandage is there. However, it is biker’s knee, i.e. it hurts when walking but is perfectly all right when riding!

To play pedestrian Slalom, while crossing the GGB on the narrow track, is great fun and creates literally hundreds of “happy” walkers. Well seriously, of course the path is narrow and everybody strolls around, so anybody in its senses will accordingly go slow with the bike, but some people think they are on a Tour de France time trial.

Finally arriving in San Francisco, which I so snootily neglected a few days ago driving up the Santa Rosa.

I followed the route close to the wharfs (with Fisherman’s wharf as its most prominent exponent up the Emarcadero and ate my sandwich on a dock thinking of Otis Redding (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCmUhYSr-e4)  

And also thinking of Clint Eastwood, hmmm why is that???? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UT4kc5jG990)

The way back was in no way less breath taking.

With its 38 km this was a short ride, yet it took me 4 hours to finish it as this was not about speed but stopping and taking in the views, atmosphere, people, smells, …. 

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