Day Twenty-three
China Camp State Park to Redwood City, 60 miles
From a landscape perspective, today was easily the most diverse ride of the trip. I woke early in my tent in an otherwise empty campground in China Camp State Park. All of China Camp’s campsites are walk in, which nixes the RV rabble. And everyone else too, apparently. Except for me, and I didn’t walk, I rode in.
It’s a wildlife-rich park. Columbian black tail deer browsed along the camp side. A 3-point buck wandered by. Ravens, squirrels, and in the night, probably raccoons, all visited. It is ‘wild California’.
Marin County is trying to balance urbanity with wildness, with both hilly land preserves and coastal ponds and wetland preserves. I rode through several areas of both, on designated bike lanes and nice bike paths. The downtown districts of Santa Venetia, San Rafael and Sausalito all feature local shops and business, and a small-town pace. Lots of cyclists, including kids going to school, some pretty ripped and fit seniors, your typical lycra-wearing speedy bike jocks, and quite a few tourists on rented e-bikes.
Dinner last night was light so I splurged with banana pancakes at the Garden Cafe (where a group of friends were having their monthly breakfast).
The next highlight—after pancakes: Seeing San Francisco from the waterfront drive in Sausalito.
Golden Gate Bridge was absolutely crawling with visitors of every sort.
I’ve walked or ridden across the Golden Gate Bridge at night, in fog, in blasting wind. It never gets old. Today’s weather was sunny with a stiff breeze blowing in from the ocean. Very pleasant.
I picked my way through San Francisco’s known areas, including The Presidio, Marina District, Fisherman’s Terminal area, and the Embarcadero. Continuing south, I started into areas of San Francisco I have never visited. Astounding! The city just keeps going and going. It’s a patchwork of old school neighborhoods like Bayview, aging industrial infrastructure, and gleaming glass high rises, both commercial and residential. There was industry in San Francisco, and in pockets of the city there still is.
But most of the new construction in the south bay is for “knowledge workers”: finance, info tech, software, bio tech. These swanky corporate parks just kept coming as I rode south. Visa, Amgen, VW America, Meta, and huge buildings with corporate names I have never heard of. I took a photo of Oracle’s six blue-green glass towers, reflected in its lagoon, which features forested walking paths around its perimeter and the . The Oracle campus struck me as the epitome of the San Francisco regional economy rather than an exception to it. There is just so much wealth. I can see it plainly and I’m just a guy riding a bike through the place. Stupid rich.
The biggest and most dominant collection of office towers belongs to Oracle. Note the Oracle Team US America’s Cup racing trimaran USA 17.
Bike trails, paths and lanes are everywhere in the Bay Area. The Bay Trail is the big one. It will eventually circumnavigate the entire bay. I hit it coming out of Napa into Richmond, again in Marin, and again here in South San Francisco. 350 of the planned 500 miles of bike/pedestrian paths are now installed. A rider could spend weeks here exploring all of the cities, towns and wild spaces of San Francisco Bay by bike. I think I’ll talk some friends and family into doing this.
By the way, there is a whole variety of ways to explore by bike. I’m doing it the long-trip/self-supported/solo way. If I were a little harder core, I would also be camping every night instead of some camping and some motels. There’s also a hub and spoke way to cycle tour, where you stay in one place and launch out each day in a different direction. It’s perfectly fine to drive to particularly nice area to ride, and then drive to and ride the next, and the next…. There are circles, like Crater Lake Rim Road, or Iceland.
I like the ride-out-and-catch-a-lift-back to my start point, by bus, train, or drop a shuttle vehicle at the end point. You can go heavy, carrying everything you need to camp independently, or carry a few basics, a change of clothes, and a credit card. Cycling from hotel to hotel and foraging restaurants is a great way to glam and gourmand your way across a landscape. It’s all legit. Just design your riding to challenge your fitness a little (or a lot), and fit your time available, goals and budget. Get out there and cycle around in places you’ve never seen. Seeing it by bike likely means seeing it better.
Tomorrow is my last day of riding for this segment. I’m hopping the Amtrak in San Jose tomorrow evening and riding the rails to Whitefish, where Joan will pick me up. The idea is to do some home chores for a week, then come back for more interior California riding at the end of September when, theoretically at least, it will be cooler. I want to ride inland from San Jose to San Luis Obispo or thereabouts, then cut to the coast and ride Highway 1 to the border. I may also switch up my bikes again. Back home next week, I’ll do some test riding of my two bikes. If my old body gets more speed from my Cannondale cycle cross bike than this Priority 600 tank, I’ll switch to light and fast. If the bike doesn’t make much difference, I’ll stick with the Priority 600 because it is super stable and 100% dependable. They are both excellent but very different bikes. My method with be to strap on a heart monitor and see how far I get on each bike at the same heart rate. In the mean time, tomorrow I ride 27 miles to the San Jose Amtrak Station. I will have ridden 1,245 miles from Blaine to San Jose. I’m about 2/3 of the way to the end, with just over 600 miles to go.
