Happy Friday! With the Fourth of July holiday this week, I was inspired to take a trip down memory lane to one of my favorite America cities – San Francisco. I’ve visited San Francisco a few times, most recently in the fall of 2014 when I shot this image. My sister and I met in San Francisco for Labor Day weekend, which is a wonderful time to visit the city. The weather was great; a little overcast at times but for the most part sunny and warm. We did all of the “musts” – Fisherman’s Wharf, Alcatraz, Golden Gate Park, Coit Tower, Japanese Tea Garden, Haight-Ashbury, Alamo Square. Without a doubt, my favorite experience was renting bikes in Fisherman’s Wharf and peddling our way along the waterfront, across the Golden Gate Bridge, and into the artsy city of Sausalito across the bay. All in all it was about an 8 mile ride, but with some of the steep (to put it quite mildly!) climbs, it felt much longer!
The first few miles is a relatively flat ride along the bay. As you near the Presidio, we both realized that the easy, flat ride with the wind in our hair was going to come to a screeching halt! The climb from sea level up to the Golden Gate Bridge was very steep. Fortunately, much of the road was in the shade, but it was definitely more of an incline than I was anticipating. Originally we reserved a tandem bike (my sister and I had lofty dreams of coasting over the bridge on a bicycle built for two), but we ended up having to switch to singles as the tandem wasn’t set up for two shorties like us. When we got to the top of that hill, I realized it was a stroke up luck that the tandem didn’t work out. I can’t imagine doing that hill with both of us in tow! We stopped for some photos at Fort Point and then pushed up the steepest part of the climb to get up to the bridge.
Being that it was Labor Day weekend, the bridge was extremely crowded. The heavy bike traffic and narrow path across the bridge was a little intimidating at first, but after a couple of minutes we settled in. If I put together a list of my top travel experiences, biking across the bridge would definitely be included. I knew the Golden Gate Bridge is incredibly beautiful, but until I was on the bridge standing under the towers and suspension cables, I hadn’t realized how truly magnificent it is. The vibrant red color played beautifully against the cerulean sky. The water below looked like a soft blue-gray sheet with wrinkles made of waves. As we peddled on, the city of San Francisco got smaller and smaller and before we knew it, all we could see was a white sea of buildings. I shot this image under one of the towers, haphazardly blocking the bike path (sorry fellow bikers!). There wasn’t a lot of room to stop for photos and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity! Even from this angle, it’s hard to really appreciate just how massive the tower really is.
As we peddled to the end of the bridge, we enjoyed a blissful jaunt downhill, which was short lived as the path took us straight back up what felt like a 90 degree climb. The reward was a final casual decent into lovely Sausalito, filled with shops, restaurants, and amazing views of the bay and San Francisco in the distance. When we finally parked our bikes for a well-deserved lunch and rest, I had a hard time processing what we had just done. It was a long and challenging ride but at the same time it felt like it had come and gone all too fast. If anyone is in San Francisco and the weather is decent, I would highly recommend setting aside a day to bike the bridge.
Thanks for reading and have a wonderful weekend!
Camera: Nikon d610 – Aperture: f/5.6 – Shutter Speed: 1/125 – ISO: 200
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