The importance of this ride and it’s effect on my mental and physical well being cannot be understated. It’s 8 miles out, a beer stop, and 8 miles back across the peninsula; about two hours total, depending on how long the beer stop is. Long enough that I get to push myself a little, but not so long that I’m a wreck the next day. I start in SOMA, head south through approxamately the design district, and from there zigzag my way to the wiggle to get over the middle of things. There’s a wonderful bike path through panhandle park, where people are always out with their dogs, frisbees, and other paraphenalia. That path feeds right into Golden Gate park. GGP is wonderful, an amazing little pocket of nature in the middle of the city. There’s a really fast stretch of downhill, and then the ocean; end of the line. The Pacific is wonderful. Every time I see it, it’s different weather, different waves, but still, somehow constant. A goal to reach, an end. That is, until I decide to cross it in a sailboat. The ride back seems faster, because the only real climb is the scrabble up first set of hills going back into the park. I timed it, the other day, though, and the two slightly differing paths nearly identical in time and distance, probably due to traffic lights more than anything else. Someday, I’ll do this ride at 4AM and really see how fast I can make it out and back again.
