I ended up having a great ride on Saturday. I drove up to San Francisco, and it was drizzling just about all of the way north on Hwy 280. But then as I was getting into San Francisco I could see the edge of the cloud, and when I got to the ride start I was in sunshine and could see the complete Golden Gate bridge.
I later heard that it rained pretty good in San Jose all day and so all of the other club rides were cancelled. On my Mt.Tam ride, since none of my women were planning to come, I was sort of hoping that no one else would show up either, as the thought of me having to babysit some new rider all day didn't appeal to me. Now I was hoping that no one else would show up and that it would turn into a good day. I was correct on both counts. Now I was free to stop off where ever I wanted, and to go exploring if I chose to, and to change the route.
I strapped an umbrella to my rack, just in case, and then headed out. After crossing the bridge, I decided to skip the Marin Headlands loop and head straight over to Mill Valley and up the hill. I then followed my route down through Muir Woods to Muir Beach, then up the coast to Stinson Beach and Bolinas Junction. I stopped off to go swimming at Muir Beach, and then decided to skip the lunch stop at Stinson Beach since I was carrying a big sandwich along. All of this ride so far had been in the sunshine. Also during this time I could see that there was a cloud stuck up on Mt.Tamalpais. But since I was planning to climb up from the back side, I figured that it would be gone by the time I got there.
At Bolinas Junction I started up the Bolinas-Fairfax Road to the ridge. I had been down this road once but this was my first time going up. It was a steady grade, not steep but maybe like a Hwy 9. It took me about 40 minutes to climb, so it was probably a 2000 ft climb. Towards the top of the climb I got in under a bit of the cloud and so it was a very light drizzle. Up at the top I passed by lots of parked cars and then some people standing around at the summit, and I could figure out that there was some kind of trail-running race going on, and that a reststop was just at the junction.
As I was passing by one small group of people, I overheard a bicyclist that climbed up just in front of me, telling the others "the sun is out along the coast and you could even be in short sleeves.", as they had all been standing around in this light drizzle all day. Just as he said "short sleeves" I happened to ride by, and I had taken my t-shirt off for the climb so I just had my shorts on. My sleeves were very short.
I continued up along the ridge road still riding in the light drizzle. Since I was still climbing, my body didn't mind the drizzle at all, as the climbing was keeping me warm. Along the ridge I could often see the hiking trail just below, and could see some scattered runners going along in my same direction. Some long-distance run but I didn't know how far or where they were going.
As I got closer to the climb up Mt.Tamalpais from the ridge, I found that I was starting to come out from the drizzle and that I could see the top. So it was just as I hoped - I had sunshine at the top of Mt.Tamalpais when I got there. Since I was by myself, I decided to hike up the trail to the lookout at the summit. Since it had just finished raining not too long ago, the rocky trail had turned into a little stream, but all that rain was past now and it was just warm sunshine. And there wasn't much wind either. From the top I had a 360 view. Everything was clear as the rain had taken away any usual haze in the air. I ate my sandwich at the top and then headed back down.
The route down from Mt.Tamalpais was the reverse of the way we usually climb, up, or also the same way that we go down during Sierra to the Sea. I dropped down to park headquarters, then along Panoramic Hwy then down Sequoia Valley Rd back the Mill Valley. I stopped for some food in Sausalito, then headed back to the Golden Gate bridge.
Since it was still early, I decided to do the Marin Headlands loop that I had skipped at the beginning of the ride. I had just come up Consulman Road from water level at the bottom of the bridge, and was now continuing up Consulman Road to just a bit higher than the tops of the bridge towers. Everything was now in clear bright sunshine. I could look across and see both towers and see the bridge below, and could look out between the towers and see all of the skyscrapers of San Francisco off in the distance.
From the top I continued on, on the E-ticket, one way, one lane, swooping curves, downhill, ending up on Baker Road at the bottom. I could see a long beach to the north, and planned to stop in and check it out. It's called Rodeo Beach and I had read about it. I turned and headed out to the parking lot at the end of the road next to the beach. The parking lot was full, but when I got there I could see that it wasn't from people at the beach. I had just stumbled across the start/finish area for that running race that I had seen earlier. It was 5 PM now and runners were still coming in. It had been 1 PM when I first came upon them at the top of Bolinas-Fairfax Road.
I went over and checked out the beach. The waves were a bit larger than at Muir Beach this morning, and there were quite a few surfers out in the water. I went along the beach and found an area where the waves didn't seem quite so big, and managed to go in for a quick swim. Coming back out I got caught by one wave, but at least it was pushing me in towards shore and not pulling me out into the ocean.
It was finally time to get this ride finished, so I headed back towards the bridge. This time, instead of going through the tunnel, I decided to climb back up over the hill and then down Consulman Road again. I was back across the bridge and at my car by 6:00 PM. My ride totals were 69.5 miles with about 6300 ft of climbing. Since I started at 9:00 AM, that was 9 hours to go 70 miles. But that included 2 swimming stops in the ocean and one hike at the top of Mt.Tamalpais. So I made good use of my reststops today.
After I got home I looked around on the internet and stumbled across a website for that running race that I encountered. It turned out to be a 62 mile run, starting from Rodeo Beach at 5:40 AM, going north to Olema, and then heading back again. About 10,000 ft of climbing foor the runners, and all but 5 miles of it was on trails. It's called the Miwok 100K
-Donny