Having never done a bike tour in the winter, we discovered that 4 hours less daylight makes a big difference in terms of how far you can go in a day. Getting up early seemed to be the best plan.
For breakfast we discovered birria, a popular dense soup with shredded beef, onions, and cilantro served with tortillas.
Closer to San Quintin the terrain flattened out and traffic picked up due to the presence of several huge commercial farms. A few key shoulders kept us out of the way on the larger uphills.
For the first 2 hours of our last day, we endured the most torrential rainstorm I had ever biked in.
The previous night our newly-made professional bike-tour-guide friend had assured us you couldn’t get lost going to the city. Earlier I had left my camera and phone in my front bag, and when we stopped at the Safeway in San Rafael ( to ask for directions since we were lost) I found them floating in two inches of water.
A super-amazing police officer who was attending to a purse snatching we witnessed in the previously-mentioned Safeway gave us absurdly detailed directions.
Later, the wrong directions from a well-meaning local sent us through Tiburon on Paradise Dr, a lovely road, with houses worth more than I will make in my lifetime.
The sun arrived and dried up all the rain.
The Golden Gate Bridge reminded me why it deserves every bit of praise sent its way.
My brother Davy met us outside his apartment. We did about 20 bonus M’s that day.
