Racing the Sunset into San Francisco

The descent brought me down into the town of Sausalito and a very busy intersection. It was a shock to the system to suddenly be surrounded by cars, all with places to get to, and I was obviously in their way. The highway I was on didn’t continue on the other side of this intersection, it T’d into a strange configuration where there was a road to the left and an entrance to the 101 to the right. Most traffic was flowing onto the 101 passing under a large green sign that said San Francisco, which, you know, was where I was going. I pulled onto the sidewalk and checked my map, but it didn’t have a detailed view of the streets in Sausalito. It appeared that my option for continuing south into San Francisco was on the 101. I stood there for a minute or two trying to see if any other cyclists came down the descent and then handled this intersection in some other way in which I could either follow them or ask for directions, but none came. Tired of waiting, I put the map away, threw a leg back over the saddle, and pedaled up the entrance ramp and onto the shoulder of the 101 past the sign telling me that bicycles were not allowed. 

It was immediately obvious that I’d made a mistake. The 101 going to the Golden Gate Bridge was not like the 101 through the Redwood Forest a couple hundred miles to the north. This section was bumper-to-bumper cars going 70+ mph in three lanes, and the shoulder I was counting on was getting smaller and smaller as I put distance between myself and the entrance ramp. It was too late to turn around so I pedaled harder, filled with adrenaline and terror, hoping that the drivers, while rightfully annoyed, would at least not hit me.

As I looked ahead, I could see the small shoulder was gone. The white line of the right lane appeared to be painted in the intersection of mountain and roadway. As I was trying to figure out how to survive, I heard the familiar Whoop-whoop! of a police siren. I glanced back and saw a California State Patrolman on a motorcycle pointing to the right and giving me a look of unimaginable disbelief. I‘d never been more thrilled to be pulled over. I had no idea what was going to happen, but I thought this guy would probably at least ensure I didn’t die. Just to my right was a small, unpaved pullout where we both stopped. 

“What the hell are you doing?” he asked in a tone that matched the look of disbelief he’d given me before I pulled over. 

I attempted to explain myself, and I think the sheer terror in my voice de-escalated the situation for both of us.

“You can’t be on the 101. Look right there,” he said, pointing to the same spot where I saw the shoulder overtaken by the mountain. “Around that corner, there’s no more shoulder for a long time. Where were you going to go?” 

I just shook my head. All of the exhaustion, both physical and mental was welling up and I was trying really hard not to cry. I know he didn’t want to deal with that too. I was hoping, when I heard the siren, that he would have been a patrol car and maybe I could have asked for a ride to safety, but since he was on a motorcycle, that option was out. “What should I do?” I asked. We both looked back down the 101 from where I’d come. The entrance ramp was out of sight and I knew he wasn’t going to send me back down the tiny shoulder into oncoming traffic. He continued to look around and I noticed his gaze stop while looking up the mountain to our right. 

“You see this trail?” he asked, pointing at a dirt path on the other side of a guardrail that went straight up the side of the mountain.

“Sure,” I said, not really liking where I thought this was going. 

“That trail goes for about a mile to the top of a neighborhood where it’s going to intersect with a street. You’re going to take that trail up to that street. When you get there, go left and that street will bring you back down, through that neighborhood, and eventually onto the street that you should have been on anyway.”

“It’s just one street?” I asked. 

“Just keep going downhill. You’ll get there.”

“Okay. Thanks. I’m really sorry,” I said with as much sincerity as I’d ever said anything in my life. 

“I believe you,” he said while shaking his head in disbelief. “Be careful and stay off the freeway.” 

We shook hands and he walked back to his bike and me to mine. As I lifted the bike and BOB over the guardrail, it was very clear that I wasn’t riding up this trail. It was steep and made of loose sand. I began to push and with every three or four steps would have to reposition the bike closer to me as it wanted to naturally slide away. It was very slow going, but every time I felt myself getting annoyed I would look back at the cars zooming by and realize this was simply a purgatory-style punishment for a very bad decision. In some sense, I deserved to be pushing my bike and trailer up this path to the top of this mountain. 

When I finally got to the street, I shoved the bike to the right, using the last bit of upper-body strength I had left, falling to my knees, letting the sweat pour off my head, and puddle on the ground underneath me. Anybody walking by might’ve assumed I was praying and they may have been right. What god would be empathetic to this self-imposed torture? I rolled over to sit and plopped directly in my own mud puddle of sweat, but I didn’t care. As I slowly regained my wits, I realized that it was getting late in the day. My watch indicated that I’d already passed my projected arrival time, so I pawed around in the BOB to find my phone so I could give Kelli an update on my arrival. Not wanting to bore her with the details, I tried to keep it as simple as possible. The full story could wait till dinner. 

People often pose the question “Would you change anything?” in some kind of philosophical way that’s intended to make you weigh the good with the bad. Sure, bad stuff happens, but what if it leads to good stuff? I don’t know the answer, but I do know as I caught my first glimpse of the Golden Gate Bridge in what photographers refer to as the Golden Hour, with the sun diving toward the horizon, I knew that if it weren’t for all the mishaps of the day I wouldn’t be getting this view and falling in love with a city’s twinkling lights across the bay. As the bridge approached and the towers got bigger, I slowed, knowing I’d never get this moment again. I soft pedaled the length of the bridge, with a mixture of amazement that I was here in both a macro scale from the trip and a micro sense from the day. I felt like I’d earned it, and all the emotions that I choked down with the patrolman came rushing up and I wept tears of joy, relief, and gratitude.