Big Bikes

A Place of Wind and Ghosts (Ok, just wind)

After the tuesday night ride I crashed on Pete and Mo's couch in Fairfax, I was awoken by Maggie the dog (she would turn the Dog Whisperer into The Dog Crying for his Mama-er-rer) licking the back of my head. I had to get back to the city and the weather wasn't looking to shabby so I got on the bike and took off up Sir Francis Drake toward Point Reyes.
Of course the very second I got out the door the deluge began and kept up for an hour, just when I was about to turn back and hop a ferry or take the valley back to San Francisco it let up. This ride is beautiful, you come into Point Reyes Station from the north on Highway 1, stop for pastry at The Bovine Bakery,
then roll down the coast through Eucalyptus groves back to the city. This day the headwind was strong but the rain stayed away, I know the ride well enough that I was gauging my effort appropriately, what my gauge didn't account for was the fact that the highway was out after Stinson Beach, I mean GONE, it was cliff with the Pacific churning 700 feet below, yikes.
So my busted-ass had to turn and climb up most of Mt. Tam to get down to Mill Valley and back to the city. One thing I was psyched about as I hit the ridge (besides the obvious fact that I was done climbing) was that I got to take a look at the former home of the now deceased Dieter Dengler, subject of the Werner Herzog documentary "Little Dieter Needs to Fly"
he is kind of a hero of mine. I highly recommend the film, it's on Netflix, check it out, you won't be sorry, makes Grizzly Man look like "Uncle Buck".

Finally made it back to town about 4.5 hours after leaving Fairfax, went straight to El Toro on Valencia and got myself a burrito sent by the gods. I had to say it was a good day.