Portland to San Francisco Bike Trip - Day 14

Day 14 Stats - September 1, 2006

• Inverness to San Francisco
• 46.61 miles, 2001 ft. elevation gain, 835.43 miles total (40,475 elev)
• Ride time 4h 17m, trip time 6h 10m, start time 08:50am
• Average speed 10.8 mph, max 37.8
• Cities visited: Inverness, Fairfax, Larkspur, Sausalito, San Francisco
• Total flats to date: Aimee:2, Pam:0, Preston:2

Slept in late and woke up to blue skies for our last day on the road.

As with my previous long bike trips, I felt a little sad that it was almost over, but also glad that we would be returning to normal life and also that we had all survived the trip without any injuries or other calamities!

Enjoyed a quiet ride with low traffic from Inverness over to Samuel Taylor State Park. Next up was Fairfax and a whole series of metro-area SF cities, with lots of dedicated bike paths, well marked bike lanes, understanding motorists. Knew that we were getting close by the increasing numbers of yuppie cyclists (like us) with expensive bikes and fancy biking clothes.

After Fairfax, we had to do a significant amount of route finding. Up until now, all we had to do was stay on Hwy 101 or Hwy 1, but now we were changing roads every 2 minutes. The going was really slow, and we lost our SAG driver in all the confusion. We weren't able to meet back up with him and eventually just met at the hotel.

Slowly wound our way to Sausalito and onto the bike lane system there. Starting seeing A LOT of tourists riding easily identifiable rental bikes. We had ridden these exact same roads on similar rental bikes three years ago when we were here for Eric and Tracy's wedding.

Less than 10 miles from the end, I got a flat tire! Another slight delay for our slow-and-pokey final day.

Finally made our way to the Golden Gate, the symbolic end of our journey. It was foggy, windy, and really cold. Took the requisite end-of-trip pictures in various poses and configurations.

Crossed over the bridge, biked through Presidio, Fisherman's Wharf, Embarcadero, the piers, etc., all the way to Mission Street, down to Union Square, and then up to the hotel. Was fun riding alongside the streetcars, taxis, and tourists. Felt like an (ersatz) SF bike messenger racing down the streets.

Even though Golden Gate was the symbolic end of the trip, it was still 5-10 more miles to the hotel and took another 1.5 hours to get there. We walked our bikes into the hotel, where my dad was waiting in the lobby to greet us. It felt strange walking our bikes, knowing that we weren't going to be riding them again for the rest of the trip!

Final trip stats:

• Distance = 835.43 miles
• Elevation gain = 40,475 feet
• Total days = 13 riding days + 1 rest day
• Ride time = 65h 04m
• Trip time = 90h 56m
• Average speed = 12.84 mph