Samuel P. Taylor is in a deep redwood canyon, so though it was still windy and rainy overnight, the experience of camping was much calmer than it had been on the ridge at Sibley. Frankly, I barely heard the wind. The rain, though, continued until about 8AM, and because it’s redwood forest, the area stayed drippy for a long time afterwards. Breaking camp when everything is wet, including the picnic tables and fence rails, adds extra time as you try to get everything as dry as plausible. In the end it all get stuffed in sacks and you get on the road. This time I pulled out my backpack cover just to keep my sleeping bag and tent from getting wetter.
After my experience on the muddy section of the Cross-Marin Trail, I knew that riding Bolinas Ridge, my original plan, was not going to work given the conditions. So I rerouted out to the coast, following the remainder of the Cross-Marin Trail, which is paved from this point, and beautiful riding. Redwood forest loves being wet; you could hear the ferns singing.
The Cross-Marin Trail doesn’t make it all the way out to the coast; it ends at Sir Francis Drake as it heads to Olema. It was now Tuesday morning, though, and there was almost no traffic on Sir Francis Drake, and after I turned on Highway 1, not much there, either. I’d actually never ridden Highway 1 all the way from Olema to Mill Valley, mostly because on weekends the traffic makes it unpleasant, but today it was lovely. Plus once I made the turn at Olema, those gusts became solid tailwinds. Woo!
There were still rain clouds moving through but my fortunes remained good; they either slid east or north of where I was, and only on the descent into Mill Valley did I see enough to start to wet the road. Even that petered out before I got to Sausalito.
For lunch I’d arranged to meet my friend Grace at the Taste of Roma cafe in Sausalito. More prosciutto. Then I ran across the street to get some gelato, which was more like ice cream than gelato but on day 3 of a bike tour I’m not picky.
Partly because I was dreading the experience of riding the Golden Gate in 50MPH wind gusts, and partly because I do the ride over the bridge from Sausalito all the time, I rationalized that the gestalt for a local adventure is to do things you wouldn’t normally do. So I took the ferry to San Francisco, which I haven’t done in years. I enjoyed the commemoration of the Indian occupation of 1969-70 which I hadn’t seen before.
Once in SF, weather and timing led me to hop on BART rather than ferrying over to Jack London. Disembarking in San Leandro, I headed up towards Lake Chabot, stopping at the deli on Estudillo just below 580. I again got lucky on timing, as yet another squall of the week came through while I could still shelter in the storefront there. This one complete with rainbow after it finished!
I had a beer disaster, knocking over the can of Racer 7 while I was trying to repack my bags, and poking a hole in it right where you’d shotgun the beer. I’m 30 years past shotgunning beers, but it so happened that I was traveling with a mug and was able to enjoy most of the can while I waited.
The rainbow had been the sign that this was the last squall of the storm. Everything got brighter and calmer afterwards, and the ride on Lake Chabot Road, mostly closed to cars, was a lovely approach to the park.
The campground is directly across the lake from Lake Chabot Road, so I still had about 5 miles of the “Lake Chabot Bike Loop” to get where I was going. Hey East Bay Regional Parks District: It’s not a bike loop if this bridge is on it, plus a staircase.
My friend Campbell got to the campsite about the same time I did; we set up tents and then hiked down to the lake for sunset. Beautiful, clearing weather.
Had dinner in camp, chatted about bike camping, and then crawled into our tents.
