We woke up to my alarm clock — still dark. The “festive 500” has become an international tradition to ride 500 kilometers between Christmas and New Year. We are trying to complete it this year, so on day one, we planned to bite off a big chunk of it.
Janeen opened the curtains: a bright horizontal crack was forming where the sun should be rising. Even Bella wasn’t up yet. Arwen had her purr turned up to maximum: early breakfast!
I usually don’t drink coffee before a bike ride; but today? I turned on the espresso machine while I filled our water bottles.
We’d expected it to be cold (by SF standards, that is), so bundled up in our warmest cycling clothes before setting out. Riding across the city was peaceful and warmer than expected, with few cars driving, and the streets cleared of many of the parked cars that typically choke our city. The streets felt so wide.
There was no sun, just a dull uniform grey light. The strobes of our headlights flashed the street signs far into the distance.
We rode around the Embarcadero, past the Marina green (where I snapped a selfie) and through Crissy Field. There’s a small sharp climb before getting to the bridge, and I always want to take a picture at the top.
As we rode across the Golden Gate bridge, we looked back over the city to see the sun (still mostly unsuccessfully) trying to seep through gaps in the clouds above. The route up through the towns of southern Marin county leads us through Larkspur — the town that my dad first moved to when he moved to the US. I remember the park at the bottom of the road, hiding below dark redwood trees: My brother and I played there with the neighbors when we came to visit in 1980. I now see it as a very convenient place to stop and use the restroom!
While climbing Camino Alto is quite a warmup, White hill is the first real climb of the day, and we took it at a nice and easy pace. Shortly before the top four cyclists passed us, only to stop in the same parking area we were planning to stop. Everyone was friendly, wishing happy holidays and just enjoying being out on our bikes.
There was almost no wind. As we rode past Nicasio reservoir, the reflections were so clear and smooth that I couldn’t resist stopping to take a photo. Janeen snapped a far better photo of me as I was trying to figure out how to capture the view.
We rode on to Point Reyes. In the summer, there are some nice benches out in the park at the town center and the bike racks filled to capacity; now it was just bare ground. Janeen huddled in a corner watching our bikes while I went into the store to buy burritos. Sadly, no burritos were in the offing, so the woman working at the deli made me a sandwich: “Merry Christmas” she said as she handed me an almost two pound work of art.
Rain started sprinkling around us as we sat shivering on the concrete steps eating our sandwich. Even a cup of coffee and hot chai tea barely took off the chill: Time to get moving. We had been hoping to see some friends who were also riding, but we’d not seen them yet, so we set off south on highway 1 towards Olema.
A steep hill waits right after the town of Olema, and then a fast descent before the cross marin trail — a bike and walking trail that leaves the main road for a few miles heading back towards Lagunitas. Then there’s a long slow climb back up White hill before retracing our tracks through Fairfax.
We stopped at the bottom of the Golden Gate bridge before heading back into the city. No matter the weather, the view here is beautiful. Merry Christmas.
