San Francisco – a delight

After 60 action packed hours in San Fran I’m ready to make the call – loveliest city ever!

Sprawling hilly streets, an amazing bay, wide range of architectures, friendly people, a massive park, and it has a pretty darn cool vibe going on (“It’s the vibe of the thing”).

We got in and settled early afternoon yesterday, having had the 15 hour United Airways flight from Sydney.  I got a decent 6 hours sleep via stilnox, but Dave and Will had more trouble sleeping. Perhaps they need to adopt my long-haul flight sleeping setup :

After many flights I now do the following – headphones to drown out the noise, t-shirt wrapped around head to cut out the light (I have slept this way for 10 years – you get used to it), shoes off, blanket on, pillow under lower back, headrest shaped to stop the head lolling from side to side, and the new addition is strapping my head to the seat (with a physio band in this case) to stop the head rolling forward.  I feel I’m pretty close to the perfect setup that allows me to sleep somewhat comfortably.  Pro – you don’t collapse when in a relaxed state. Con – “You look like an exhausted terrorist”, as Dave described it.

We’re staying at the Green Tortoise Hostel, which is in the north part of the city about 15 minutes walk from downtown.  I was recommended this place by a lovely woman I met recently who lived here for 2 years.  The group agreed it sounded smashing as it’s quite close to the ferries and nice biking routes, so we locked it in, and to my complete surprise on arrival discovered it was at pretty much the center of the Red Light District.  I’ll be sure to pass on Dave’s thankyou to her.
We’re across the road from “Taste of Paradise”, which has made for amusing banter, and the Hustler club has a car driving around with a clear trailer that houses 5 ladies and a pole.  It’s not a boring area.

Will took us to a classic American Diner he found years ago that has that whole “you want more coaffe?” thing going on – Ie. Classic American diner.  Having eaten awesome pancakes and had some disgusting coaffe, we went clothes shopping.  Yes, 3 dudes, on the first day in awesome San Fran, went shopping.

Clothes are very cheap compared to Australia here, so we all picked up a few goodies.  I got some cargo pants which I have trouble finding in Aus, and they’ve since been my very comfy riding gear.  The hard part was deciding the colour – as typical guys we’re not good at knowing what colour is best to get.  Fortunately there was a lovely and clearly very gay guy in the store, who helped me choose the colour that works best for me and makes me “pop”.  I was very glad once we had a decision :

Day 2 began at 9ish with the hostel brekkie, and we headed to the bike hire for a day of riding.  Having now ridden half the city I must say this sure is the way to see SF.  The Bridge was Destination Prime, and we got some spectacular pics from that jaunt.  I put my now-honed Panorama skills to use, with the occasional jumping pic that’s my current thing.

 
Approaching the bridge along the south pier

 
From the lookout on the south side, east of the bridge – a tourist spot

We went off the beaten track and found this spot to the west of the bridge

   
Same spot, sans me

The team : Will, me, and Dave 

We then rode to Golden Gate Park, and rode the full length east to west and back.  We finished about 6:30, had some coffee and snacks at the cafe Coffee to the People which is a funky cafe in Haight-Ashbury, which is a very interesting area.  We had a 7km walk/roll back to our hostel, as after dark you must have lights on your bike.  We took back streets to avoid attention, and went right past a house of Gangbangers in “The ‘Loin” who watched us closely was we rode by.  Aikido face : On.

Once settled in for the night, exhausted, we thought the excitement was done.  But we heard sirens and commotion, looked out our Red Light District facing window to this sightdirectly below our room :

Note the crowd of cops in the bottom left – there are 2 African-Americans handcuffed and lying in the gutter, one loud and screaming about his rights; the other very silent and having what we thought was water poured on his face – we thought to was away blood.  It was friday night and the police were seriously in force on our street, some armed with wooden Tonfas too (I.e. Not the standard-issue Nightstick – i mean they looked homemade).  They also walked different to Aussie cops – low in the hips – weight sunken – like they had some form of Martial Arts training.  I guess I do know what to look for after all my training.  You do not want to fuck with these guys!

On day 3 Dave and I resolved to do the Bridge Ride and explore the other side – Will had done this before so he stayed in the Hostel to work.  We went via the Palace of Fine Arts, which was beautifully featured in “The Rock” :

Palace of fine arts – featured in “The Rock”

We found the exact spot they filmed a scene in, which means i’ve stood exactly where Sean Connery has been. Booyah!

Contemplating the architecture

We crossed the bridge, and I was in search of a location i’d seen in the “Love Generation” video clip, which was picturesque and I wanted to experience it.  We reasoned where it would have to have been, and with the power of observation and Google found the right roads and found the spot :

Gorgeous.  Simply stunning.

Seriously, the Bridge really got me.  There’s something about it and the surrounding landscape that really… spoke to me.  Not sure what it is yet, but I liked it.

Dave and I rode the lovely downhill ride into Sacremento, and caught the ferry back to the base.  By this time Rhys, our 4th member, had arrived and we all met up, talked trash, dealt with administrivia, and had a cool dinner at “The Stinking Rose”, which is a garlic specialist restaurant.  Delicious!

And so ends our first 2.5 days in SF.  I’m quite glad at how easy it’s been to do all this riding.  Either gravity is lower here or something, or the Bikram Yoga has really helped my endurance.  We have loads more to fit in for our remaining time here.

This post bought to you by Geospike Industries