In early May, we drove to San Francisco, the second time since we began our nomadic life. The main purpose this time was to participate in our (almost) annual bike trip with friends. We are now six of us including a cousin from Munich, a friend who lives in San Francisco and his wife, and a friend who lives in Palo Alto. The last time we were together for biking was in Munich in 2017. We skipped 2018 because we were too busy with house selling and other activities.
This time was in many ways a repeat of what we had done in 2010. As we did that time, we biked in San Francisco as well as in Sonoma Valley, famous for its wineries.
We did two rides in San Francisco. The first one was in the city, starting from our friends’ house in Castro. We entered the Golden Gate Park and biked its length before reaching the Ocean. Then we rode along the Ocean for a couple of miles before returning. The return journey was a bit more challenging because the traffic had built up and our friend decided to go through some steep sections. We found that a steep San Francisco street is more challenging going down than up. At one stage, I decided to walk the bike down and found that my bike shoes, with the metal strip (for SPD pedals) provided little traction. In any case, we managed to return home unharmed.
The second ride in the San Francisco area was in two parts. For both, we carried the bikes to a parking lot in Tiburon. Then, we rode along an ocean road leading toward a town called Paradise. It was a lovey ride on a low traffic rode which went up and down. For the second ride, we took a ferry to Angel Island located in San Francisco Bay. This ride was truly spectacular.
Only 5.5 miles in length, it provided views of the bay, the bridges, and the city itself. The only vehicles allowed on the island are small tour buses, which made biking quite stress free. There were ups and down including a really steep incline, but overall it was not a difficult trail.
We spent the next four days in Sonoma. Our friends had rented a four-bedroom house in a town called Windsor, which is located toward the northern part of the valley, about an hour drive north from the town of Sonoma. The house turned out to be quirky but comfortable. Its location amidst farms and vineyards was perfect. The forecast called for rain after two days. So we decided to bike on the day we arrived instead of relaxing as was originally planned.
The first ride in Sonoma was through the town of Windsor. Although the town is bike friendly, we found that a weekday evening was not a good time to ride. There was a lot of traffic and some drivers were clearly irritated at slow moving bikers, even though we were not blocking the roads. Their noisy overtaking of us was quite unnerving. Eventually, we reached a vineyard and had a moment of respite.
For the next day, we decided to take our bikes on bike carriers to a starting point of a trail, instead of riding on heavily travelled roads. On agenda was a 26-mile figure of eight in Dry Creek Valley. We parked the cars in the center of the figure of eight and rode north until we reached the famous Ferrari-Carano Vineyards and Winery.
It is located amidst spectacular grounds and the villa at the center of it is quite grand. We used the restrooms at the winery and took many photos, but did not partake in wine tasting, nor was there a possibility of purchasing any wine. After all we were biking :-).
After that, we went south, crossed the Dry Creek river to get on the West Dry Creek Road. This was a great road to bike on. There was almost no traffic and the road went along side miles of vineyards. The sun was shining, the road undulating, and we were happy. After a quick lunch at the mid point, near where our cars were parked, we went back to the favorite road and decided to stop at a winery for buying a bottle to drink on-site.
At the first winery we stopped at, Lambert Bridge, we were told that we had to become members to purchase wine and if we wanted to do wine tasting, it would be $40 each. “Forget it,” we said and we continued. Eventually, we settled on DeVero Farms and Winery. We had a bottle of rosé and tried some of the olive oil they make. It reminded us of our first bike trip as a group when we biked in Andalucía, Spain, amidst olive groves.
We rode back in the next half an hour, before it started raining.
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