Day 1 (5/23/09)

The trip started well, with AirTran doing its part by departing on time and getting us to San Francisco around 11:oo P.S.T. We took a taxi to the start at the Golden Gate bridge because the support van was too full to carry us from the airport. Unfortunately, it took us over an hour to link up with the support team. Despite too many cell phone calls that went something like this; Jere - "Where are you?" Josh - "I'm staring at the bridge", Jere - "So am I, but its a big bridge, where are you?" Josh - "I'm looking up at the bridge", Jere - "How can you do that? What else do you see? Josh - "because I'm under it, and I see water" ... and so on. Eventually, we found each other, geared up and began heading home. The weather was cold, windy and overcast. We were already tired before we started by about 2:00 P.S.T. Because of the late start, we didn't want to waste any more time for the traditional rear wheel dip in the Pacific. We opted instead for a boat launch we found after crossing the Bay Bridge. We deviated from the canned route from the start. Unfortunately, one of the main, direct roads we selected, which looked good on the map, didn't allow cycles. Jere got the first flat tire of the ride, 35 miles in. We made the decision to ride to Napa, as our 1st stop and hotel were too far away since all we seemed to accomplish to that point was to snake around the bay. We made it to Napa, just as the sun was setting, about 11:00 E.S.T., a long day! The support team met us and drove us to dinner and the hotel, about 27 miles away. Our stats for the day were; 83.7 miles, 5:03 ride time (6:19 total time), 5,589' of climbing with an average speed of 16.7 mph., two idiots who yelled at us, zero dogs, and no precipitation. We were pleasantly surprised with the traffic. The bay area has a lot of cyclists and it appeared the drivers are used to bikes on the road. California has an extensive system of bike paths and a lot of the roads had bike lanes, which made travel a lot less stressful. My first day apprehension of California traffic on a holiday weekend proved unfounded. In sum, a good start.