Golden Gate, Chinatown, and Cable Cars

Holy crow! My quads certainly made use of the strength training I did in the off-season today! More riding. This time I went downtown to the financial district, onto the Embarcadero (where all the piers begin) and took the bike lane down into the Fisherman's Wharf area, then on to Crissy Field, and up to the Golden Gate bridge, where I proceeded to ride across. It's a bit challenging, what with all of the pedestrian and inexperienced cyclist traffic, but I just reminded myself that I was on a leisurely ride and would want to stop for photo-ops anyway. No rush. That's exactly what I did. It was fun. I wasn't up for a long ride today, as I'd hoped to do. My legs maybe could have done it (not sure though, as the hills are pretty big on the other side of the bridge and I didn't have the right gears to do really hard hills), but my head wasn't in it. Nor was my saddle area. Should have brought my own saddle. Won't make that mistake again. Frankly, now that I've got a bike box, I likely won't travel without my own bike if I can help it again. One thing I learned with all of the steep hills here is that you really can't be truly confident riding someone else's bike. I made the best of it though and really did get some good exercise. Woke the body up from it's conference sleep, and I saw a lot of nice stuff that you don't see if you aren't on a bike.

After returning the bike I cabbed it back to the hotel so I could shower, change, and do some other interesting things. First thing I did was to walk down the street about 3 blocks away - Grant Street: Chinatown. It's the largest Chinatown in the world I think. I just happened upon a tea shop I'd found on-line before I left and was SO excited!!! Picked up some totally amazing stuff there. They were so helpful and professional. I got to taste some teas that I was looking at before buying them. Super fun!

On the other side of Chinatown is North Beach - little Italy. I hadn't really eaten much all day (another reason the long ride did not work out) and I seemed to have mindlessly wandered into a little place called Caffe Greco. I'm posting all of these links because these are places I would go back to and would recommend, so take note. :) I had a veggie panini and it hit the spot and didn't hurt the wallet. The guys there were really sweet. Well, as I said, everyone seems to be pretty darn sweet to me here. At any rate, I really stumbled upon a nice spot - the locals were all hangin' out here and stopping in for coffee and tiramisu.

After leaving there I decided I was close enough to walk to the crookedest street in the US (although this fact seems to be doubtful): Lombard Street. Not sure if this is correct either (and unfortunately I didn't take my garmin with me), but apparently it's a 27% grade. I climbed not only the street itself, but the almost as steep road to get to it (if it's 27%, then I'd hazard a guess that the road I had to walk 3 blocks up to get to it was between 20-25%). Once at the top I hopped on the Hyde-Powell cable car and took my first San Francisco cable car ride. I took a bunch of photos so I'll torture you with them later. That was fun. And again, all the people on the cable car were super nice and this other tourist showed me where to take a good shot of the people hanging off our car. When I got off the cable car at my stop I thanked the back end driver (there are two guys on the car - seems the one at the back is in charge of the back brakes - I asked him) and I hopped off and they all waved goodbye to me as they started to roll again.