Thursday, August 15th, 2024
Benicia, CA → San Francisco, CA
42.3 mi, 2513 ft
The gentle hum of my morning alarm went off. 5:15 am—only 5 hours after I went to bed. I groaned. We’ve fallen off our early morning grind, so it’s been a while since I woke up this early. After getting dressed and packing my sleeping bag and pad, I stumbled downstairs for breakfast. I poured myself the last of our soy milk and some raisin bran and began chowing down. A few spoonfuls in, I realized there were white chunks in the milk. Ugh. I dumped it out and fumbled through the skimpy remains of our breakfast food. Nothing in this box is appetizing anymore. While I prepared a peanut butter and jam bagel, our host Tony showed us videos of Max (his son) singing.
After breakfast, we finished getting ready and packing the van. While we usually have the driver pack the van, none of us would be driving today. Duha from last year’s Spokes team graciously offered to drive this last day so everyone could bike into San Francisco. Thank you Duha!! <3
Finally, it was time to ride. Usually, we start whenever we’re ready and ride at our own pace. But today, on this last day, we started together. So we took a picture with our hosts and set off together. Except Hank had a flat (12th one!) so we started without him knowing he would catch up in a few miles (classic). As I led us out of Benicia, I was reminded of Virginia, when we only had a couple of bike computers set up and I often found myself navigating. We’ve traveled so many miles, met so many incredible people, and experienced so many new things since then. It feels like I’ve lived a whole lifetime since Virginia, but it all happened so fast and I’m not ready for it to end.
We’re coming up on our first of three bridges of the day, the Alfred Zampa Memorial Bridge. Alfred Zampa was an iron worker who was one of the first people to survive falling off the Golden Gate Bridge. How he did that, I don’t know, but I’m glad this bridge has a tall railing so I don’t fall off.
Further along the ride, we come across a fence. Luckily, there’s a big enough gap that most of us can fit through. Unfortunately, Hank’s bike is too tall so we pass it over top of the fence. Later, I found out from Sophia and JD that we didn’t need to cross the fence if we kept biking a little further. Oops.
Soon, we reached our second bridge and my favorite of the bunch, the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. This was our longest bridge, starting with a long, gradual climb followed by a gentle descent. There was little traffic on the bike path, so I could take in the scenery: the vast blues of the San Francisco Bay and the hazy land masses in the distance. I watched the cars to my left and noticed that they were all going in the same direction. “Where’s the traffic in the other direction? Is this a one-way bridge?” I thought to myself. That doesn’t make sense. I heard the cars underneath me and realized that there must be another layer to the bridge.
Richmond-San Rafael Bridge! She a beaut
We biked through Corte Madera and turned left onto Sausalito St. The bike computer beeped. Climb starting. 0.40 mi. Grade remain: 14%. Click click click. I shift to my lowest gear and pedal. My tactic on this climb is slow and steady. If I go out too hard, I fear my legs will burn and give out. And if I stop, I fear I’ll go backward and be unable to balance and restart. I focus on my breathing and take the climb one pedal stroke at a time. I make the last turn of the climb. It’s the steepest part and I’m going so slow I wobble and almost lose my balance, but I right my bike just in time. Finally, I made it to the top. Garmin tells me the max grade on this climb was 24.9%. I thought we were done climbing after the Sierras but these hills have got hands.
A windy, downhill section follows the climb. I feel validated by the “share the road” sign and other bikers climbing in the other direction. I’m more confident on curvy descents now than I was a few weeks ago, pumping my brakes only occasionally and cornering through the curves. Rebecca later called this climb and descent the “exit assessment of Spokes”, a final test of our skills. I’m happy to report that we all passed with flying colors.
We haven’t biked in a line in a while, but we wanted to cherish this last day together. Going through the streets of Sausalito, I saw heads turn and one woman record a video. Laughing, I wondered what they thought of us, six bikers (Sophia was ahead) in a line in matching jerseys and similar bikes.
Before Sausalito, but this is about what we looked like
Finally, we arrived at the vista point before the Golden Gate Bridge. We bummed around a bit for one last time, stalling so that people’s friends and families could get to the finish line. I thought about how relatively unprepared we were for this ride: we barely slept last night, barely ate this morning, and barely snacked on the ride. Tired and hungry, we were fueled by adrenaline and giddy for this final bit of the ride.
At last, we began to cross the third and final bridge of the day and trip, the Golden Gate Bridge. I realized I liked the idea of crossing this bridge more than the actual biking itself. There were so many pedestrians that we were braking more than pedaling to avoid causing an accident. At least the wind wasn’t as bad as we feared it might be.
When we got off the bridge, we were greeted by friends and family. “It’s like meeting reality TV characters,” Rebecca’s sister Sarah remarked, having read all the blogs. Her statement made me realize the last three months have been the most well-documented three months of my life. As much as we groan about writing blogs and procrastinate to no end (sorry), I’m excited to be able to relive these experiences many years down the line. And to be able to do that through the lens of each member of this rotating cast, no less. I’d also like to thank Sarah and everyone else who’s been following along with the blogs. It brings me so much joy when people comment or message me about something they read in the blog. Thank you for your support, your concern, and your care. We couldn’t have done this without you <3
Anyway, it was time to celebrate! We chatted with friends and family, took pictures, and called Cleo! We’re sad that Cleo couldn’t be here in person with us today, but are happy to still share this moment with her. The festivities wouldn’t be complete without a meal of course. And what better way to do it than with a classic van lunch? So we finished our bagels and cleaned up most of our lunch meats, cheeses, and humou.
We couldn’t celebrate too long as we had a lot of logistics to deal with. JD and Sophia drove to the apartment we were staying at to drop off personal items and start shipping gear. Meanwhile, the rest of us biked to the REI to start packing our bikes for shipping. As I biked through the Presidio and along the waterfront, I remembered that the last time I was in San Francisco, I biked the exact same path. Three years ago, I was working remotely in the Bay Area. It was a California still stricken by COVID before the vaccine, lonely and cold. This time, San Francisco was the promised land, the goal for 4038 miles. As I bike up and down the hills, I notice familiar street names: Vallejo and Sacramento for cities we biked through and Folsom for the lake before a beautiful bike path into Sacramento. Now, San Francisco is a symbol of triumph, a product of 74 days, 4038 miles, 171,691 ft of elevation, 8 learning festivals, 55 biking days, 9 states, hundreds of kind people met along the way, and 8 delusional MIT students.
Back to packing the bikes. Unfortunately, this took way too long. Luckily, the kind employees of the San Francisco REI said we could store our bikes in their store if we didn’t finish before they closed and come back in the morning to finish packing. With one issue solved, we still had the other where we majorly underestimated how long it would take to do this. We had ice cream plans with Maxwell and Simone from Spokes 2022 and still hadn’t eaten dinner. We decided to order food to the REI and have just a few people go hang out with Maxwell and Simone.
Packing our bikes in front of the REI parking lot
After the food arrived, Varsha, Amulya and JD drove off to the ice cream shop while the rest of us kept packing. Less than an hour later, they returned… with Maxwell and Simone! After they learned that we were still at the REI, they came to us instead. The REI was closing soon, so we first put our bikes in storage. Apparently, the REI employees were making bets on whether we would finish before they closed. Welp sorry to anyone who thought we would.
With the bikes away, we could finally just chat with Simone and Maxwell. We told stories from our adventures and they told stories from theirs. We marveled over things we did differently and bonded over shared hosts and experiences. Simone still remembered the names of pets and stores we passed by, which was super impressive! Chatting with Spokes alums is always so lovely because there’s this deeper level of understanding. I know I’ll be telling Spokes stories for many years to come, but there’s nothing quite like sharing them with someone who truly gets it.
Three hours had passed and we were still standing in a circle outside the REI. Finally, it was time to say goodbye. Thank you Maxwell and Simone for making time to see us and being so flexible when we were in the shipping trenches! I could not have asked for a better end to this packed day.
Now you’re probably expecting a concluding statement to this huge adventure, but I’ll leave that to JD for our last post of the year. For now, it’s time for me to hit the hay.
Congratulations!
PLEASE COLLECT EACH POST (WITH PICS) AND CREATE A MEMORY ALBUM FOR YOUR SELVES, FAMILY, CHEERLEADERS, ETC. LOVE THESE BLOG POSTS. THANK YOU FOR INCLUDING US ALL IN YOUR ADVENTURES!