The other top to-do on our list that I was slightly nervous about was cycling across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito. First off, was to find a bike rental company which was the easier than the bike ride itself because there were plenty of branches along the pier as well as shop fronts.
We went with “Bike and Roll at Fishermans wharf. They had a ‘pick up now, pay later policy’, which required them to take down your credit card details and you pay for the hire when you return the bicycle. They will throw away the credit card details when you pay. Odd though that they only accept cash so be sure to have enough cash or change in hand because we returned the bicycles on the dot of closing time and he didn’t have any change on him so we ended up telling him to keep like $8 worth of change. We paid US$32/bike for full day hire, return by 6PM. We started the day a little later so we had less time allocated to the ride, which took us about 3 hours to complete with several stops.
THE large Boudin branch we were meant to have brunch at
Birds feasting on left over bread bowls.. no wonder the seagulls there are HUGE!
Its been a few months since we last went bike riding and my fitness level was most likely at 0, meaning I’ll get defeated by the hills of San Francisco. There were about 3 or 4 uphills, can gladly say I made up at least one of them on the bike and not walking the way up.
Passing by the cute houses on Van Ness Ave which are even more beautiful at night and the fairy lights are on.
Took so many photos of the Golden Gate Bridge along the route!
Golden Gate Bridge
The bridge was a little busy but not crowded, there are 2 lanes; one for pedestrians and the other for cyclists. It is fairly wide but still had to be careful not rolling over tourists taking selfies on the bridge. Its a long ride across the bridge itself but the amazing view makes up for it!
After the Golden Gate Bridge is some pretty steep downhill, which really made me think twice about riding down but it turned out being easier than I thought.
Sausalito
We arrived at Sausalito and locked our bicycles along with others on the rack. We weren’t sure whether we needed to buy tickets for the ferry but it appears that if you have a Muni card then its all good. Sausalito is a pretty cute little waterside town, I imagined there would be quite a bit to see but I was wrong. We only walked around for an hour before we resorted to the only Starbucks visible for a hot drink and fill our tummies a bit (especially since our last meal was the clam chowder).
While waiting for the 5-something PM ferry to arrive, the sunset situation at the wharf kept us snap happy ;D Favourite view in Sausalito!
2 lanes, a separate path for people with bikes. Oddly no one checked for our tickets when we boarded.
LOVED watching the colours in the sky change, from pinks to vibrant oranges
Never thought the city of San Francisco could look this pretty at night when the lights come on 🙂
We were docked at Pier 1 so it meant we had to ride allll the way back to Pier 41 in the 15-20mins that we had to return the bicycles or else end up paying more because we’d had to return it to another branch that closed later. So the tip is to not leave it so late! Because that was one tiring ride….. we even got stopped along the way by who we thought was an officer at first telling us to not ride on the foot path (attempt to skip traffic lights) but turned out to be someone from a charity asking for donations -.- He came out of the dark so we couldn’t see him properly. Despite this we made it back on the dot.
I hope the pros of the mad rush helped us loose a few more calories before our dinner date that night at Foreign Cinema 😛
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