What is a Regular Weekend Anyway?

Thank you to all who commented on my last post. I am taking all of your advice into consideration! However, I am still doing some digging, so if you have not weighed in yet, you can still go here and let me know your thoughts. 

Last weekend was a long one and it gave me the perfect opportunity to get some stuff done and still have fun too! I was thinking about what a regular weekend around here looks like and of course it depends on the weekend, but a regular weekend at home generally looks like this: prepping meals for the next week, laundry, house cleaning, working in the yard, a run (or two), reading, working on the purging project, and meeting up with friends for a hike/run/coffee. However, weekends lately have been a little different! 

Remember my post about being uncomfortable? Since I wrote that post, I have been even more uncomfortable! That ride was about 40 miles; after that was a success, on New Years weekend, I decided to ride to my brother's house in Santa Rosa, which is about 70 miles away from where I live. Before I started, since it was supposed to be a little wet, I got new tires and put them on Bertha. A quick backstory: Bertha is old, maybe even older than me, but I am not really sure, as I have been told that it is rude to ask a lady her age. She is a ten speed, of which maybe only three of the speeds work and her brakes have not been changed the whole time I have had her, which has been about ten years. So she is not really in tip top shape, but she gets the job done. 

The day that I planned on starting, Mother Nature was not having it; you may recall that this was the weekend where we were hit with the bomb cyclone? So I had to wait a day and shorten the ride, but in the end, I started off bright and early on Saturday morning from Richmond point and went across the Richmond bridge for the 2nd time in less than a month. Surprisingly the weather was good, the winds were in my favor and I got through San Rafael with no issues. 

I don't really know (but am learning!) what normal cyclists use for navigation, but I used Google maps and kept my headphone in while riding so that I could hear the directions as I went. Sometimes they are confusing, like when she says, "turn right, then left" but really she means, "stay on the same path" so I did go the wrong way a couple of times since I was not actually looking at the map, but generally it was fairly easy to follow. My route took me through San Rafael, Novato and Petaluma before putting me on Stony Point road, which was 14 miles long and actually went straight to Santa Rosa and almost right to my brother's house. 

Once I arrived there, we took a shake out walk and went for New Years Day pho before relaxing in the hot tub and then in front of a movie with ice cream. Broski and Mrs. Broski always treat me right. 

The next day, I got up early and left as it was supposed to start raining again at 11 am and I wanted none of that. I had gear and everything but one of my fears is slipping on the wet street and falling in the middle of traffic, or even just on the ground on a hard bike path or street. Not to say I will never ride in the rain but for now I would like to avoid it when I can. It was great riding back along Stony Point with the sun rising and no cars on the road. 

As I said above, my route generally followed frontage or access roads near highway 101, but often took me into the downtown areas of the towns I went through and I will not lie, although I have been to and driven through these towns before, I had never been to some of their downtowns and they are very cute. For example, Petaluma has a nice old town downtown with cute shops and everything! I will have to come back to explore more as I was trying to outrun the rain, but who knew! Petaluma also had a bathroom that was open, which I was very grateful for, as I had made a pitstop in the bushes the day before. 

I got back to Richmond only slightly damp and it actually started raining shortly after that. Score. What are my takeaways? I learned that I am not a fan of padded bike shorts. So, when I say uncomfortable, I really do mean physically this time. I nicknamed them my "diaper" and have a few TMI things to tell you about this. First of all, did you know that you are supposed to wear them without underwear? I can't tell you how glad I am to get to my destination and take off the shorts and put on underwear. It's my new favorite thing. I learned that I need new brakes, which I have since bought and not yet installed. 

One of the most useful things I have learned on this adventure but also in life, is that you don't need special or fancy equipment to start a new adventure. You just need to try it with what you have! I put a change of clothes and some tools in a dry bag, strapped it to the back of the bike with a bungee and used that as my "paniers," I clearly do not have a state of the art bike, I wear old running shoes (another use rather than gardening!) and I wear whatever is comfortable. I get passed by sleek riders, dressed in fancy matching spandex with $16,000 bikes made of air, as I huff and puff on my 57 pound bike up a hill with my lowest of three gears. But you know what, I arrive home tired and happy and proud of myself for not letting any of that stop me. Not to get on a tangent here, but the same goes for everything! Don't let the lack of gear or the lack of experience or the fear of looking silly hold you back. 

Total miles: 105 (54 + 51)
Time taken:  10 hours (5.5 + 4.5)
Bridges crossed: 1, but I crossed it twice (Richmond)
Modes of transport: 2 (car to Richmond, bike)
Map of my trip: https://caltopo.com/m/E803B 

What does your regular weekend look like? What does your out of the box/adventure weekend look like? 

On Being Uncomfortable

As adults, we become fairly stuck in our ways at times, doing the same routine or same tasks over and over. Having kids definitely gives people a new outlook, new tasks to do, new people to meet. For example, for the last couple of years I have been helping a single mom friend shuttle the kids to soccer and lacrosse practice and games. Not only have I learned about pickup and drop off (did you know that only a couple of the parents get out of the car? I always get out of the car. Am I doing that wrong?), but I have been learning how to play lacrosse (this is not a sport we had available when I was a kid). I am learning how to listen to and to give advice to kids; I am learning some bad (but very fun) dad jokes. 

Aside from that though, what do we do to put ourselves out of our comfort zone? Last weekend I took a bike ride with Bertha (that's my bike). This may seem easy enough, but my plan was to take my old bike all the way around the bay. Here is my CalTopo map. This would mean crossing two bridges and going into towns that usually I only fly by on the freeway. It would mean riding in the street, sometimes on roads with little shoulder and across two bridges with various rules and strange entry points. It would mean not knowing where I could use the bathroom or whether or not I needed to lock up my bike or where I could lock it up. It would mean riding further than I ever had before. It would mean being out of the house for an unknown period of time, in the cold and the wind. My bike could break down; I could get a flat; I could get lost; I could encounter all manner of things. 

But. I could have fun, learn something I did not know yet, stretch my ability and see new things. Which is what I did. I started at my house and rode to a bar in uptown Oakland to watch the World Cup final. After watching Argentina get a much deserved win, I got back on the bike and started riding toward the Richmond bridge. Luckily, there is a bike path that goes all the way from Emeryville to Richmond, which is about 10 miles long and sticks to the shoreline so there would not be too many cars to contend with. 

I followed that for about 10 miles and then had to go on the streets to get to Point Richmond, which is usually easy to get through. However, they were doing construction and there was a detour and instead of going on a flat street through downtown I went nearer to the coast and the hills and got quite an unexpected work out. Once I recovered from that, I went toward the bridge, but I didn't realize that when it said right turn it meant right after the street, not ON the street, so I almost went on a freeway entrance until a guy rolled down his window and told me that the bike path was just up the street. Oops! 

Bay Area bikeways

Next was the approach to the bridge and then a four mile stretch on the bridge, which always seems flat when I am driving on it, but I swear was uphill the whole way on the bike. Plus there was a cross wind that did not make it any easier. This was the point that I decided that my 50 mile circumnavigation of the whole bay may be a little ambitious and I should start thinking of a plan B. Luckily, depending on how long you want to wait, there are three ferry options that go into San Francisco as well as several bus options. So I got off the Richmond bridge and cruised into Larkspur where there is a ferry. Unfortunately, the next ferry came in about an hour and a half, but I did not want to just sit around and wait, so I decided to press on to Sausalito where I could catch the ferry from there if I hurried. 

Approaching the bridge

Richmond Bridge

Of course from Larkspur to Sausalito there were about 17 different turns and it did take me a while to make sure I was going the right way. Also when I got on the bike path that goes into Sausalito, which I have run on before, it was a lot more miles than I remember to get from there to the ferry. Of course the headwind did not help and I was passed several times by cyclists with large strong thighs, which really made me realize that I need to train more for this sport. However, it was a beautiful sunny day and there were people out enjoying it and it really was a great day to be alive. 

In Sausalito, I literally walked onto the ferry and it left, so if I would have been 5 minutes later I would have missed it and had to either wait another couple of hours or climbed the dreaded hill and crossed the Golden Gate bridge. Instead I had a great ride, ate a snack, enjoyed the view of the city and Alcatraz (if you have never taken this ferry, I highly recommend it. It is much cheaper than a proper bay cruise) and the all of the bridges. 

From San Francisco, I took the BART back to Oakland where I had about a four mile ride to get back home. I will admit, but this time I was super hungry despite my snack on the boat, but my butt was definitely not as sore as I thought it might be after such a long ride. This actually is now my longest ride ever! 

So, after this long story, what is my point, you are asking!? I would say the moral of the story is thus: first of all, you can teach an old dog new tricks...just kidding. Seriously, get out and try new things. Maybe it is embarrassing or unusual or uncomfortable or HARD, but you won't know until you try it and if you hate it you don't have to do it again, because you know what? You are an adult! However, I have found that many of those hard or uncomfortable things often become my favorite new thing to do.  Did I learn from this one? Yes. Did I have fun? Most certainly. Was it hard? You bet it was. Will I take another long bike ride? Definitely.

Total miles: 42
Time taken: 4 hours
Bridges crossed: 1 (Richmond)
Modes of transport: 3 (bike, boat, train)
Map of my trip: https://caltopo.com/m/G96UB 

What uncomfortable thing have you done lately? Have you ever taken a long bike ride? If so, what tips can you impart for my next ride?