We woke up this morning to the sound of rain slapping against the windows of our loft. It had been raining all night, and most of yesterday. For the past several months, we’d been taking bike rides on the weekends, often rising and dressing directly in bike clothes to head out while the day is young. Today’s rain tested us, as we’d gone out biking in the cold, but not yet in the rain. We decided to go for it when we came downstairs and saw the rain had eased up a bit. And we opted to try a ride we’ve been wanting to do for some time: up through the Haight, into Golden Gate Park, and down down down to the Great Highway and Ocean Beach. There are hills on this ride, so we figured we might get wet but we wouldn’t be cold.
It was a thrilling ride. There was a downpour as we rode through the Park, and the water was blinding as we flew down the hill, bouncing off my helmet and splashing into my eyes. The puddles were huge in places, and I remembered the thrill of riding bikes right after rainstorms as a child, seeking out puddles and not minding how dirty I used to get. Today I didn’t mind the dirt either, and was covered in it. Splashes of mud up my legs, splats on my face, a line of wet muddy water up my back from the spray of my back tire.
We shouted out loud as we rode along, overtaken by the wild wet joyful feeling of being young and healthy and outdoors and in love. Down my the ocean we stopped, snapping a few pictures with a phone-camera, and even taking a video for Juanjo’s parents with phone-videocamera (sorry all of you who can see the video but not understand the Spanish!).
Now I’m sitting in a warm chair at home, listening to the slap of raindrops against the windows of the loft, and the splash of cars going by on the street. I looked up on Gmaps pedometer and was surprised to see that we rode over 12.5 miles!
San Francisco is such a bike-able city…where shall we go next? Maybe do a Golden Gate Bridge to Tiburon ride?
