We jumped on the cable car to Pier 39 with an empty picnic bag, stopped at Trader Joe's to fill it up, and then rented a tandem bike on the pier. The guy that rented us the bike told us it was easy with just a few little hills. Uh huh. Don't believe it.
A tandem bike takes a little getting used to with the wide turning radius and two people who do not always lean the same way, but it was fine. We strapped our picnic lunch to the handle bars and off we went. We almost made it up the first hill without bailing.
The next one closer to the bridge--no way. We, and everyone else, gave up riding. Then the bridge itself is uphill to the middle. You get a much better idea how big the bridge is when you ride over it. It is really really big with a span of 1280 m (4200 ft). It was wonderful going down the other side and around underneath it, but then it was a big hill to get into Sausilito. When we got into Sausilito we were tired. I found out later that we went 16 kilometers (10 miles).
We looked in a couple shops and then had a picnic in the park by the bay. Nice crusty french bread, genoa salami, brie, cobb salad, parmesan crisps, wine, and the most perfect strawberries I have ever seen and tasted in my life. Really, they were stunningly pretty and incredibly delicious. It was a perfect little picnic.
We took the ferry, with 200 other bikers, back to Pier 39. There was no way we could ride back. It was a great day.
