
Our first trip was to Samuel P. Taylor State Park in California. In the city of Lagunitas, to be precise. We left from Berkeley, CA.
My buddy rode from Richmond, CA to Berkeley, CA and then we were on our way.
We didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into so in some ways we over-prepared and in some ways we under-prepared.
(If you want an idea of what bike camping essentials to bring, see my bike camping checklist.)
My clothing was bonkers wrong, but that wouldn’t become clear until maybe halfway into the trip.
“But how did you get from Berkeley all the way to Lagunitas? Isn’t there a bunch of water in the way?”
Yes, there is. It’s called San Francisco Bay and unfortunately you can’t bike across it. (At least not at the time. I just plugged the starting point and destination into Google Maps and it seems to think that you can ride your bike over the Richmond Bridge. I don’t know if that’s legit. Can someone who still lives in California confirm or disconfirm that?)
So, we rode from Berkeley down to the ferry in Oakland. While we waited for the next ferry we had some overpriced coffee and rested.
I’d like to mention quickly that at the time our schedules were pretty flexible and so more often than not we would take our trips on a Monday-Tuesday or some such. We almost never went on the weekends. This had advantages, namely the sites we camped at were less populated, there was less traffic, smaller crowds, things like that.
The ferry pulled in. We walked our bikes down the gangway and onto the ferry. There’s a place at the back of the ferry where everyone parks their bikes. Our bikes were loaded with gear. Each bike had two panniers, various other small bags and pouches, phone holders, lights, mirrors, etc. It felt strange leaving our bikes unattended there, but then again, they weren’t going anywhere.
We took a seat. Enjoyed the ride over the bay to San Francisco.
I almost felt tired already. Biking, waiting, sitting. It felt like the end of a trip, not the very beginning. Beginnings and ends have that quality I guess.
We disembarked, onto the tourist-infested piers of the San Francisco waterfront. All the workaday crowds milling about. It was early afternoon.
I felt free. I wasn’t going to work. I wasn’t at work. I was a cyclist, going to camp while everyone else was stuck at their nine to fives. I was a warrior, a nomad, a knight on a quest, with my trusty steed beneath me and my good friend beside me.
We rode along the Embarcadero, passing the myriad people milling about at the tourist-trappy piers. We passed the entire panoply of human variations. Onward we went. The crowds thickened at Fisherman’s Wharf, then started to thin. We kept parallel with the trolly tracks embedded in the street.
We kept going, weaving through traffic and people, pedestrians and drivers, rickshaws and dogs on leashes. So far, so good. We were heading north, toward the Golden Gate Bridge.