Up a Climb Without a Plan
Here I am on another climb.
It was clear weather in downtown San Francisco when I could see the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance. It loomed for a bit to my right as I bike across the city and then loomed much bigger, much closer. An icon of an era of the American West.
Now the thin rain has grayed out the scenery to my left. San Francisco is erased.
Still some distance away, the road carves a ledge around Hawk Hill. The distance looks far and it is still 1.5 miles away. But it’s not far, it’s up. It’s up the hill. The distance is what I can see but what I need to think about is the grind.
Can I handle going all the way to the top? I am on a rental bike, not the sleek road bike I left at home. I’ll need to return it by 1:00p and it’s getting close to 11:30a now. There are many scenic overlooks that could be good enough. They’re good enough for other sightseers driving along the same road.
What’s the point of pushing myself to the top?
The Sting of Subpar Biking in 2023
2023 has been a year of feeling behind. Every bike ride feels like I’m finally getting back into the saddle. I was 50 miles short of my 2023 mileage goal of 1,200 miles, which was itself a low bar. Most weeks I didn’t meet my weekly goal of 4 hours of riding.
It’s not that I don’t have my excuses. I’m no longer a college student or a Jimmy John’s delivery cyclist. I work a fulltime job. I have a family now with responsibilities to keep hearth and home in good order. My house always has slow burn home improvement projects. I have a dog that needs regular walking.
But, weighing on me are the easy counterpoints to my excuses. I don’t have a uniquely difficult lifestyle. I have work-from-home flexibility at my fulltime job. It even gives me an “invest in yourself” day once a month.
Easy fixes to my excuses should motivate me to bike more. This year, it only gave me guilt.
But that’s not a good outlook to have. Looking at 2023 on the positive side, I increased the variety of biking. I took lots of quick trips to the grocery store. This past spring, I picked up my son from daycare 5 days out of the week in a bike trailer. I used a tricycle to take my nephews and son to the park. I biked across town for events and breakfast meetups with friends. I biked to spectate my sister’s marathon. I biked with my family to church. On vacation, I biked in Germany to the train station.
I ended up in California because we were visiting my wife’s Grandma for her 90th birthday. It was the week of Christmas and so the flights were cheapest traveling on the holidays. That meant we had a week in California, visiting with family in the afternoons and evenings.
So there I was, using a free morning to bike in San Francisco.
That’s why I was on that hill, pushing myself when I didn’t feel like I was in shape for it. The hill was there. I had an opportunity to climb it. I was going to go all the way to the top.
For a closer look at this map, go to https://www.strava.com/activities/10458432286
The Year-End San Francisco Tour Route
My bike ride began with a drop-off from my father-in-law at the closest BART station to Nishon’s Grandma’s assisted living. I then took the subway to a bike rental location that, according to reviews, had road bikes to rent. They did but not at this location and not for non-members. No worries. City bike it was.
I took a route down to the waterfront that I was hoping would take me up some classic San Francisco hills. As soon as I saw Union Hill tilting way up to my right, I diverted up it to see how high it went. I was immediately huffing and puffing.
Union Hill took me to near Lombard street, the “crookedest street in the world” and a staple of Hollywood depictions of the city. It was one way in the downhill direction so I swooped around, took a much needed breather at the top and rolled down it.
From there, I went along the waterfront to the base of the Golden Gate bridge. I took my obligatory photos, biked a bit, saw there was a more scenic angle, took some more and then biked across. For anyone worried for my safety, the bikers and walkers are separate from the car traffic by a sizable fence.
On the north side of the bridge, I wanted to find the start of the Hawk Hill climb. Strava put it somewhere up and around a road that looked like it continued downhill for a ways further. I never like to do half a hill so I needed to find the lowest point on this road. It turned out that I would need to continue on to Sausalito for that.
Once in Sausalito, I bought and drank a shot of espresso. I then saw a children’s book about a dog’s sightseeing tour around San Francisco in the tourist shop next door. It looked to have the right ratio of dogs and cars to pique Calvin’s interest. As I glanced through the pages, I noticed some sightseeing places I had already been to and a few I could route to on my way back… but only if I got a move on.
Learning From the Golden Gate Bridge
And that’s how I ended up on Hawk Hill in the growing gray, wondering if I had the time and strength to tackle the rest of the climb.
As it turns out, I did. I reached the top, admired the view (or lack of view from the rain) and rolled back down.
Not only did I have time and strength to tackle the climb, I had time to swing by Alamo Square (mentioned in the children’s book for its colorful Victorian houses). I was helped along by a man chopping and selling fruit on the sidewalk. This cut out the need for a proper lunch and got me to the bike rental by 1:30p.
Having the time for the whole climb and the extra sightseeing showed me that maybe it is okay to bite off a little more than you can chew.
Maybe that’s what will help me to bike more in 2024. If I have the mentality I can’t go out biking until I accomplish X things because those are the big priorities, I might not be making the most of my time.
Sometimes, if my house isn’t burning down, my wife is able to watch Calvin for a moment and my dog isn’t actively eating all the hamburger buns, I can just get out and ride for a bit… maybe even for a bit longer than I think I have time for.