There’s Gold in that Thar Bridge! – 120 Miles

So it’s been a long time since I’ve done posting of riding adventures. The weather here has been a bit of boondoggle being so cold and wet this late into the year. We were supposed to get some sun on Thursday so I was looking forward to getting out and riding! I’ve wanted to catch the Golden Gate at sunset to have the setting sun enhance the orange color of the bridge. Problem is that the Bridge often gets covered in fog at sunset. I’ve heard that the weather is more cooperative when the Sacramento valley is cooler (not summer time). So they days are long now and cool, so it was the perfect time to head north and see what was in store. The Santa Clara valley had lots of dark clouds which didn’t look good. The bridgecam though showed some blue.

I’d posted up to see if anyone was up for going on the local motorcycle forum and I only got one taker. I guess people here are afraid of rain. 🙂 I was one of them too but if I’m ever going to get to Alaska, I need to conquer that fear early otherwise I’ll barely make it out of California. 🙁

Sandwiches in storage, Tim and I head north. The ride up through the Santa Cruz mountains was a touch nippy. I do love riding at this time of the day as the setting sun does color the landscape in a very different light. With all the rain we’ve had the trees were super green and the yellow sun really added to the color. The road was damp in spots and traffic was a bit heavy, but in general, things were good.

As soon as we neared the 92 on Skyline the view was spectacular. You could see all the way to San Francisco. As we got down to the ocean things warmed up and turned into the perfect riding day. We cruised up the 1 stopping at Montara State Beach:

The ride up through Devils Slide is every bit as good as Big Sur, but much shorter (about 1/50th of the scale) but hey, it’s a great local thrill. The DL is ready to go:

So off we go. It was all pretty smooth sailing into San Francisco. Traffic was light and the weather continued to be good. The first stop was Ft. Miley. I was there on Sunday and liked the view so I figured why not enjoy it again:

We were about a half hour early, so the sun was not near as low in the sky as I needed it to be. That wasn’t really a big deal as there are always places to go and see. Tim had a few ideas. We stopped at a few other beaches and finally ended up on a dirt road to a lookout point super close to the bridge.

The problem is that the sun didn’t really put light directly on the bridge. I’m guessing it’s better in the winter when the sun sets further south. No worries, I can always come back. But for now, the light was good enough :).

The sun setting over the Golden Gate:

A cypress tree in the setting sun:

As things got darker the bridge became more interesting and its setting faded behind it.

The full gate in panoramic mode:

At this point the wind started to pick up and the mercury kept dropping. I’m sure the bridge would have gotten cooler but we were cold at this point…

So alas we headed back into downtown for a little riding around and ended up at the sister bridge. With such a cool night, the view was equally as good on the Bay Bridge: