On ya bike

#17

I still to this hour am struggling to understand exactly why we went with the bikes AGAIN after the catastrophe in Houston. Come to think of it actually, I don’t seem to have much luck with bikes anywhere. When backpacking Europe in 2012, in my all-time favourite city of Munich, I distinctly remember riding a bike on the road and narrowly missing a collision with a van. And when I was young I would routinely fall OFF my bike, bruised, broken and bothered. When I was 14 I had a traumatic bike incident that involved my best friend Clam, a ditch, a disappearing bike lane, a heard full of cars and a helmet that slipped over my eyes to successfully hinder vision. After living out of the backpack for so long now, I’ve come to realise that backpacking is kind of like childbirth. Yes, I went there. Hear me out.

It’s painful, and, as of late, my pack has being so engorged with the mountains of shopping #guilt, that it’s really quite inconvenient to pack it up and carry it plus twenty other random things hanging off your pack like shoes and pillows and jumpers blah blah. Dice had her Nike kicks dangling off the back, and they proceeded to swing around and hit her and anyone else in the way AGAIN AND AGAIN until she was SO MAD and I was laughing SO HARD. But every place we visit, I unpack, seem to forget all about the nuisance it was, and be keen to do it all over again. And I know, that after a time of being back home again (finally) I’ll be itching to pack it up and disappear again. So, childbirth. One of my good friends is studying midwifery, and apparently there’s like a hormone that’s released during the birthing process, which makes you forget the excruciating pain later on…? Yeah, I think that’s it. (She’d be frightfully shocked if she heard me comparing backpacking to the miracle of life but whatever). Seriously, it’s the same. After one hour in San Fran, I had already forgotten the absolute BALL ACHE it was to get the packs and everything on public transport and through the city. TRU.

Anywho, I’m going to stop embarrassing myself by making silly analogies and put up some photos with funny hashtags to distract you.

#sanfran

'merica yo

Golden Gate Park

#fave

BIKES. MISTAKE. SAN FRANCISCO IS HILLY. LIKE MY HOMETOWN OF ELTHAM. AN ABSOLUTE ATROCITY. 

Dat coast.

In happier times

I gave up quite early on, and was always OFF THE BIKE pushing it, and steadying my cardiac health, praying it would hold out. So for me, the title is rather inadequate. For Dice, reasonable. There are quite a lot of fit and happy and healthy people in the city actually, and especially across the bridge. Yes everyone’s so freaking fit and happy and healthy.

! hours in

1 hour 10 mins in

2 hours in

3 hours in

3 hours 40 minutes in

The bridge was awesome! Dice even got us these dinky little badges that say “I biked the Golden Gate Bridge”. You bet we did. It took us a roundabout way, broken bike chains, a four-hour-should-have-been-two-hour journey, a lack of food and water for 6 hours (#leonie) and dealing with hazards on the road and other amateurs who didn’t know how to ride a bike or had to hold up traffic by getting off and pushing their bike. Geez. What nuisances.

We returned to our hostel tired, exhausted and in need of food, water and a toilet. The ride that WAS SUPPOSED TO TAKE 3 took us 6 hours. 

I wanted to stay there and bugger the bridge

Exhaustion

Hair beard

Contemplate that for a minute.

It was a hilarious experience though. The feeling of cycling across the bridge, with the full city in view, as the sun was setting was amazing. Golden Gate Bridge people! Something to tick off the list. Riding through San Fran was also spectacular. The city isn’t like I expected, sort of European…like Croatia or Italy maybe, on the coast. 

Seedy

The best part was returning those chunks of metal, and getting OFF YA BIKE. 

But shoutout to Dice here actually. We always have so much fun, no matter what we do. But she puts up with a lot with me. Seriously. I’m unfit, lazy, a whinger and mostly just a general nuisance of a person. I know it. She knows it. My famous quote of the trip is known to be; “yolo man, I am who I am, take it or leave it”.

She takes it. Mostly because she has to, being mah soul mate and all. And she even bought me a dinky little badge that says “I biked the Golden Gate Bridge”. That’s right. I wear that shiz proudly, as if it’s a testament to my enormous strength and test of fitness, that only the elite achieve.