san francisco - wednesday evening

 

  Another solo bike ride.

Hubby said he'd had enough of riding for the day, but I wanted to do some more exploring. Specifically, I wanted to check out 

"The Wiggle." 

It's marked on the bike map handed out by Bike and Roll, and when I googled it, I was intrigued. 

I was also curious to see downtown San Francisco.

So, I looked at the map and decided that I'd pretend to be a bicycle commuter working downtown in San Francisco. 

I'd ride on Polk Street to Market and from there use The Wiggle to turn around and head back.

It was a decently steep climb on Polk for the first couple of kilometers, but after that it was quite flat. And there's a bike lane all the way. So I rode and rode until I hit Market Street.

It was about 6:00. There were lots of cyclists. Lots -- maybe 20-25. The intersection of bike lanes at Polk and Market, while beautifully marked and glowingly green, was a bit confusing. Riders going in every possible direction. A mysterious flashing yellow bike light. 

 

I stopped and asked one of the waiting riders -- a young woman on a comfort bike -- how to get to The Wiggle. She was very kind, giving me excellent directions and explaining what the flashing light was about. So on I went, up a fairly steep hill to the easily-spotted Safeway, where I was to turn right.

Here again, I felt a bit baffled. There were markings on the pavement -- big green squares with arrows -- but I wasn't sure exactly what they represented. Another youngish woman happened to be riding next to me, so I asked her whether I was on the Wiggle. She assured me that I was and told me to follow her. We rode together for several blocks, turning right and left, ignoring stop signs, and talking about our lives cycling in two very different cities.

When we'd finished with the Wiggle, she asked me where I wanted to go next. When I told her I was headed back down to the Bay, she recommended that I first stop to look at The Painted Ladies houses in Alamo Square, and she pointed out the way.

Another steep uphill climb and there they were --

the painted ladies

other beautiful homes in Alamo Square

I loved the look of this old school building:

an old school in Alamo Square

   

Looking down from Alamo Square Park

I wasn't quite finished with the steep uphills yet -- I had to ride up for another three or four blocks, but after that it was downhill all the way to Fort Mason.

I had to turn around and take some photos of the hill I'd ridden down. Riding down was worse than riding up!

 

I wasn't far from the hotel now, but somehow I got lost. Yesterday afternoon I'd ended up at the same place and found my way back to the hotel with no trouble via city streets, but this time I followed another cyclist across to the bike path. He was going west, and I had to go east, but how hard can it be to follow a bike path? Harder than it sounds, apparently. I managed to ride into a residential section of Fort Mason and was so completely bewildered than when I saw yet another young woman ride her bike up to a house and dismount, I raced over to ask her for directions. She turned out to be from Norway, working in San Francisco, so we had a nice little chat before I went on my way and finally arrived back at the hotel.