Cable Cars and Buses and Bikes OH MY!!!

The MNTC had to split up this weekend to attend various races (PATCO, Minneapolis race, folk fest) and Stevie and I got the best part of this deal as we’re chilling in San Francisco for a few days before we race a Pan-American Cup on Treasure Island on Saturday. We made it to our hotel with all our belongings yesterday. We took the BART train from the airport to the heart of San Francisco where our hotel was. We had to be quick to get all our luggage and bikes out before the doors closed, but we made it!
We’re quite impressed with the biking skills of the many commuters zooming through the downtown streets here. Although it’s hard to really pay attention with all the cars, other bikers, buses, streetcars, cable cars, taxis, pedestrians moving about.

We found food – (Whole foods store!) and we made it out to the course today. We had to take the transit bus across the bridge to get to the Island. We got to rack our bikes to the front of the bus and hope that they would be safe will we drove out. We sat in the front of the bus (where handicapped and/or elderly people are supposed to have priority seating) to make sure nothing would happen to them. We did realize that there wasn’t much we could do if indeed something horrible happened, but it still made us feel better to be able to see them.

The bike course is rather twisty but our superior map-reading skills allowed us to successfully navigate the old naval base. It’s quite the location for a triathlon. All military buildings are shut down so our half of the Island is very much empty (which made it great to bike around, especially after the crowds of downtown San Fran).

Our next challenge was finding a pool to get some swimming in. We decided the best way to get there would be, again, public transit! We got on the bus with about 1000 short Asian people. After driving throughout Chinatown (who needs to fly to China when you can go to San Francisco and get the same experience), and little Italy, missing our stop and going around the building twice to find the pool door we got in and were told it was closed for another hour. But we were ready! We went for a run instead, and we made the decision to go one after the other so that one could watch the bags while the other ran. We both ended up going approximately in the same direction, by the fisherman’s wharf (which we plan on exploring Sunday after the race). Sadly, I decided to rely my sense of direction to get me back to the pool instead of following the logic that would say “take the same route out and back since you are all by yourself with no phone/money in a big, foreign city”. But no. I ended finding a cliff where the street I was following should have gone and had to go around the mountain. Stevie didn’t worry too much but it cut our time in the pool a little bit. The pool was quite crowded but we managed not to hit anyone and get most of our workout in, after being told to take a shower and to NOT jump in the shallow end (that was Stevie, she's a rebel). We also made a few new friends.

To get back to the hotel, we decided to go the scenic route and take the Cable Car. The terminal is right below the window of our hotel so it was perfect! Except for the long lines and the rather relaxed drivers who took quite the eternity to get everyone loaded, payed and ready to roll. We got a great “driver” who made everyone on the trolley aware that Stevie was Stevie. She got applause after NOT falling off the wagon during a particularly sharp turn and got a nice goodbye from everyone once we got to the terminal. Great experience.

Also, there are enough weird people in San Francisco that walking around in the summer wearing a tuque and drinking tea out of biking water bottles (to warm up from the cold ocean breeze on the cable car) will never get a second look. That’s not surprising when we have to compete with bongo playing bike riders (playing and riding at the SAME time!)


Pictures and results to follow…