Novato rest day

Here we are standing in North San Francisco Bay Area with Mount Tamalpais in the background.  Mount Tam, along with Crested Butte, CO are known as two birthplaces of mountain biking in the late 70’s and early 80’s.

Jan is wearing her new athletic gear.  Saw the orthopedic specialist today and on a relative basis, it was pretty good news.  She does have a broken left hand and right wrist, but neither will require surgery or casts.  That’s why she has the fancy new braces.

We have considered all options for what to do next, and since we have only one small roll of duct tape and can’t tape her to her bike, we have decided to modify our trip.  We shipped Jan’s bike back to Tucson, and I have rented a car to finish the trip in the safety of a four-wheeled steel vehicle.  That way we can decide about coming back to SF some time in the future to cycle the rest of the way.  We completed about 1200 miles and only had 600 left, but are grateful to have had safe passage for that long.

We heard from Deb and Mark our co trekkers from Toronto, and they had a similar experience coming into SF.  As they got about 15 miles away from their goal of riding across the Golden Gate, their front wheel, not tire but the wheel, ruptured ending their adventure.  I thought SF would embrace us cyclists, not try to destroy us.

I can’t say enough about our timing throughout the trip.  Just like having our rainiest day of riding occur in the protection of the redwood forest, having this accident occur 5 miles away from our friends Judy and Tom was the perfect timing.  They have been taking such great care of us, with great food  and guest quarters, and transportation to and from the doctors has been a life saver.  They even arranged for massages last night.  Definitely 5 stars.  Plus we got to spend extra time together, our first visit together since we’ll before COVID.  So it’s all downhill from here, as their welcoming sign said.

JD’s Daily Haiku, written with her toes