BayCycle 2009: Each to Her Abilities

"I think I can, I think I can"
-- The Little Engine That Could

We circumnavigated San Francisco Bay, traveling through all nine Bay Area counties. My Beautiful Wife (MBW) rode 262 miles through 48 cities and towns, cycling 15 to 51 miles per day. I rode my recumbent trike in ten of those towns, cycling 3 to 9.5 miles per day.

As we had expected, the driving was harder for me physically than the riding, even though I drove many more miles than I rode. Fortunately some lessons were learned the first two days that made the rest of the trip much easier. For example, unless I really wanted to see something along the way it was a lot easier to take the fast route on the highway rather than the surface streets MBW was riding. My joints don't like repetitive motions, which is one of the challenges that had kept me from cycling for years (and the major reason why I wasn't riding every mile with my wife). On the highway, I can use cruise control. On surface streets, the constant starting and stopping irritated my ankle after the first two days. I spent the rest of the trip driving in an ankle wrap and took the freeway where possible.

I'd originally had a training target of being able to ride 10 miles/day. Although I did complete some training rides of up to 12.5 miles, it became clear I wouldn't be able to sustain that day after day. So I changed my training target to 6-8 miles/day. In the end, timing issues kept some of my rides shorter than planned. It took me most of the trip to streamline getting the trike off the rack and everything (safety flag and triangle, water bottles, backpack, etc.) strapped on and ready to ride. It also took awhile to get the rhythm of when I should to arrive in order to be ready to roll by the time MBW reached me. By the end of BayCycle, we had that timing down pretty well. She caught up to me at Crissy Field in San Francisco as I was getting the trike ready to roll, and we arrived at our destination in San Mateo within minutes of each other.

The sinus/ear infection turned out to be a bigger obstacle in many ways than any other physical issue. But I only lost one full riding day to it, after that rough night with the earache. Otherwise I was glad to ride off-road trails where possible. Most hearing was temporarily blocked in my right ear and that made me a little nervous riding along parked cars and through intersections. But I had come to ride and ride I did, saving my longest ride for the last day.

Now that we've completed BayCycle, we're starting to think about where we can take other cycling vacations. Future trips will likely be more leisurely, because MBW won't be trying to ride every mile as I drive. And we still want to go back up to Marin for that ride down Shady Lane.