Bike the Bay - More Sightseeing in Our Town

Last weekend, while Ian was in Woods Hole
drinking Offshore's Presidenti-ale Ale to the Chief with the Obama family, he missed out on the annual Bike the Bay community ride. Since we had both registered for the ride, and he was out hobnobbing with nobel laureates and the leader of the free world, MK scooped his registration and pedalled in his place. Lucky MK, sad Ian.

We loaded up MK's minivan pre-dawn, and made it downtown by about 6:15 am. The start was packed, and they released the riders in waves. We started around 7:30-ish.

The annual ride is a very sweet, very mellow, very flat 25 mile ride around the San Diego Bay. The big attraction to this ride is not only the free t-shirt, and option to buy Bike the Bay socks (somebody in their merch department is so clever! When will bands start selling concert socks instead just the same old concert t-shirts?) but that you get to ride your bike over the Coronado Bridge. The curious may check out this link for bridge stats and details. It is only during this one community ride each year that bicyclists are permitted to ride across this huge bridge that connects downtown SD to Coronado, spans the bay, and arcs way up over the shipping channel. Rad.




The ride goes all the way around the bay, so lots of shore birds and bunnies were out being cute. We also pedalled past the South Bay Salt Works in Chula Vista. Who doesn't love pedalling past a mountain of salt? How often do you get to see that?

We saw dogs in paniers, kids on mountain racks, and one very relaxed and lovely grandma on a cruisey beach bike sporting the bike licence plate "QNLATIFAH". That gal has some style.

At the end of the ride, there were lots of free bottles of Vitamin Water XXX flavor. Don't get the wrong idea; there is nothing that naughty about hydration. While there was a beergarten, there was a sad and disappointing amount of other free merch. Subaru was one of the sponsors of the ride, and I was hoping they were giving away free Subaru's. Unfortunately, they were stingey with the car give-aways. They didn't even give away free bike lights. I did get lots of coupons and a tiny tube of free Aquaphor and half a bagel.

If you check out this link, and go to time 7:40:12, you can see the ride photos of MK and I up on Coronado Bridge.