Welcome to The Modern Age (USA Day 129)

As you approach any big city, you feel its effect from far, far out. San Francisco’s tendrils began to poke out of the ground from about lunchtime, as the roads became wider and the villages more…with it? It’s an odd experience: there’s a world-weariness, or a canniness, or something, about city-folk, and even though we’re still a good few miles out of town and across a large bay, there’s no question about it. We’ve reached civilisation.

After a section of inland riding (wot, no sea?), we found ourselves following one side of a broad tidal estuary that felt pretty darn Scottish, if I may be so bold. Clearly the locals had the same idea, naming one of the seaside towns Inverness. Nice touch. Across the water sat Point Reyes National Seashore, a craggy, uninhabited peninsula that we’d have quite happily explored for weeks had we not a large and exciting city within sniffing distance.

There was a forest next, and the town of Laguanitas (the very same one whose podcast adverts are etched into all of our brains), which became Fairfax, which became Baltimore Park, which became Mill Valley. Town planners, in their infinite wisdom, provided us with segregated cycle lanes which consistently led us away from where we wanted to go, in a stop/start fashion, slowly, on bumpy surfaces. The problem with cycle lanes is that you have to use them if they’re there, otherwise drivers get demonstrative. But when the main road’s right there and you’re dodging parked cars and making scenic diversions to travel round three sides of every patch of grass, they begin to tire.

It’s happening again. We’d become very used to bucolic scenes, tiny towns with expensive gas stations and empty roads. Suddenly, we’re obeying stop signs, watching for pedestrians, following map directions. Big city cycling may as well be a totally different activity from rural riding. Better adjust quick!

Our host lived up a steep ol’ hill (we’ll get used to those in San Fran), in a house shot directly from a cannon marked ‘The Seventies’. It’s browns and corduroys, bakelite and flares. We slept in a room beside a collection of Betamax tapes and books about Bob Dylan, digesting our organic pizza (it really was the only food within a million mile radius) and getting ready for the city.