What a night... We stayed with Lawson's cousins last night in SF. They were great hosts. It was nice to have another warm place to stay with food and Internet. We definitely aren't roughing it quite yet.
There are a few details I left out of yesterdays blog, it was late, I was ready for bed.
We had decided to take I-5 to SF instead of 101, hoping traffic (on Friday night) would have let up by the time we got close. Nearly an hour from the city it started raining. It was enough to fill the ruts on the freeway and spew up from tires of passing cars. As if riding a motorcycle wasn't dangerous enough already, we found ourselves riding in a pack, at night, in the rain, during rush hour, at speeds less than the locals were satisfied with.
At 55mph the rain stings bare skin like standing in a hail storm. Why did I have bare skin showing while riding at night in the rain? I made the mistake of buying a tinted windshield AND a helmet with a tinted visor, they were both really good deals. Being that I purchased the helmet only two days before leaving I hadn't noticed the two don't work well together at night, especially in the rain. Two plastic shields covered in rain turn the headlights and taillights of passing cars into a 4th of July fireworks finale. So, I had two options. Ride in the rain with my face shield up while looking through the windshield or stand up on the bike with my face shield closed and my head above the windshield. I chose the latter and saved my face the exfoliation.
We paid our toll at the Oakland Bay Bridge and tore up the freeway towards the city. I was third in the group. A quarter of the way up the bridge my throttle began to cutout! My speed dropped from 65 to 35 almost instantly. Andrew dropped back with me to make sure I was alright. My bike is a wildcard. With cars all around me and no emergency lane I thought to myself, "awesome, I'm going to die on the bridge into San Fran without having even made it there". After a few seconds of mildly freaking out I realized I had run out of gas and switched to reserve. I think the main reason I didn't first think I was out of gas was I had only gone around 130mi, and so the issue with my fuel system continues. Fortunately, after switching to reserve my power was back and we raced to catch up with the Lawson and Bean.
As I crested the bridge the tops of the buildings rose into the low hanging clouds. I had never seen a city like this; massive towers of lights packed tight like overgrown Christmas trees hung with lights before they'd been cut. I stood on my pegs and the bike dissappeared below me as I burned the four dollar toll into the city. We'd made it to San Francisco.
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