Completing the Cloverleaf (9 August)

The original plan of cycling Mt. Tam was foiled by a pall of smoke hanging around the top of the mountain, a continual reminder of the terrible fires still burning in several areas of Northern California. Firefighters from as far away as Australia have come to help battle the blazing hills and even prisoners here have been released from their institutions to support the professionals.

From my stay at Dad's in 2001 I remembered a good bike tour out at China Camp just north east of where we were now staying in San Rafael. We had also wanted to revisit the panoramic roads of Belvedere and Tiburoun to the south east and make a trip out to Sausalito to the south west along the comfortable bike path constructed there.

The road out to China Camp and through the State Park involved a few climbs and lots of rolling along the shore of the San Pablo Bay. The trip was about 20 miles long and climbed nearly 900 ft (300m). Since we weren't sure about how to get to Belvedere, we returned to our car, loaded the bicycles and drove to the Aqua Hotel, which we were familiar with because of our UDC tours.

There are wonderful views from the hills of Tiburon and Belevedere, which is why the homes here can be pretty exclusive. The road makes a couple of steep climbs (yes, I had to walk one!) but the long, almost level path winding around the hills afterwards makes up for it. We covered around 18 miles on the peninsula and climbed around 800 ft. I was quite surprised to see so many cyclists who had come across the bridge on rentals until I realized they were headed to the ferry in Tiburon and didn't have to make that climb back up to the Golden Gate Bridge.

Since it was still realitvely early when we got back to our car, we decided to do the 10 mile ride into Sausalito along the well constructed cycling path. Although the view to the city was not clear, we could still make out a new feature on the skyline: the Salesforce building.

We returned to San Rafael in time to visit the Farmer's Market which is one of the attractions that makes this town "one of 6 Bay Area Suburbs with the Best Downtowns"!

Sausalito offers many interesting photo ops!

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