Went to Novato to get some work done at Panera. But they closed at 8 instead of 9, which is what Google showed as their hours. So, I packed my stuff and rode back along the SMART path to Grant and Redwood for the 101 north. Another guy showed up later with a bike, and I was a little worried that there might be some contention for the bike rack, even though I was there first. But as it turned out, there was no space at all in the bike rack, so we were both out of luck.
I had brought nothing in the way of warm clothing, and this being the north bay area, the fog had already cooled everything to an unpleasant chill. So I said to the other bicyclist in broken Spanish that I was going to attempt the bike path to Petaluma. He was going to Santa Rosa and would take his chances with the next bus.
Of course, I "knew" the bike path was still under reconstruction from the mudslides that happened last winter while I was in Mexico. But, mirabile dictu, though the road was still closed, they had reopened the bike path, daylight hours only. No matter, I took it. Partway down the road, my headlamp/taillamp battery died. I started walking it. The closest thing to a real barrier was a row of closely spaced traffic cones just before the bike path proper which leads up to the landfill overpass. But that was easy to walk or bike through. When I got up to the overpass, I dug around in my pouch and got out my backup battery pack, and a USB-C cord, which I had just started carrying a couple of days ago. Plugged it into my headlamp and I was good to go on the road again.
When I got to San Antonio road, there was another glitch in the matrix: a sign saying the bike path was closed, pointing to a detour to the right. But I couldn't, in the dark, see any detour to the right. So I continued on the path I knew, straight ahead. There was a barrier to climb over at the entrance to the path going under the freeway, and barriers to go around getting onto Petaluma Boulevard South at the other end, but otherwise the path seemed perfectly usable. Just another example of how Caltrans hates bicyclists, I guess.
Anyway, I got home about two hours after I started. Not bad at all.
last updated 2023-08-04 02:47:16. served from tektonic.jcomeau.com