I really enjoyed your post about crossing the Golden Gate Bridge. Did you know that Oscar Juner got the first traffic ticket on the bridge? Two days before it opened to the public, he rode his track bike across. His front wheel fell in an expansion joint and broke, and the police aided him by giving him a ticket. I suppose that was the first traffic accident on the bridge too. It may have been a publicity stunt as Oscar was the reigning national six day champion at the time.
Leonard Bulger Ann Arbor, MI
Phil Brown wrote: I grew up in San Francisco in the 50s. I got my first derailleur bike, an 8 speed Frejus, from American Cyclery, then owned by Oscar Juner, when I was about 8 or 9. We lived on the edge of the Presidio in Presidio Heights and it was a short ride through the Presido to the Golden Gate Bridge, a ride I'd done on my 3 speed many times. With the Frejus, though, my horizons broadened. I would ride across the bridge to Sausalito. The ride to The Bridge was easy. The Bridge was another story. In those days it was Illegal to ride a bike on the Bridge. So I thought I'd walk the bike until I was out of sight of The Toll Plaza around the curve and then ride across without being seen. It worked! I made it across! Did "they" know? Now I know they must have but 45 years ago I really got away with something. Now it was an easy coast down to Sausalito.
I had a sandwich on the Plaza and started back. The coast down was now a very tough climb back to the Bridge, made worse by the strong afternoon winds accelerated through to cuts that the road passed through. I was stopped dead a couple of times but I kept going. A little down hill where the Fort Cronkite road joined gave a rest and then it was back, climbing into the toughest head wind I'd ever felt. Eventually I made it to the view area at the north end of the Bridge and a rest. Now it was just another stealth ride across The Bridge, again without being seen. A milk shake at the coffe shop at The Toll Plaza, now a gift shop, and it was back through The Presidio, again mostly uphill but and home.
The feeling i had when I got home was amazing. It must have been because I still remember it many years later. The freedom was something I'd never felt. I could go somewhere, a long way from home, by myself, no parents or anybody else, under my oun power.
Later i did that ride mamy times, as a child and adult. It never got easy. But the first time, that was a challenge. Phil Brown In nostalgic NoHo, Ca