As we drove over the hills of San Francisco, Eddy mentioned Bullitt, and the so-very-famous chase scene therein. I hadn’t actually seen the film since I was a kid, and it occurred to me that now that I actually lived in San Francisco, it’d be cool to watch it again, since I might recognize some of the locations.

Thanks to the wonders of the internets, most of my work has already been done for me. It turns out that someone named Mike Haeg used Google’s My Maps feature to create an annotated map of the entire chase sequence in Bullitt. There’s also a conveniently embedded YouTube viewer, so you can watch the scene and play with the map (if you open it in another window) at the same time. The best part, at least for me, is that it turns out that the chase starts right around the corner from where we live, in Bernal Heights! While the chase eventually jumps to different locations all over the city and beyond (artistic license), it begins with the cars heading west along Army (now Cesar Chavez) Street, u-turning at Precita, and then driving up York to Peralta. By some bizarre coincidence, I travelled almost the exact same route *on my bicycle* two days ago, just a day before I re-discovered this scene. And for the record, I’d definitely rather drive a Mustang up York than a bicycle – I had to stop twice to catch my breath, and it’s a *tiny* block. But that’s the point, since I’m trying to build up my cycling muscles for the playa.