Bicycle to Sausalito

I biked across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco to Sausalito today. Sausalito is such a lovely little tourist trap. The weather couldn't be more gorgeous, white sailboats dotted the bay, and cyclists of all types were everywhere.

Fixed and fearless

It was standing room only on Caltrain today as Giants fans packed the trains to watch them lose to the Atlanta Braves. SBC/AT&T Stadium is only a couple of blocks from the San Francisco Caltrain station; riding the bike through this game-day traffic was a blast.

The pedestrian/bicycle approach to the the Golden Gate Bridge is oh-my-God steep -- certainly the steepest hills I've taken my fixed gear bike on. I probably took five years off of my knees today. The tourists on their rental bikes spun slowly up the hills; the roadies on their fitness rides tended to mash, with one or two matching my slow cadence and speed.

Carfree tourism

A while back on the CarFree Yahoo group there was discussion about destinations for a car free vacation. After riding all through the city today, I think San Francisco makes for a good place to play carfree tourist. You can take Caltrain or BART into the City. From the Caltrain Station and many BART stations you can then ride the SF Municipal Railway ("Muni") to tourist spots all along the Embarcadero such as Fisherman's Wharf; Golden Gate National Recreation Area; and ferries and tourboats to Alcatraz, Sausalito, Angel Island and other locations in the Bay. You can rent bicycles (including tandems, trailer bikes, and child trailers) from businesses near Pier 39 and ride them all over. I saw probably hundreds of tourists on these rental bikes, many of them gamely tackling the steep hills to and from Golden Gate Bridge. There's certainly plenty to see all through the area.

If you visit San Francisco, expect to share the road with thousands of cars; and share the sidewalks with thousands of walkers, joggers, skaters, dogs, buskers, bystanders, vendors, and sidewalk cyclists. If you like crowds, this is a great place to be. If you like strangers, it's a great place to meet them. All in all, San Francisco is a great place to have a great time.

Tags: bicycle, san+francisco, sausalito, golden+gate+bridge, tourism, carfree, caltrain, muni

Photo info: San Francisco (01/06) by hustler of culture.

Win a Park Tool pizza cutter

Park Tool has established an international Distinguished Service Award. Send a letter to Park Tool and let them know what a hero your Local Bike Shop is to you. A winner is selected quarterly, and the customer who sends in the winning letter receives the ultra-cool Park Tool pizza cutter. Details here. Hat tip to Donna.

 

I'm typing this on a borrowed PC which is absolutely infested with AdWare. What a pain in the neck.

I found les pelotons

The other day I commented that I didn't see all that many road cyclists out and about in the south Bay Area. Well, after discovering Foothills Expressway, I found them.

The Long Story: My plan has been to ride to the Mountain View Caltrain station, take the train to Menlo Park and then bike the rest of the way to work. A suicide at the Mountain View station yesterday morning stoppped northbound service for a couple of hours, so I meandered by bike to Palo Alto until I found a road I recognized -- Middlefield Road -- and took that into work.

Short: I intended to take the train for the commute home, but I ended up exploring and found Foothills Expressway near Page Mill Road. It's here I found the group rides out in force.

So on and so forth: The cyclists I talked with on the road were all friendly enough, giving good tips about where to go for rides. They were all in full kit while I was in my commuter getup: pants with reflective ankle straps, cheap cotton shirt, mirror on my cheap shades, and of course I'm on my 20-year-old steel fixie conversion bike with duct tape covering the handlebars. I was able to keep up just fine on the flats, but they lost me on the hills -- both uphill and downhill.

Colorado & California compare and contrast

It seems easier to strike up a conversation with cyclists here in California. California cyclists -- even casual "folk" cyclists and temp workers on Walgoose bikes -- are fastidious about obeying stop signs and red lights, though I still see a fair number of wrong-way and sidewalk cyclists.

It's not unusual here to see commuters on heavy clunker bikes wearing normal street clothes and wearing earphones to be on the expressways; in Colorado, only recreational fitness cyclists venture onto the busy, fast highways.

The miles-long "bike boulevards" are simply wonderful These are low-traffic residential collectors with traffic calming measures to discourage through-traffic, but the engineering is done in such a way to not impede cycling, and the stop signs are few and far between.

I haven't found a street yet that I'm uncomfortable riding on. El Camino Real has very heavy traffic but the outside lane is typically wide. Middlefield Road is very busy and narrow, but the traffic is low speed.

Weekend plans

I planned to spend Saturday riding from Cupertino into San Francisco, across the Golden Gate Bridge and on to Sausalito, about a 100 mile round trip. The forecast now, however, calls for rain into the afternoon in the city and Marin County. I may head south instead, where the forecast says the rain will stop in the morning. I'll follow the Coyote Creek Trail to where it ends in Morgan Hill and then perhaps make my way to Gilroy. We'll see what happens.

Tags: el+camino+real, gilroy, sausalito, bicycling

Critical Mass congests our streets

The Western Wheelers Bicycle Club April newsletter is a hoot! The editor travels back in time to 1906 to report on cycling issues of the day. In the headline article about a Critical Mass of cars, motorists come "together on the final Friday of each month ... and driving ... around the city to no apparent purpose but to impede the legitimate traffic of cyclists, streetcars, and buggies, not to mention the peril to which they submit the lowly pedestrian. Motorists elbow their way in onto our roads, muscling aside the original users with taunts of 'We're traffic too!'"

"To ride in [a car] you need a special costume of duster, goggles, and hat, or else you will alight at your destination in no condition for polite company."

The April 1906 issue is worth a read [PDF].

Bay Area bicycle commute

I started work Monday. I found a place to live temporarily, more-or-less moved in, and turned in the rental car last night. Today was my first day of bicycle commuting.

I ran into an old friend that I last saw and heard from eight years ago. I was visiting a church in San Jose and Jerry actually recognized me! He has an RV behind his house in Cupertino that I'm now staying in.

From his home, I biked six miles (in the rain) to the Mountain View Caltrain station by going up Stevens Creek to Foothill Boulevard and made my way to Miramonte then Shoreline.

I got off the train at Menlo Park and biked up Ravenswood, hooked over to Wilbur, negotiated my way past all the merging traffic by Highway 101 and went straight into the Sun campus near the Dumbarton Bridge. That was about three miles.

The rain makes things messy and I hope my lights hold out with all the moisture, but all in all it was a nice commute. The motorists I encountered were courteous and the lanes are wide. I nearly killed myself on the metal stairs off the train with my metal-cleated shoes, but other than that I had no problems.

Even with the rain I saw a large number of bicycle commuters all around. I don't know yet whether I should be amazed or not -- are the number of cyclists at about the same percentage I see in Colorado? Even so, it was nifty to see the volume of cyclists on the roads and on the train.

I'm glad I brought my fixed gear bike because of the rain, but there's a stretch of Stevens Creek I rode that is very steep. I definitely felt the burn there and I wouldn't have been able to do the hill if I was at Colorado altitude. I'll either get very strong or very tired doing this hill every morning.

Tags: bicycle, commute, bay+area, menlo+park, mountain+view, cupertino, caltrain

Last day in Colorado

My last day in Colorado was yesterday (Saturday, April 1). I'm typing this from San Jose, CA, where I'm starting new work and looking for a home for my family.

Before I flew out last night I got in one last ride into the Rockies, riding my bike up to Pinewood Springs (about halfway to Estes Park), where I had to turn around because I still had to fix some things at the house AND pack for my trip. It was a good day of riding and I saw probably hundreds of road cyclists out by Lyons, Colorado.

I only saw a handful of cyclists on US36 going to Estes Park. Road conditions and the shoulders are mostly clear to Pinewood Springs, though there are some spots where there's still sand on the shoulders.

I brought my bike to California, though today I've done about 200 miles of driving looking for a place to live. I saw several cyclists out here in California; instead of pelotons 50 strong in matching team kit I tended to see small groups of three or four riders all wearing bright yellow rain jackets.

I'm looking forward to getting some good riding in the Bay Area and meeting a whole new pile of friends. I was planning to ride this afternoon but I'm exhausted after my late travel and a full day of house hunting. I turn the rental car in Tuesday evening so I definitely won't have an excuse not to ride after that!