San Francisco Area Route Tips

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Mr.Gib
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Joined: Fri Mar 18, 2005 4:12 pm
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by Mr.Gib

Hi All,

I will be visiting San Francisco in August and figured I'd take the bike. The catch is that I am staying right downtown. A search of this forum informed me of some of the better rides in the area (Mount Tam to the north, Tunitas Creek Road, Old La Honda, etc. to the south).

My question is how accessible are these areas as loops starting in downtown San Fran? My broken body is limited to about 120 km or 75 miles per day. Are there other routes starting in downtown that get me into the "good stuff" that people could recommend?

Thanks,
Gib
wheelsONfire wrote: When we ride disc brakes the whole deal of braking is just like a leaving a fart. It happens and then it's over. Nothing planned and nothing to get nervous for.

boots2000
Posts: 1393
Joined: Mon Oct 15, 2007 9:28 pm

by boots2000

If starting from downtown SF- Marin likely works better than other locales.
Though you could take Bart to the Eastbay or take train to Peninsula if you wanted to explore those areas but keep mileage down.

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bdb
Posts: 65
Joined: Thu Dec 17, 2009 8:35 pm

by bdb

Old La Honda and Tunitas are doable in that 120k range. Usually we do it from SF, and get the Train back from Palo Alto.

https://www.strava.com/activities/3688748

Mt Tam from the city is 45 miles round trip, you can make it longer by doing

SF - Fairfax - Nicasio - Point Reyes - then come back HWY 1 - Climb Bofax and ride the seven sisters from there to the top of Tam
and back to SF
https://www.strava.com/activities/1739942

This is the SF - Stinson - Bofax - Seven Sisters climb - then you can summit East Peak
https://www.strava.com/activities/181210115

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djconnel
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Joined: Wed Sep 26, 2007 1:57 pm
Location: San Francisco, CA
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by djconnel

Weekend train service to the peninsula is pretty poor: you want to time it because the trains run only hourly and on slow local stop schedules except for a few express trains which if you can catch save a lot of time. BART to East Bay is much better. This opens up Mount Diablo which is relatively exposed and often hot but is the most challenging long climb in the area.

The go-to ride for San Francisco locals, though, is the Alpine Dam route across the bridge into Marin. There are various flavored but I recommend GPS navigation to help stay on the canonical route out to Fairfax. Or follow the bike rout signs, most of the way bike route 20.

If you're up for a group ride Scotty's Ride which leaves Saturday from the Golden Gate Bridge at the gift shop on the San Francisco side at 0830 is really good. During the week a group meets at the Arguello Gate of the Presidio at 0630 on Tue and Thu to climb to Hawk Hill in the Headlands just north of the bridge. The view from the top is fantastic.

Old La Honda is fantastic but since I no longer live or work on the peninsula its basically gone off my radar unfortunately.


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tonytourist
Posts: 1426
Joined: Sat Oct 10, 2009 7:13 am
Location: 90039

by tonytourist

Every time I am in San Francisco, I stay downtown. The rides out of the Rapha Cycle Club are good, and there is usually a friendly crew out there. They have route sheets for a few different loops and they start/finish at the club. The SF-Stinson-Bofax-Seven Sisters ride recommended by bdb is a good one.

JoeFlan
Posts: 105
Joined: Tue Jan 28, 2014 8:06 am

by JoeFlan

These are two routes that are a little longer than your said limit, but they are great rides

If you want to get some long mostly flat miles in you can ride out to Nicasio and take a short detour towards Point Reyes and back through Samuel P Taylor. This route has some off road, but it is very doable on a road bike.
https://www.strava.com/activities/258124912

If you want to do Tunitas Creek you can by riding down HWY 1 and back up Skyline
https://www.strava.com/activities/233576181
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