Northern California - Looking for a route, Redwood City to Emeryville

Hey everyone, I am looking for a route for tomorrow morning from Redwood City to Emeryville. I need to be there around 8 and then I need to ride back around 5. Anyone have any ideas? I am a little nervous just because I know there is the potential to go through some less than nice neighborhoods. Also, I'm not looking for a super challenging climbing route, just one to get me to my meeting without stinking up the joint. And lastly, how long do you think it should take, I usually cruise my morning commute around 15 mph, but this is a little longer than I normally do. Thanks.

Ride to Millbrae and take Bart.
http://bicycling.511.org/pdf/sanmateocounty.PDF

I live in Redwood City too and my gf lives in Oakland and here's what I've done once to get myself up there on my bike:

Head out to Canada Road and take it north until it turns into Skyline Blvd. Skyline will eventually jog over to the other side of 280. Keep taking it all the way until Trousdale and then turn right to go down the hill. Keep going until you cross over El Camino Real and then turn left on California Dr. Continue a couple blocks and this will drop you off directly at the Millbrae Bart station

Take Bart across the bay and then I'll leave it to you to figure out how to get to your final destination. This is probably a 15-20 mile ride depending on your location in RWC and it's very scenic and low traffic.

I was thinking of riding the whole way, anyone ever cross dumbarton and ride up the East Bay? Seems I can't take the bike on Bart through the city at that hour. As I look at another map, I could ride across to Union City, catch Bart there, get off at W. Oakland and ride the rest of the way. Am I taking my life in my hands at that hour? I have heard that this might not be the nicest neighborhood in the Bay Area and a big white dude in bright lycra might stand out. Any thoughts?

I was thinking of riding the whole way, anyone ever cross dumbarton and ride up the East Bay? Seems I can't take the bike on Bart through the city at that hour. As I look at another map, I could ride across to Union City, catch Bart there, get off at W. Oakland and ride the rest of the way. Am I taking my life in my hands at that hour? I have heard that this might not be the nicest neighborhood in the Bay Area and a big white dude in bright lycra might stand out. Any thoughts?

I have done this same route from my work in Palo Alto up through the east bay to Oakland. Once was enough. Somewhere around Hayward my planned route devolved into some very busy streets with little to no shoulder. There were a few vague "bike route" signs but for the most part I just deviated from my original plan and picked my own way along in a generally northerly direction.

By the time I was passing through east Oakland it was around 6:30pm and, at that time of year, starting to get dark. I felt *very* vulnerable for exactly the reasons you pointed out. It might be a different story in the middle of the day but I would definitely not do this route again in the evening.

I've also done the Dumbarton to Union City Bart a couple times (in fact I'm going to do it again tonight) and that is a much better choice than riding the whole way. The only sketchy part is East Palo Alto but you're generally in and out of the bad area pretty quickly.

West Oakland to Emeryville is fine via Mandela Parkway, you need normal urban caution but I ride it occasionally in spandex with no problems. Once you get to Emeryville there are some really tricky traffic flows and busy streets, that's more of a worry than Oakland as far as I'm concerned.

Caltrain to SF 4th and King.

Ride 1.8 miles to Embarcadero BART.

BART Across Bay.

It's much faster than taking BART from Milbrae (cost a little more though).

My GF uses this route to Berkeley if she stays at my house in San Mateo during a weeknight.

It only takes like an hour and 15 min to got from San Mateo to DT Berekley!

Heres the route:

Catrain Baby Bullet RWC to SF... 6:30 - 7:02

Ride Along the Embarcadero to Embarcadero BART 1.8 Miles

There is a BART train like every couple mins at that point to take you to West Oakland (??). And yes bikes are allowed on BART at embarcadero going east :)

The BART ride is like 7 min.

Should put you in West Oakland by 7:30ish.

Just about an hour.. Not bad at all!

I did the DB bridge 4 times in one day before ;)

It's nice ride actually, but can get pretty windy!!!

I did the DB bridge 4 times in one day before ;)

It's nice ride actually, but can get pretty windy!!!
I usually only do the bridge once, just because I hate headwinds.

So that was a disaster. going in, I rode to Milbrae and then took Bart and had a nice ride to Emeryville. No problems. Coming home, different story. I decided that I would Bart to Union City and then go over the bridge, except I hadn't really looked at the route in reverse. I then got 2 flat tires in a tire eating storm drain that may have damaged my rims. I only had one tube. So I started walking. In cleats. Those Performance cleat covers were the best $10 I ever spent. Finally, after wandering around Fremont/Newark looking for a tube, a passing motorist stopped and gave me one from his car. He will undoubtably have good bike karma for a while. I then got completely lost and finally, tired, bloody and in the dark I stumbled into a fire house and got something like directions. I had to climb through some bushes and up a gravel slope to get on the trail, but I made it. And that ride is no fun in the dark. But I am home, some 5 hours after leaving my meeting. And I am tired.

I usually only do the bridge once, just because I hate headwinds.

I had to do fieldwork in Fremont during the AM and PM