Northern California - San Jose to SSF

Hi everyone,

I am planning to ride to my gf's house in SSF from San Jose one of these days and was hoping some of you would have some wise words for me.

I have lived in the Bay Area for 7 years so I am don't know a whole lot about all the roads around here, but I assume El Camino would be the best route. How is the quality of road (I'm sure it varies city by city)? Any helpful tips, better route, etc?

Thanks.

Where in SSF are you heading to? El Camino has lots of traffic and lots of red lights and lots of parallel parked cars and no shoulders, but it is a fairly straight shot up the peninsula.

I usually take Foothill, Canada, various bike paths, and Skyline Blvd. up the peninsula to Golden Gate Park.

Pretty much where El Faro and The Golf Mart are. Don't know the cross street. I commute on El Camino to get to work and it isn't completely awful, but I doubt it would be pleasant doing 40 miles of that.

I'll check out those streets you mentioned. What bike paths do you use?

I use the Sawyer Camp and San Andraes bike paths, which run parallel to Skyline Blvd. between San Mateo and San Bruno.

This bikely describes the Foothill Blvd->Sawyer Camp and San Andreas bike paths->Skyline route: http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/138797 This route is SF->Cupertino, but you could modify it easily enough. Depending on where you are in SJ and where you're going in SSF, you could use that as a basis for a route.

Or there's the 'bayway', which is the other commonly-used north-south peninsula route. I've never taken it, but lots of people use it: http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=23280

I've taken the Bay Trail from Mountain View to the SFO airport. There is one dirt section in Redwood City that will probably be pretty muddy this time of year. Most of the route is on narrow multi-use paths along the bay, so you can't go very fast, but the views are nice. There can also be a lot of wind, especially in the afternoon.

If you're starting in San Jose, you can ride up Central Expressway to the Stevens Creek Trail in Mountain View and get on the Bay Trail in Mountain View's Shoreline Park.

There's spots on the Bay Trail where you have to know where you are going or you get lost. The maps are not detailed enough.

The AAA street maps show most of the Bay Trail. Some sections are missing from the maps, though. Also, they don't tell you parts of the trail are paved/unpaved.

I've been on the Bay Trail from Marsh Road north of Willow to the flood control channel just south of SFO. The only part we found that wasn't paved was the section between Maple Street and Blair Island Road. This is north of Woodside Rd/Seaport Blvd. At the northeast corner of the "U" on the map, you ride into a marina/storage place and head to the left to the dead end. You'll see a bridge over the slough. After walking over the bridge you have to keep to the left because they fenced off the vacant lot, but you can get out to Blair Island Road. Every other part of the trail along there was either paved or on roads.
I bought the Bay Trail map set last year, and it is wrong in taking the trail onto Blair Island. Where Whipple curves into E Bayshore a new paved trail is almost hidden by the construction wall. It takes you along the freeway up to a road and along San Carlos Airport.

The Bay Trail is also unpaved in Palo Alto (along the bay) and on the south side of Redwood Shores, though there are nearby streets you can use if you don't like the dirt.

Thanks for all the help. The Bay Trail sounds promising and although not ideal, I think it is probably far better than taking El Camino or streets.

If I decide to take the Bay Trail, do you recommend I buy the maps or would mapping it out on my iphone suffice? Last one for now: a couple of you mentioned that it's a lot of MUP so you can't go very fast; does it get very busy? What kind of speed should I expect to be going? under 16mph?

Sorry for all the questions. I have learned a lot so far and I'll spend some time looking over the Bay Trail the next couple of days.

Now that I look at the map I think I may have actually walked my dogs on part of the Bay Trail and played golf right by it. Is it the MUP that goes right by Mariner's 9 Hole golf course? with all the cats hiding in the rocks?

If you're going to take the Bay Trail, go before the wind picks up. It is almost guaranteed to have a wind from the N or NNW, so you'll be fighting a fairly strong head from north of Coyote Point until after SFO where you then get some protection from the wind from the SSF Costco on the east and downtown SSF on the west, across 101.

Also, the Sawyer Camp/San Andreas route is currently closed at least at the San Bruno Ave/Skyline "T". It was supposed to re-open in February, but was pushed back until March 13th. I can only assume it will remain closed indefinitely for whatever water works they are performing, so I wouldn't count on the MUP being open the entire way. You could always take it as far as possible and then drop down to El Camino and keep heading north. I'd alternate between this and the Bay trail for weekend rides, so I don't know how much of the Sawyer trail is closed since it's been about three months since I've been able to ride it from the San Bruno Ave/Skyline intersection.

Now that I look at the map I think I may have actually walked my dogs on part of the Bay Trail and played golf right by it. Is it the MUP that goes right by Mariner's 9 Hole golf course? with all the cats hiding in the rocks?

That's the one. I try to ride on the road rather than the trail since it bends around the golf course and the look out point/dog park, with 4 blind corners and a fair amount of stroller/slower cyclist traffic, so I try to avoid it. The roads are a lot smoother than the path as well, there's been a lot of debris with the recent storms. I've linked the path I take which uses both the road and the Bay Trail MUP and goes all the way up to the east side of 101 by Costco in SSF. I make a right turn at Ryder Court Park and ride the straight away on the MUP through Coyote Point. You can race the landing planes at SFO while your at it.

http://bikeroutetoaster.com/Course.aspx?course=35587

The route west of 280 looks better. The Bay way trail goes through alot of intersections/ stoplights.

If you want to do a scenic hardcore ride, here's one I've done while training for centuries:

I live in the downtown SJ area. Through town on Taylor to Naglee to Stevens Creek to Saratoga. Follow that to join Hwy 9 up to Four Corners (fairly good climb). Take Skyline Hwy 35 north to Hwy 92 east (up and down with several small climbs and nice descents). Then stay on Skyline to join the Sawyer Camp/San Andreas bike paths. Rejoin Skyline north to San Francisco. You could branch off to SSF from Skyline via Sneath Lane. Probably looking at 60ish miles and close to 5,000 ft of climbing.