Northern California - Any beginner Bay Area bikers?

Im in the bay area and a begineer to biking.. any good group rides or clinics?

Im in the bay area and a begineer to biking.. any good group rides or clinics?

Fremont Freewheelers Bicycle Club
http://www.ffbc.org

To second what BR said, try a M (moderate) pace ride with FFBC. If that is too slow, you can move up to the faster rides.

Sunday is the Fremont Freewheelers Getting to Know Us ride. It starts at the Raley's shopping center at Newark Blvd and Jarvis in Newark at 9 AM. It's a No-Drop ride and will give you an idea of your riding ability.
Here's the Ride Classification page:
http://www.ffbc.org/html/RideClassification.html

We can meet up for a ride sometime if you're ever in San Leandro and willing to endure my snail pace. :D

I'm new to the area too, are there any equivalent bike clubs for the south bay?

San Jose Bicycle Club, Alto Velo, Almaden Cycle Touring Club.

San Jose Bicycle Club, Alto Velo, Almaden Cycle Touring Club.

Thanks :)

Another to add to the list is Western Wheelers http://www.westernwheelers.org/main/index.htm

As a member of the Western Wheelers, I second that notion. Although there aren't too many A rides (our slowest classification), there are B rides on just about every weekend, and we do not leave any one behind on B rides. I am the B ride coordinator, and I also ride most of the B rides. We are in the midst of our Long Distance Training series (Saturday rides), and they are definitely starting to ramp up in difficulty, so probably want to hit the Sunday rides instead until you know your ability level. We are more recreation based, although I am sure there are racers in the highest classifications. ACTC is also more recreational. If I recall correctly SJBC and AV are more of the racer types. WW is more Palo Alto area based (although we do go all over the peninsula and south bay), whereas ACTC ranges further south than we do.

man, i should catch one of the ww rides. for some reason the ww website always looked like a "serious" rider site to me (an av type) so i've always gone w/ actc.

Nope, we pretty laid back, usually. While I am sure there are people who race in the club, but we as a club do not race. We always welcome guests on our rides, just bring a functioning bike and a helmet (helmet is required for safety and liability reasons) and you are good to go :)

A bit OT, but a quick question, could you guys recommend a good bike shop for accessories (tools, bike tubes, brake lines, ...) around the sunnyvale/san jose area?

For me, I usually get all my stuff done at Chain Reaction, but that is in Los Altos. Depending on where you are in Sunnyvale, that might not be all that far. If you are near 85, then Chain Reaction isn't too far from you.

The western wheelers club is be a fabulous place for any beginner cyclist to start. I've been on 5 of their rides, ranging from very easy to fairly difficult, and it's perhaps the most welcoming, social, and fully no-drop rides I've been on. I love riding with them on long routes to find new places to ride since the no-drop rule has been strictly enforced. I've gotten fast enough to ride with VeloAlto competitive bike racers, but I still love cruising with the friendly WW group any time I want a social long ride. Highly recommended.

Hint - their Monday AM ride is short and very easy, and has a good number of beginner riders.