nuke_diver

I live in the south bay and spend most of my cycling time up in the los altos hills area. I only cycle on weekends now but very soon that will change. The roads I go on during the weekend are not bad for car traffic and there are lots of bikes around but I wonder if anyone knows how bad roads like OLH, Kings, Page Mill and Hwy 9 are during the week. Some like Foothills Exp have large bike lanes and should still be ok but those other narrower winding road might not be so good if there is more cars and fewer bikes.

Can anyone comment?

johnny99

Hwy 9 has a lot of commuter traffic. The others are quieter mid-week than on weekends.

ilushka

i ride around saratoga/los gatos/cupertino area on the weekdays. in the morning i try to leave before 7am and then i usually plan my route "against traffic". for example, most of the commuter traffic on Hwy 9 is toward saratoga. or i ride after 9am; around 1pm is the emptiest. same thing with woodside/portolla valley, i used to do lunch riding up there and around noon climbing OLH i might not see a single car.

VNA

"Less" troubles during the week, particularly between 9:00 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. when most are either in school or at work. But the crazies behind a steering wheels are still around but less likely--enjoy!

SClaraPokeman

Gosh, I think virtually any activity that attracts crowds such as museum shows, climbing gyms, Costco, and biking the in local mountains are far better experiences during the workweek than a weekend--no question about it. I quit my job early this year because of an impending move to Mercer Island, so I've been doing rides 2x weekly M-F and at times it's been almost Edenic. I think last week I was passed by two cars (no bikes) on Tuntias Creek and there was virtually no traffic on Stage. I also especially like going down 84 now as it's a road I've almost always avoided on weekends--but weekdays are no problem (and late in the day 95% of the cars are heading west).

Highway 9 is much better to descend and climbing is significantly quieter because of few motorcycles on weekdays. Page Mill is probably not much different; however I worry less about cars passing bikes while traveling uphill coming into my lane as I descend.

One thing different from weekends is that a much larger part of the traffic seems to be delivery vans (let's hope they're watching the road and not the GPS) and contractor's trucks.

But overall people who can regularly ride on weekdays are lucky and while the drought is a terrible concern it certainly has made for great cycling.