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Old 09-05-01 | 09:53 AM
  #22  
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SteveF
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Joined: Jul 2001
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From: San Joaquin Valley, CA, USA
OK, here's mine. I live in the San Joaquin Valley of California, and it's _real_ flat here. The only "hills" are freeway overpasses!. There are other alternatives, but this is the shortest, most direct
route door-to-door that I'm willing to ride:

Clip in and head out to the end of our street, turn right and ride out of the subdivision to Walnut Ave. Turn right on Walnut, then left (west) on Christofferson Parkway to get around the Junior High School.

There's a new subdivision on the left just past the JHS, but on the right are open fields where you never know what's going to show up. At least once I've seen a coyote patrolling for rodents. Keep going past the construction site for the new High School on the right, then past some "ranchettes" 'til the road ends. Turn right (northwest) on Golden State Blvd.

Golden State Blvd. used to be State Highway 99 before they put the freeway in, so it's a major 4-lane divided road. It's got a good wide shoulder, so it's easy to co-exist with cars here. A side-benefit is that each car that passes gives you a bit of a "tow".

Most of the car traffic turns left at the Taylor Road traffic light to catch the freeway, so Golden State narrows back down to a two-lane at this point and becomes the freeway's frontage road. The
freeway's on the left, with more fields and ranchettes on the right. Golden State now turns gently away from the freeway, and there's another traffic light at Keyes Road. (approx. distance: 5km/3mi) Shortly past Keyes Road there's a stop sign, and Golden State ends at this point.

We're now entering the small town of Keyes. I turn left here, ride one block, and turn right again on Seventh Street. Seventh is Keyes' main street, such as it is, and there are three stop signs along this street before the end of town. I've now ridden somewhere around 15 minutes, and the high school students are out alongside the street waiting for the school bus.

After the third stop sign, Seventh Street becomes Rohde Road, and I'm again riding alongside the freeway on the frontage road. Rohde Road is uninterrupted by stop signs and traffic lights, and has very few intersecting streets until it ends, ~2.5km (1.5 mi) away. It's time to get down in the drops, rev up the cadence, and cruise!

At the end of Rohde Road, I turn right onto Mitchell Road, and immediately start checking over my shoulder for a gap in traffic. I want to make an immediate left turn here onto Service Road. If
there's just no available gap, I'll turn right on Service Road, then make an immediate U-turn and ride straight through the traffic light here. Just before Service Road goes over the freeway, I turn right on El Camino Avenue which again parallels the freeway. (approx. distance: 10km/6mi) I've now entered the city of Ceres, and will be riding in a mostly urban environment from here until I reach my office.

Three intersections with stop signs bring me to a freeway on-ramp where cross traffic is usually a bit heavy, so I wait my turn here and go when it's clear. The road has changed names: it's now Herndnon Avenue. There's more to concentrate on here, as things are more built up -- businesses along the road, and several intersections. (ride time: approx. 30 min) I turn right (due north) onto Richland Avenue and head up to the intersection with Hatch Road (approx. distance: 15km/9mi) . On the northwest corner of this intersection is a supermarket which has a corner that becomes the "Sunrise Cafe" in the mornings, open before the main store. It's a good place to stop and grab a bagel and something to drink, if I'm so inclined.

Back on the road, continue north on Richland Avenue to River Road and turn left. River Road is appropriately named, as it runs alongside the Tuolumne (Too-OLL-um-nee) River. However, you mostly see trees and houses; there's only an occasional glimpse of water. Through a stop sign and up a slight rise, and I come to the only part of the route that goes through a less-than- desirable area. It's not long, and it's never been a problem in over a year of commuting. We're now approaching Ninth Street, where there's a bridge over the Tuolumne into the city of Modesto.

The Ninth Street Bridge is the only place on my commute where I don't ride on the street. This is a four-lane curving bridge with no shoulder whatsoever. The posted speed limit is 40MPH (~65km/h), but most autos travel at somewhere up to 50MPH (80km/h). I feel safer sharing the sidewalk that runs along one side of the bridge with other cyclists and pedestrians. Even this is narrow enough that I ride quite slowly here so I can deal with oncoming foot and cycle traffic.

Off the bridge and back onto the street, I'm now approaching Modesto's CBD. Modesto was founded as a railroad town, and the streets in the CBD are laid out in a grid oriented to the railroad tracks that are immediately to my left. Streets running parallel to the tracks have numbers (i.e. Ninth Street), streets that cross the tracks use letters. There's a traffic light at B Street for which I usually have to stop, and another at D Street which is sometimes green to ride through.

Now it's time for the final push! From here on, if I can reach a speed of 40km/h (25MPH), I can catch green on the three traffic lights (at G, H, and I Streets) between here and the turnoff to my office. The light at J Street always turns red by the time I arrive, but I want to turn right on J Street, and California allows a right turn on a red light (after a stop).

I ride one block on J Street and turn left on Tenth Street. This block of Tenth Street is closed to motor vehicles. At the end of the block I turn right on K Street, and immediately right again into the parking structure next to my building. Down to the basement level, and the bike goes into a bike locker (available at no charge to employees). I then head across the parking structure, through the basement entrance into the building and straight to the showers, which I use before going upstairs to my office. Total distance: 20km/12mi; ride time: approx. 40 min

The return trip in the afternoon is almost identical, except that I use Eleventh Street to ride through the CBD, and cross back to Ninth Street just before the bridge.
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