Flat Ride?
 

Hey all. I just moved to SF 2 weeks ago....and have been doing a lot of rides up in Marin County and south of SF. One thing I noticed though is that I've been climbing everyday. I was wondering if anyone can suggest a flatt-ish route that I can use for my long steady rides or recovery rides.

My plan was to look for flat roads using HWY 1 (PCH is nice and flat down in SoCal)....and ended up climbing about 6000ft instead :crash:

Here was my ride:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/42939745

This is a mostly flat route.
http://www.sf2g.com/bayway.html

How are the lights? Do you have to stop a lot?

Well, there are those, but it's not too bad.

There is a flat (but pretty boring) ride you can do from Lafayette to Danville/Blackhawk/San Ramon and back. Several CoCo riders here know the specific route if you want to venture that far out on BART.

From SF, you can do a nice ride of about 80 miles to Point Reyes Station via Nicasio. It's not flat, but the total climbing is probably only about 3000-4000 feet in 80 miles. I have the route if you want it.

Sure ROJA, any epic ride route I'll take right now as I'm exploring everything!

Also, I am somewhat looking for a flat/boring ride that starts from SF (to save on time from traveling) just for recovery or keep a steady heart rate/power.

The flattest, boringest ride in SF is doing loops at the Polo Field in GG Park. The track is approximately .65 miles long and if you go between 5PM and 7PM, particularly Tuesdays or Thursdays, there will likely be other cyclists there.

If that's too boring, try this:
1. Start at the eastern end of GGPark, intersection of JFK Drive and Stanyan.
2. Head west toward the ocean on JFK.
3. At the end of park, turn left onto The Great Highway.
4. When you reach the zoo, turn left on Sloat Blvd.
5. Turn right onto Skyline.
6. Turn left onto Lake Merced. (This will involve crossing a lane, or maybe two lanes, of potentially fast moving traffic to get into the left-turn lane.)
7. There's a bike path that goes around Lake Merced. At first you'll be on the road riding alongside it. Eventually, you'll see a curb cutout where you can easily get onto the path. You don't actually have to get onto the path, but traffic on Lake Merced gets a little heavy/fast at this point. So I'd recommend getting on the path, and staying on it until you reach the intersection with John Muir Drive.)
8. Turn right onto John Muir. (This is where I get off the path and start riding the road again.)
9. Turn right onto Skyline.
10. As you head north and see stop signs, merge left into one of the stop sign lanes. (The right-most lane continues north with no stop signs. Watch for fast-moving traffic as you merge into one of the two other lanes.)
11. Turn left onto the Great Highway at the stop sign. You'll be going up a little hill....the most climbing of this route.
12. Take the Great Highway back to the park. Turn right onto Lincoln.
13. Almost immediately, make a left at the stop sign into the park. You'll be on Martin Luther King.
14. Turn left onto Middle Drive East.
15. Middle Drive East intersects with JFK Drive, and you're basically back where you started.

This ends up being like a 16 - 18 mile loop.

First, Check the weather at Travis AFB, Vacaville, Dixon and Davis first and make sure the wind is out of the SW.

Take BART to Richmond. At Richmond, get on the Capital Corridor Amtrak to Fairfield-Suisun.

Ride from Fairfield-Suisun to either Davis or Sacramento. There are literally dozens of different ways to go, some flat, some with serious hills part of the way. No matter, 80% of the time you will have tailwind that ranges from nice to absolutely screaming. (that's why you checked the winds first).

In either Davis or Sacramento (depending on whether you wanted to ride 40 miles or 55 miles) get on the train and go back to Richmond. Transfer to BART to get home. BTW, on westbound Capital Corridor trains, you can buy a $10 BART ticket for $8.

Get a map of the Bay Trail and explore it south toward Menlo Park.

+1

I've done that ride a number of times. Great for recovery.

Hey everyone I finally rode part of the Bayway. I didn't get far as I was doing a really easy ride and only got to the far end of the airport. Thanks for the suggestion as it was flat!

The route I took from Sloat and Great Hwy was East on Sloat, left on Lake Merced Blvd., left on Brotherhood way, right on Geneva.

I was wondering if there is a better way from the Sloat and Great Hwy intersection to the route itself as I had to go through some choppy roads and rollers after Lake Merced.