Biking from Foster City to?..

[Max S]

Bay Area Rivsters, 

This week I'm visiting some folks in Foster City, CA and will have an all-road bike at my disposal there. I'll also be visiting people in Cupertino and will have another all-road bike available there. Yay! 

Now, I used to live in the Bay Area like 25 years ago, biked around in some places, but a lot has changed since then... I'm looking to try biking out to some places mentioned in Ray Hosler's "Bay Area Bike Rides" book (e.g., Old La Honda Rd, Tunitas Creek Rd, etc.), up to say ~50 miles at a time, preferably starting by bike from Foster City itself. There's the Bay Trail, but it seems to cut out in a few crucial spots, where one might want to bridge to the more scenic roads, forcing to ride a lot of trafficky streets. Do I pretty much need to take CalTrain somewhere first or bum a ride? What other routes might folks suggest? (I should perhaps look on Strava, but not sure I should blindly trust the heatmaps and "routes" to be relatively light on car traffic.) 

Also, if anyone lives around here and wants to do an early morning ride, LMK. 

Thx in advance for any pointers, 

- Max "somewhat peripatetic" in Bay Area

[Zac Terrones]

I'm not a ton of help with the longer rides but if you've got a bike capable of some fire road this is a fun one to start. Not sure if you've noodled around in waterdog but you can go up ralston, make the first left after the safeway and that gets you to the trailhead, climb to the top of waterdog and exit the top parking lot, cross the street and to the right of a little water district building is another trail, go up that, then cross the street once you get to the top again, that'll take you down to canada rd and you can go left from there to woodside and head up kings or go right and cruise around crystal springs. pretty nice way to get to canada and avoid a ton of traffic. 

[Leslie Tierstein]

Years ago, my company had an office in Foster City and then in San Mateo. I kept a bike there for use when I visited.  (Telecommuting before it was fashionable.) I mostly did commuting and running errands, so I might not be so helpful in avoiding busy streets.  (For fun, it's worth seeing the mansions in Burlingame and Woodside. And biking to Half Moon Bay was pretty standard.) However, some of my fondest memories are my weekend bike tours, in particular two of them. The first was taking CalTrain to San Francisco I rode in a few times; it was doable), biking across the Bay Bridge, then through San Rafael, and taking the Larkspur ferry back to San Francisco. Gorgeous views throughout. The second involved taking CalTrain to its farthest south station, Gilroy.  (Trains only run during rush hours on the weekdays, but biking from the south of San Jose isn't bad.  And if you haven't seen the bike accommodations on CalTrain, it's worth the trip.) I biked to Salinas, saw some Steinbeck sites, and stayed the night. The next day I headed to the coast and biked to Santa Cruz, stayed the night. To return, I started biking up and over the mountain on Rte 17, but I decided that was suicidal, in more ways than one.  There was a bus that goes over the mountain that had a bike rack for two bikes on the front.  When the bus pulled up, alas, both bike places were in use, but the driver let me bring the bike on the bus! I got off in Scotts Valley to visit a co-worker, but later continued into Los Gatos, taking lovely suburban streets back to some CalTrain station or other. 

[Al in SF]

Hi Max,

I don't live on the peninsula, but what I understand is that there's only four ways to get off Foster City:

  - 3rd Ave

  - Fashion Island Blvd

  - Hillsdale Ave

  - Beach Park Blvd

And of those, only 3rd and Beach Park (via O'Neill Crossing near Ralston) have any affordances for bikes. You can bike down Hillsdale, but you have to adopt the John Forrester mindset: take the lane and ride at 20+mph to stay safe.

That out of the way, all the good stuff is towards the west. If you need to traverse north-south, Alameda de las Pulgas is the best option. The Bay Trail is better developed these days, but it still reminds you that bikes are second class citizens as you cut through office park after office park and wait at traffic lights.

Hope this helps and welcome back!

Al in SF

[Max S]

Thanks, Al, Leslie, Zac. I've noodled around on Strava to map out a route to Water Dog via Ralston, returning on 3rd / Bay Trail. Also mapped something similar to La Honda. I'll give it a try one of these mornings (which seem to be getting eaten up by Zoom calls with people on East Coast time - ugh!). 

Open to other ideas and perhaps meeting up for a ride somewhere. 

- Max "when all-road isn't all road" in FC/BA for a week

[Toshi Takeuchi]

I used to work in San Carlos and did the Ralston/Crystal Springs/Canada Rd to Woodside.  I also did the more direct route on Edgewood to Canada Rd.  Traffic wasn't bad (18 years ago), but it's quite a bit steeper than Ralston.  The standard (it seems) loop in Woodside is go up La Honda and come down King's.  Have fun!

Toshi