[OT] - S.F. once hosted a bike tour on freeways and the Bay Bridge
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Andrew Stadler
Jun 2, 2021, 5:20:32 PM6/2/21
to SF2G
https://www.sfchronicle.com/oursf/article/S-F-once-hosted-a-bike-tour-on-freeways-and-the-16213921.php?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=briefing&utm_campaign=sfc_baybriefing_am&sid=53ba927e9dbcd434550005b4#photo-21060641
It has been my dream, ever since I became a bicycle commuter.
San Francisco’s freeways, tunnels and bridges are opened up for bikes. If only for a day, the city’s main arteries become a two-wheeled utopia.
That describes the Great San Francisco Bike Adventure, an annual event from 1986 to 1995 where tens of thousands of bicyclists traveled the city on roadways usually reserved for fast-moving automobiles. Sections of Interstate 280 were opened up, along with spectacular rides across the top deck of the later-demolished Embarcadero Freeway. At one point, CalTrans allowed pedal-powered traffic on the western span of the Bay Bridge.
“Officials stopped the race on I-280 to allow the cops to clear the road ahead,” The Chronicle’s Steve Rubenstein wrote on June 9, 1986, a day after the first race. “This turned the freeway into a giant block party, awash with 10,000 orange safety vests. Cyclists sidled up to one another, like dogs meeting for the first time, and checked out each other's derailleurs.”
It has been my dream, ever since I became a bicycle commuter.
San Francisco’s freeways, tunnels and bridges are opened up for bikes. If only for a day, the city’s main arteries become a two-wheeled utopia.
That describes the Great San Francisco Bike Adventure, an annual event from 1986 to 1995 where tens of thousands of bicyclists traveled the city on roadways usually reserved for fast-moving automobiles. Sections of Interstate 280 were opened up, along with spectacular rides across the top deck of the later-demolished Embarcadero Freeway. At one point, CalTrans allowed pedal-powered traffic on the western span of the Bay Bridge.
“Officials stopped the race on I-280 to allow the cops to clear the road ahead,” The Chronicle’s Steve Rubenstein wrote on June 9, 1986, a day after the first race. “This turned the freeway into a giant block party, awash with 10,000 orange safety vests. Cyclists sidled up to one another, like dogs meeting for the first time, and checked out each other's derailleurs.”
(more in the linked article)
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