SF Peninsula Area Strada Bianca Rides

[Ciavete]

Greetings Paceliners. Any recommendations on Strada Bianca rides in the area? Got me a new old steel frame ready for some gravel and cross (assuming I am too). Much appreciated.

Happy 4th!

[dem]

There are lots of short-ish dirt/gravel sections available to piece together into whatever length ride you'd care to do.

Be prepared for climbing, and steeeeeep. The fire roads tend not to be challenging technically, but are often 30%+ grades for short periods.

My choices:

Just riding around: arastradero, fremont-older - nothing in either that cannot be tackled on big slicks.

Dirt getting up/down to skyline:
Windy Hill fire road
Alpine Rd trail
Stevens Creek Canyon Trail
Hwy9/Sanborn to John Nicholas Trail

Up and around Skyline:
All the stuff at the top of Black Mountain
Pretty much all the ridge trail, except some stuff around saratoga gap

Coast side:
Old Haul Rd in Pescadero County Park
Purisima Creek Trail (back up to skyline)

Epic stuff:
One-way to Morgan Hill (or Watsonville) via Summit (dirt and bumpy!) and down Madonna (dirt)
One-way to Santa Cruz via Summit/Highland through Nicene-Marks

I'm still collecting more!

[Sierra]

Dirt in the Bay area? I'm sure the motorcyclists will appreciate that. I belong to one Bay area moto forum and all they do is bitch and moan and cast aspersions all day long about all of us nasty cyclists (especially when we have the unmitigated gall to appear on their beloved Hwy 9, which they like to use as their own, personal race track!). I'm a motorcyclist as well as a cyclist. There is really no reason for all of this bad feeling; but I guess that's the Bay area moto scene for you--an entitled bunch they are.

[Sierra]

Don't forget all of those fantastic trails in the SF east bay (if you care to venture out from the peninsula). You can start down at the Pleasanton Ridge trail and ride north through Anthony Chabot, Redwood, linking up to Wildcat. The latter two, particularly, offer absolutely stunning views of San Francisco bay and the great Golden Gate.

There are many others: Mt. Diablo, Morgan Territory, Briones, etc. The system is endless. It is the Bay area, so best to bring your climbing legs.

[pdmtong]

Talk to joostx about Marin...all the dirt I enjoy http://www.openspace.org/
or http://www.ebparks.org/ I would rather be on my mountain bike than my s-works cx 700x32c and 36-28 low.

[Ciavete]

Fantastic, thanks for the tips and links fellow Paceliners. Will review carefully and look forward to getting out on the dirt and trying some cross.

A buddy just set me up with a Sram Force 22-CX1 11 speed build. I'm clumsy with the one lever shifting but hope to get use to it.

Happy 4th to all.

[jwess1234]

Here is one I made up after doing some research. It's a mix of road / easy fire roads / light mountain trail. https://ridewithgps.com/routes/13588059

I agree it's confusing to find these rides and there aren't good resources for GPX files or I don't know who to follow on Strava.

Please share if you make something fun!

[dem]

Here's my Strava routes I've done for some ideas (connecting most of the above)

I'm mostly interested in some more sections on the coast side - I know there's some dirt segments in Big Basin, Butano, etc. but haven't connected the dots.

https://www.strava.com/routes/3862704
https://www.strava.com/routes/5291458
https://www.strava.com/routes/5373255
https://www.strava.com/routes/5376009
https://www.strava.com/routes/5546604

Pic from Old Haul Rd on Saturday:
http://www.haphazard.com/bikes/gnartree.jpg

[jwess1234]

https://www.strava.com/routes/3862704
https://www.strava.com/routes/5291458
https://www.strava.com/routes/5373255
https://www.strava.com/routes/5376009
https://www.strava.com/routes/5546604



Thank you for sharing these!!

[Hindmost]

Thanks for posting your local rides. I really enjoyed sorting through them for familiar routes. A few of these look a lot like a Jobst ride from back in the day, a fair amount of asphalt with the novelty of dirt.

[carlineng]

For a TRUE "strada bianca" (white road) experience, head out to San Leandro in the East Bay and ride the bay trail: https://www.strava.com/activities/57131053. It's flat as a pancake, smells kinda weird, and the trail is a wide path of white gravel. Definitely a unique ride in the Bay Area, and you'll probably see some interesting birds hanging out by the bay.

[rrudoff]

You can do a similar bay ride on the Peninsula side Baylands from Palo Alto down to Alviso around the front of the Moffet field, not hard, and you have to watch for walkers in some areas, but lots of gravel. Also lots of headwinds, seemingly in both directions.

Also a nice out and back ride is Waddell creek up to almost Berry Creek falls, mainly dirt road with some very short pieces of single track. Beautiful and cool in the hot summer.

[dem]

I did part o the Bay Trail today - it was very cool, and VERY different from any other ride I've done,

Route: https://www.strava.com/routes/5606510

Pic heading toward the bridge:
http://www.haphazard.com/bikes/baygnar.jpg

[danesgod]

I did part o the Bay Trail today - it was very cool, and VERY different from any other ride I've done,

Route: https://www.strava.com/routes/5606510



Bringing old threads back from the dead! Has anyone optimized this south bay loop to include the most gravel you can? Anyone know what percent of this is gravel/dirt/not road?

Looking for something flat that takes a few hours. As opposed to my usual hills and more hills. I need to get out there and explore, will probably do it this weekend.

Looking at those trails on google maps is a nightmare, it looks like a maze that starts and stops and doesn't connect half the time.

[Hindmost]

That's really interesting, only the first couple of miles and some short stretches in Milpitas appear to be on city streets. Otherwise you are on paths and trails. I've never done it but I'm tempted now.

[danesgod]

I think you're right. The more I played on google maps the more I think its already optimized for trail. You've mainly got the road from Fremont->Milpitas, plus a small section around the Dumbarton. Approaching by steven's creek trail has gravel options too.

I guess my outstanding question is: are any of the "dead end" trails that go into the bay at various points (some of this is bay trail too) actually connectable by bike, but google maps doesn't know it? Sucks that we don't have a "real" bay trail, that's actually 100% connected.

[joosttx]

Gavos Creek rd to big basin....

[danesgod]

Gavos Creek rd to big basin....

I mean... I'll probably ride that at some point, but its not right out my front door and its not flat. I'm looking for some stuff I can hammer out on a weekend morning, straight outta the front door.

[dem]

Yeah, unless some new trails opened (I see some potential ones over on the east side) that is about it.. you may want to poke at Strava heat maps and see if anything else lights up. If you can add anything let us know!

Also I strongly encourage having a mapping GPS and a phone with offline maps (Like OpenStreetMaps) - it is actually pretty easy to get lost out there as the trails are non-intuitive with many dead ends and can disappear in high tides in parts!

OpenStreetMaps in general is much more optimistic about trails than Google, but you definitely need to validate they're legit.

[danesgod]

Right on, I'll check it out over the next few weeks/months/when I get to it :)

The funny thing about the global heatmap, is you can almost always find someone riding the paths I want to (https://www.strava.com/heatmap#17.03/-122.05889/37.44523/blue/ride), then you jump over to google streetview to find a huge barbed wire fence (https://www.google.com/maps/@37.445676,-122.063131,3a,75y,138.33h,101.16t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipPkLCMlh9axTs0r-JMLnBWMip3uLqUwidKXFwNO!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh 5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipPkLCMlh9axTs0r-JMLnBWMip3uLqUwidKXFwNO%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya114.273964-ro-0-fo100!7i8704!8i4352).

Guess I'll have to go exploring. I'll figure out some GPS and take an extra battery while I'm at it.