Tag: SF

I highly recommend the Crosstown Trail, a grassroots-developed 17-mile hiking route across San Francisco that strings together existing paths through parks, urban greenways, stairs, and the bits of road needed to connect them. There’s an associated bike route that combines parts of that trail with parallel road routes where it would be impractical to ride (though even this route also includes some carry-your-bike staircases and narrow dirt paths). Just imagine, you can experience all of this within the city limits: ...

I’ve been enjoying Cool Gray City of Love and taking notes every time he mentions an interesting vista, path, or historical intersection in SF I haven’t been to. So… it seems worth a periodic ride around the city to check out some of them. This Saturday, a Mission / Glen Park / Sunset route, including: Several notable staircases (we’ll lock bikes at the bottom and hike up for views), two of the very few remaining old unpaved road segments in SF, Billy Goat Hill, and some of the last remaining evidence of the great sand dunes that once blanketed the Sunset. ...

Early pre-work ride to the ocean and Andytown

My third or fourth time doing a variant on a 10-15 mile Dogpatch / Bayview shoreline ride, including old industrial buildings, murals, urban goats, the former site of Pound SF, Tire Beach (where some sort of sci-fi-esque photo shoot was going on?), the Heron’s Head park spit out into the Bay, India Basin, Yosemite Slough, a surprise glittering UFO behind a roll-up garage door, and some more and less official dirt paths between all of these. With the excellent All Good Pizza as a post-ride stop. ...

Saturday I organized a third “SF Bicycle Dumpling Tour“ (year 1: friends, year 2: public) for about 50 people. Good food, weather, and a casual 15-mile bike ride around the city, with a few hills…. A few photos I took or people on the ride sent me: Pork and chive dumplings arriving in the park by bike: For the $10 registration fee (definitely a zero-profit endeavor) you got all the dumplings you could eat, a low-tech copy-and-paste ride booklet (map, directions, trivia, and a dumpling recipe), and some useful tools… ...

I’m a long-time fan of Trouble Coffee and the espresso / cinnamon toast / coconut trifecta, so imagine my excitement when she opened a second cafe in Bayview, closer to home. It was only a matter of time until I’d organize a “Double Trouble” ride: a butterlap-style ride along the water, through the Presidio, through eucalyptus groves past the Palace of the Legion of Honor, down along the ocean (on a clear see-for-miles day), and then across the city between both locations. The distance added up for an in-city coffee jaunt– 26 miles– but it was a great social ride with a friendly group and some new folks: ...

I’m newly obsessed with charting a 49-mile “San Francisco Scenic Ride” (inspired by the 49 Mile Scenic Drive). But how to keep nods to the original’s key landmarks, add in undervisited parts of the city and some not-possible-by-car offroad paths, make it an exactly 49-mile loop (constraints channel creativity), yet not get stuck stitching it together with too many traffic-heavy or stop-and-go connecting roads? I sketched out six different ideas with feedback from some friends– but bike maps and browsing Google Street View only get you so far, and who wants to be inside on a beautiful day? Yesterday was the first scouting ride: ...

brand new, buffered, Oak St bike lane. this used to be parking.

I always want to share the nooks and crannies of Southeast SF with people– and Sunday, 11 friends and strangers (nice to meet you!) converged on my neighborhood for a tour of Dogpatch and Bayview. Here’s the route we took (click through for an interactive map with Point Of Interest descriptions): Starting off in Dogpatch, some friends & neighbors set up a surprise table of muffins, fruit, and mimosas (thanks!) ...

In preparation for next weekend’s ride: urban goats, murals, unlocked doors in fences, junkyards, dirt paths.