Does anyone have any good routes in the greater Bay Area? Only dirt I've been hitting is in the East Bay Regional Parks and I'm looking for something new. Been showing my road bike more love than the gravel...
Interested to hear what east bay gravel you are doing. I travel to fremont once a month and find the road riding pretty pooh pooh. Started doing the nice cinder paths around alameda creek. Would love to hear about some other places that are drop bar appropriate so I can justify bringing my gravel bike out there instead of my road bike.
+1 on Bay Trail and Guadalupe although parts of the latter is currently underwater due to the rain. You can do the paths around the Aliviso salt flats that run approx 9 miles, then cross over to the Baylands park where the old Sunnyvale dump is. There's at least one hill to go up/down on. Then a fairly flat path behind Moffett to Shoreline. Past Shoreline the path gets gravelly and near the Palo Alto airport, you also have a hill or so. I've not gone past that area but I'm pretty sure that you can connect with the Facebook campus in Menlo Park.
The only true gravel I've found in the east bay is Wildcat creek trail in Wildcat Canyon Park. But fireroads like Eastridge in Redwood Park and stuff like GoldenRod near Lake Chabot are fine too.
There's a nice fire trail in Berkeley (Upper Fire Trail on Google Maps) which runs from Panoramic to Grizzly Peak just above Centennial. It connects to Lower Fire Trail from Centennial a bit below the Botanical Garden to Panoramic. The surface is smooth, wide, hard dirt. Except for 100 m or so near Panoramic it's not at all steep. I'm afraid like most trails it might be full of hikers in COVID-19 times.
stu wrote:There's a nice fire trail in Berkeley (Upper Fire Trail on Google Maps) which runs from Panoramic to Grizzly Peak just above Centennial. It connects to Lower Fire Trail.
Thanks, I've virtually tried scoping that trail out before, but if you try to create a route in Strava from Panoramic way to the Lower Jordan Fire Trail, it won't let you, which usually happens when bikes aren't allowed. Same thing happens when trying to join it from Centennial Dr. next to the Botanical garden. Know if it's actually legal to ride there?
Thanks, I've virtually tried scoping that trail out before, but if you try to create a route in Strava from Panoramic way to the Lower Jordan Fire Trail, it won't let you, which usually happens when bikes aren't allowed. Same thing happens when trying to join it from Centennial Dr. next to the Botanical garden. Know if it's actually legal to ride there?
You can't legally ride on those trails (Upper/Lower/Jordan) above the university (at least you couldn't 10 years ago when I was in college).
Thanks for the heads-up. Today I rode up Centennial and the parking lot which intersects the trail had a sign reading "Ecological Study Area no bicycles, ...". Same sign where the trail meets Grizzly Peak. The one time I rode that trail, almost two years ago, I started at Panoramic and don't remember any signs. I do remember walking up the steep part. 🙁
