Dan announced to some of us that on June 13th he'd ride the East Bay portion of the Bikepack the Bay route, used for a bikepacking race starting and ending in Fairfax, lapping the San Francisco Bay. Dan's route starts in El Cerrrito, and is mostly dirt along the ridge line to Union City. The idea is that you can link the start and finish with BART trains. I chose Sunday, 5/24 to ride a portion of it from near my house to the finish in Union City. I didn't study it carefully, but I figured it would be a chance to ride my local trails through an area I'd never ridden dirt - south of Highway 580 - to a BART station, where I could take BART back and get picked up by Lauren. I did that, with some friends, and I'm glad I finally rode the ridge all the way to the south bay, if Union City counts. That was cool.
Dan had some words of wisdom for us, before we rode it:
just a heads up on this route:
Shortly before you go under the 580 you'll turn left on Crow Canyon road. The trail you will be looking for is on your right about 50ft before you reach Crow Creek Road. There is a very small Bay Ridge Trail sign there, if it is still there. Basically it is very easy to miss.
Just past Crow Creek Road there is a convenience store on the right. Super good spot to grab water and snacks, and I prefer it to the Safeway that is right off the 580; this is the last resupply until you get to Union City.
If you don't have a dropper, I'd suggest lowering your saddle for that final descent into Union City.
Have fun!
I made two sandwiches - Trader Joe's hazelnut / chocolate spread, (their Nutella) banana slices and almond butter on wheat bread, and made two 34oz Soma bottles with Skratch Labs energy powder, but forgot to grab any other food. Oops. I planned to buy some energy food somewhere. That was a miss on my part. I rode my Falconer gravel bike, which has a 42t front chainring and a 50t rear cog for a low gear, and 45mm tires at about 30psi. More on that, later.
Alex, Ben, Larry, Wil, JP and I started the ride at my house. Wil rode up the hill from his house, everyone else drove. I had the route I'd gotten from Dan on my GPS, and decided to join it at Skyline Gate. In hindsight, this was an odd choice, as after quite a bit of climbing, we were not far from my house, at the "land bridge" off Parkridge. Our legs were tired and we hadn't gotten very far. That was the theme of the day. I stuck to the route but wasn't especially rewarded for doing so. I ungraciously complained about how the route appeared to have been created by someone who never rode the trails in Redwood and Chabot, and probably designed the route on a computer screen. An acquaintance commented on my strava record, "My friend Christian designed the route. I've ridden the full thing a couple of times with him. He's always open to suggestions for improvements."
We rolled from my house at 9:14AM, six of us, all on gravel bikes. JP immediately had a problem - dead SRAM shifter battery. I thought I had one in my seat pack, but I didn't. We were still on Butters, hundreds of meters from my house so we rode back, put a battery in his shifter, then rode back to our group, waiting on Butters. I need to buy a card of CR2032 batteries. I told him his rear tire also looked flat, but he told me it was fine. Up through JMP on Sunset, Sequoia Bayview, then Ben reminded me Castle Park (the flat part) was blocked by downed trees, so up through the Chabot Space Center parking lot to West Ridge, then north on West Ridge. The BIG Soma bottle on my seat tube ejected on some downhill washboard and perfectly destroyed the cap's nozzle, emptying itself on the trail. Oops.
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| We call these 'fried egg flowers.' |
At Skyline Gate JP put some air in his rear tire. Riding West Ridge, I did my best to stay in front, keep my Timber bell dinging and greeting/warning hikers. I'm really aware of how scary a bunch of middle-aged yahoos can be, going downhill on East Ridge. This meant I was trying to keep JP behind me, which is kind of like trying to keep a bull docile behind a red cape. We dropped Pinehurst, then climbed MacDonald from Redwood Road. It's always a grind. Here I let the better climbers go. Watching Larry bridge up to Ben and JP was satisfying. He can climb. At the land bridge, we had already done a lot of climbing, and we could have gotten there via an easier ride on Skyline. Cue theme music.
Larry is somewhat new to Oakland, or at least, to some of our parks. He hadn't been to Chabot before, and I wanted to show him the goods. This was an opportunity.
We were also supposed to meet Jason at Clyde Woolridge staging area, but this route never went to the logical meeting point at Clyde Woolridge. Messages started going back and forth, mostly between Wil and Jason.
The route had us climb Parkridge - so convoluted - then road burn to Goldenrod, where we then inexplicably dropped the Horseshoe trail at the new city stables straight down to the valley, then north on Brandon to Grass Valley to the foot of the Brandon climb at the Stone Bridge. Here, Larry decided to detach. In hindsight, he detached before we started doing Stupid Chabot, which is a good thing. We climbed Brandon, where I cruised, rather than trying hold any climber's pace. We refilled water at the water fountain near the top, ate snacks - I ate my first sandwich - we had some chit chat and I talked a bit with a group of latino mountain bikers who were also stopped there, then we resumed climbing Brandon, where we miraculously rediscovered Jason. It's good we did, because Jason knows Chabot well, and this route started taking us on some wack trails that we rarely ride. It was also a very narrow opportunity to have met Jason, as we only accidentally went up that bit of Brandon, and would otherwise have missed him if we stuck to the route. My GPS alerted me that we were off route, because continuing the climb up Brandon would make too much sense. So we did a u-turn, passed the place where we'd filled water and then we (checks strava) dropped Two Rocks trail to the campground, then inexplicably climbed steep-ass asphalt up Quail Trail to Marciel Road. What the hell. Is the point to just stuff more vertical feet into the route, making the Bikepack the Bay race route harder and more confusing? (I think the route designer was trying to route through campgrounds, in hindsight.) We could have just continued the Brandon climb to Marciel Road. We then dropped Marciel through a campground - where whoever rode the route looked to have gotten confused here, as they took a side trail, then corrected - then we went straight down Honker Bay trail to the lake shore. OK.
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| JP, about to say goodbye |
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| Jason, Ben, Wil, Alex |
Here JP said goodbye. He'd already done enough for the day, and had family obligations. He gave me a full water bottle, for which I was grateful. This meant I had two for the rest of the ride. We then rode Honker Bay to East Shore to Cameron Loop Trail (also known as "Savage"), which involved a tough grind/hike-a-bike up a rocky slope to Ten Hills. Jason says the coaches take the Hayward Composite kids up it when they've merited some suffering. There is a better route to Ten Hills. Here Wil and Jason pulled the plug, said sayonara, leaving just me, Ben and Alex. We checked in with each other; we all still wanted to complete the route, so we said goodbye and rode Ten Hills to Redwood Road.
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| Goodbye, Jason and Wil |
After this point, the adventure and view experience became more fulfilling, but the trail riding quality became less pleasurable.
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| This Bay Area Ridge Trail sign on Crow Canyon is really easy to miss. |
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| My Falconer bike at the school where we got water |
Following the route, we rode Proctor and Cull Canyon roads to Crow Canyon road, almost missing the Bay Area Ridge Trail sign. This is where we could have found a store, per the official route and per Dan's guidance. We checked in with each other and agreed we had enough hydration and food to continue. We rode/pushed up a weird little singletrack, (watch for very close, friendly poison oak) found water at a school (nice job, Alex), and dropped onto suburban roads (Indepedent School Road, Five Canyons Parkway) to the Chabot-To-Garin Trail. The trail was dirt for a bit, climbing alongside a cement drainage culvert behind suburbia, then joining a paved service road to a water tank (Boulder Canyon Drive) that was so steep that I chose to walk much of it, until we rejoined dirt after the water tank. The views at the high point after the tank were really good, and there was a bench, so I asked for a rest stop and we had snacks and chat at the bench. I ate my second sandwich, and Alex gave me an energy bar.
We rolled along grassy highlands, seeing a distant hill with a radio tower that looked to be our final high point. We descended a steep, dirt ranch road to a creek crossing that reminded me of other deep East Bay places, like Ramage Peak and the EBMUD lands behind the San Leandro Reservoir, and then, in similar fashion, climbed/hiked a steep, bulldozer road out of that drainage, gaining grassy hills again.
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| Mt Tam, peeking through the fog |
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| funky, far-away building |
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| a church or chapel, on a ranch? |
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| Approach with caution as golfers are playing ahead. You are on Private Property refrain from loud talking or interfering in anyway with play. Stay on designated trail at all times. |
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| No Remote Control Aircraft, vehicles, boats or kites of any type - Kites may only be flown at the designated kite field in Garin Park and may not be motor operated or assisted |
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| American dystopia |
This continued to the hill with the radio tower. Here we descended a bit of dirt, went through some gates and entered an inter-dimensional portal, where we were suddenly in the land of mini-mansions made out of ticky tacky materials, crammed in next to each other on a golf course, and the Bay Area Ridge Trail was the asphalt road for golf carts. I said hi to a few golfers, who never even turned their head to acknowledge us. It was bizarre. At one point there was a gravel "trail" next to the asphalt section, and we were warned that bicyclists should stay off the asphalt, then the gravel just ended, and there was more asphalt to ride. We continued along this weird ridge for a while, finally rejoining the typical EBRPD / ranch bulldozer road pattern, this time without so much cow hoof damage. It was strange, to be looking down at the Dumbarton Bridge, and to our right, the San Mateo Bridge.
Suddenly we were back in East Bay suburbia, in Union City. We crossed Mission Boulevard (AKA Camino Real, the old, Spanish "King's Road" that linked the missions and ranchos) and pedaled through suburbia, under the BART tracks where Dan's route ended. Here Ben checked his phone and guided us to the local BART station. We played a guessing game as to the name of the town, guesses were that it had to do with "Union Pacific," "trains" and "the Civil War." None of us were right. 'The first non-native community was founded in 1850 by John and William Horner, who named it "Union City" after their Sacramento River Steamship, "The Union".' (Wikipedia)
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| Ben, arriving at the corner market not long after we did, he by bicycle, we by car |
We got on the wrong train, then the right train. I texted Lauren asking for a pickup at Fruitvale station. Ben was too tough to accept a ride, and pedaled up the hill. I asked Lauren to please stop at the corner market, and right after I returned with two Modelo Michelada Especiale tall boys, Ben rolled up, on the same corner-store mission. He's a beast! We dropped Alex, then home, where I made short work of a burrito and a Chelada.
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| A surf-and-turf burrito from Xolo's, and my preferred recovery beverage |
My Falconer has a 42t front chainring and a 50t rear cog for a low gear, but it was not low enough for much of this course. I ran 45mm tires at about 30psi, and they were not soft enough for much of the cow country we were entering. In hindsight, a hard-tail mountain bike would be better, with fatter tires and lower gears. Also, if I were bikepacking this, with gear on my bike, a MTB or my Hudski ATB would be my choice.
Here is the route I got from Dan, which is part of the canonical route, and here is how I would change it:
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| Screen capture from the QGIS program, with canonical, (green) Dan's (blue) and my (red) proposed routes |
Dan's segment is 56.2 miles, with 7528' climbing. Mine, with only the Redwood and Chabot sections changed is 51.2 miles, with 6500' climbing. In adjusting my route for better flow, and less needless, unpleasant climbing I realized that I think the author of the canonical route, Christian Laney-Clark was trying to route through campgrounds at Chabot. I get it, but the resulting route was really unpleasant. Mine goes by some of those same sites, and I suppose they could be added as points of interest. I did add a POI to clarify that the rider could/should hop on the median singletrack on Skyline Boulevard, for instance.
Dan is going to do this again on June 13. I might join, but if I do, I'll do my variation, at least through the segments I know. Honestly, I'd do it mostly to check off an accomplishment, have a big day, and maybe get a bit of fitness before my Oregon tour next month. The pleasure I got from it was mostly from the company, the views and the adventure. My version does have more fun riding.
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