Last weekend I organized a ride up to Point San Pablo, about 40 miles of scenic, mostly-flat* riding, with the majority of it on paved separated bike paths (the Bay Trail, on-street bike paths in Richmond, the Richmond Greenway, and the Ohlone Greenway).

We had a good group of seven, some who I’ve been riding with off and on for years and some new folks. And the remarkable exchange between two people of:

  • “Do I know you? Your bike looks familiar.” [we’ve all been there…]
  • *“*Wait, did we meet once on the Russian River Brewing Ride?”
  • “We did! Back in… 2012?!”

I’ve done some variant on this route several times over the years and always enjoy it– the whole ride from the RSR bridge up to PSP Harbor is always longer and more remote than I expected, it feels liek riding out to a frontier… so I’ve put together a specific route from MacArthur BART and added it to the Best Rides.

Interactive / downloadable map at https://ridewithgps.com/routes/49406111.

It’s a decent ride for people who aren’t used to hills, because the modest hills come about halfway into the ride, and the one absurdly steep hill is so short it’s easy to walk (on this week’s ride, all seven of us ultimately walked it– there’s no shame. I think I’m about 50% on riding to the top over the years).

There are all sorts of little sights to discover along the way, from the skate park by Pixar to the new-ish bike/pedestrian bridge over the train tracks in Emeryville, to the Red Baron at the bay trail, to the delightful (limited hours) Open Air Coffee in a Richmond parking lot with giant industrial spools as tables, to the tiny “fairy houses” of Point Richmond. I’ve marked some of these on the map above, but some you just have to keep your eyes open for.

It took us about 6.5 hours total (mapping tools would estimate 3.5-4 hours of riding time), as we stopped for lunch and a fair amount of random sightseeing, as well as to help another cyclist who was stopped by the side of the road with a chain wedged into the back of his cassette. It took a while and the ideas of about five different people, but we helped him recover and get back on the road.

Perhaps the only lowlight was an unusually intense and acrid smell of trash wafting over Cutting Boulevard from Richmond on both ends of the ride.

If you want a shorter ride and your main goal is to visit Point San Pablo, you can also start or end at Richmond or El Cerrito Del Norte BART stations, as shown on the map.

Side note: for people who were on this weekend’s ride, here are links about some of the random topics we discussed or mused about: