Lots of great riding in them thar hills, but Peter is right, pretty much any ride in Berkeley is a fair bit of climbing. One of the most common routes to get up to Grizzly Peak/Skyline from Berkeley is Old Tunnel Rd, often just referred to as "Tunnel," which climbs the hills above the Caldecott Tunnel. It's got some steeper pitches near the bottom and a sketchy bit where you have to cross fast moving on-ramp traffic, but once you get past that it's a pretty quiet road with a constant, doable grade and great views. Any bike shop guy will be able to tell you how to get there. From the top of Tunnel, it's a short jaunt along south along Skyline to Redwood or Joaquin Miller parks. Or, go north on Grizzly Peak Boulevard to Tilden--the interesection basically marks the top of the climb. Note that once you get into the area north of the Grizzly Peak/Claremont/Fish Ranch intersection, everything on the west side of the road is owned by UC Berkeley and is technically off limits to bikes, whereas everything on the east side of the road is Tilden Park, where bicycles are allowed on all of the fire roads and some of the singletrack--check out the signs.
On Thursday, July 2, 2015 at 1:46:41 AM UTC-7, Peter Adler wrote: > > Sports Basement opened a store near downtown Berkeley a few months ago, > but I'm not sure whether they rent bikes. If they do, it's a lot closer > than going out to Walnut Creek. > > General warning: Unless you're a regular climber, the slope up to Grizzly > Peak or Skyline (the roads near the ridge of the Berkeley Hills) is pretty > ferocious. It's part of the classic East Bay roadie route called Three > Bears, which crosses the hills and does a big loop on bear-named roads > between the hills and Walnut creek before heading back across the ridge to > Berkeley. You might want to drive up to the ridge to start. > > Peter "Berkeley lifer" Adler > Berkeley, CA/USA > > On Wednesday, July 1, 2015 at 9:14:57 PM UTC-7, Christian wrote: >> >> Thanks Ryan and Justin. I think staying nearby will be easiest plus >> almost no driving. I think I'm gonna rent an Ibis from Sports Basement and >> go to Joaquin Miller and Redwood and maybe Wildcat. Sorry for the detour >> from Riv content but I thought this might be a good place to get some good >> local intel. >> >> Christian > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
