Ride Bike! Redux
Oct. 5th, 2008 06:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aSince I had a good time out bike riding last week I decided to take a run at the Bay Trail in the opposite direction today. All in all I rode 14 or 15 miles (though I bet I'm actually underestimating these distances, because they weave in and out a lot along the Bay). I was out for about 3.5 hours, though a half hour of that was spent relaxing and finishing a book up in Richmond.
This time I cut down to the Aquatic Park again, but swung north on the Bay Trail. I went up past the Berkeley Marina, through Golden Gate Fields (or through their parking lot at least), around the Albany Mudflats, past Point Isabel, through the East Shore Park, most of the way around the Richmond Marina Bay, then up through Richmond to the Richmond Greenway for a bit, then back through Richmond into El Cerrito, then along the Ohlone Greenway until I got back to Berkeley. Whew.
The biggest gap in the Bay Trail between Richmond and Emeryville is at Golden Gate Fields. The race track is up on a hill, right between the Bay and 80, so I understand why there's a problem getting the Trail through. The owners have apparently engaged in some bad faith negotiation too, promising to build the Bay Trail, then backing out when they got things they wanted from the city and/or State.
In any case, when I got to the end of the Trail near the Fields I was a bit puzzled, but decided to head back up into the Fields' parking lot. That turned out to be the right decision, as was soon proved when I saw bike riders coming the other way. I got a bit turned around in the parking lot, and was amused when one driver motioned me toward the exit I was looking for when he saw that I was headed in the wrong direction. Beyond the hill (which I would have preferred not to bike up), you have to cut through an old parking lot, part of it gravel, but eventually you get to Buchanan Street North, which is where the trail picks up again.
The trail picks up in one of many seaside parks along the east bay's Bay Trail. This one includes the Albany Mudflats Ecological Reserve and the Albany Bulb. I decided to explore it a bit, thinking (incorrectly) that it'd have good bike trails like all the other parks in the area do. I got lost there too, and ended up in some dirt trails in the middle of nowhere where I finally had to heft my bike over a fence then scramble over it myself to get back on Buchanan.
Generally, I'm just not impressed with how Albany treats their public land. I'd previously noted that the Ohlone Greenway in Albany has a notable degradation in the quality of the path, which you see as soon as you pass into Albany from either Berkeley or El Cerrito. Similarly, the Albany park was full of dirt and gravel pathways where all the other parks around here have nice paved paths. When I picked up the Bay Trail going north into Albany, it was the ugliest section I'd seen, with highway immediately to my right, and a big wooden fence immediately to my left; I could just make out the Bay over it.
Fortunately I hit the best part of the park next, in what I think is El Cerrito, when I got to Point Isabel and the Eastshore State Park beyond that. I'd never been to any of these places before. I was amused to see that Point Isabel is a very busy dog park, while beyond that the Eastshore State Park includes some beautiful paths through rare saltwater marshes.
The trail in Richmond, up past the Richmond Inner Harbor and around the Richmond Marina Bay is very nice too. It's got houses and businesses, so it isn't as pretty (well, I mean, other than the Bay on the other side), but if anything the quality of the path and signage is even better than in El Cerrito.
I finally got tired when I was most of the way around the Richmond Marina and started heading vaguely away from the Bay. By chance I ran into the Richmond Greenway.
The Ohlone Greenway is a great bike path that runs along the BART line starting in Berkeley, but used to come to a dead stop at the Richmond border. When I was googling around after my bike ride last Sunday, I was very pleased to see that Richmond was working on the Richmond Greenway, which will run from the end of the Ohlone Greenway down to the Bay Trail. However, I couldn't tell if it had actually gotten underway in 2006 like it was supposed to (after many, many years of delay), so I was vaguely on the lookout for it today.
It looks like they've completed their "Phase 1", which is basically the western half. It's a good trail that runs along some old RR lines and looks largely like the Ohlone Trail. It comes to a very abrupt stop at 23rd street. They've got on street markings beyond that, but the bike lanes aren't always good and the signage is bad; I drifted over their pseudo-Greenway about halfway along the roads. It was still easy enough to get up to BART, where I was going, but probably not along the best roads. In any case, I took the good 'ole Ohlone Greenway home from there.
A good bike ride. It's kind of what I planned to do, but I hadn't quite realized it was so much longer than my last expedition. Some of my muscles are twinging a bit afterward, and I'd guess I'll be sore tomorrow. Between these two rides, I've covered about a sixth of the Bay Trail marked on their East Bay maps--and a considerably smaller fraction of the whole.
This time I cut down to the Aquatic Park again, but swung north on the Bay Trail. I went up past the Berkeley Marina, through Golden Gate Fields (or through their parking lot at least), around the Albany Mudflats, past Point Isabel, through the East Shore Park, most of the way around the Richmond Marina Bay, then up through Richmond to the Richmond Greenway for a bit, then back through Richmond into El Cerrito, then along the Ohlone Greenway until I got back to Berkeley. Whew.
The biggest gap in the Bay Trail between Richmond and Emeryville is at Golden Gate Fields. The race track is up on a hill, right between the Bay and 80, so I understand why there's a problem getting the Trail through. The owners have apparently engaged in some bad faith negotiation too, promising to build the Bay Trail, then backing out when they got things they wanted from the city and/or State.
In any case, when I got to the end of the Trail near the Fields I was a bit puzzled, but decided to head back up into the Fields' parking lot. That turned out to be the right decision, as was soon proved when I saw bike riders coming the other way. I got a bit turned around in the parking lot, and was amused when one driver motioned me toward the exit I was looking for when he saw that I was headed in the wrong direction. Beyond the hill (which I would have preferred not to bike up), you have to cut through an old parking lot, part of it gravel, but eventually you get to Buchanan Street North, which is where the trail picks up again.
The trail picks up in one of many seaside parks along the east bay's Bay Trail. This one includes the Albany Mudflats Ecological Reserve and the Albany Bulb. I decided to explore it a bit, thinking (incorrectly) that it'd have good bike trails like all the other parks in the area do. I got lost there too, and ended up in some dirt trails in the middle of nowhere where I finally had to heft my bike over a fence then scramble over it myself to get back on Buchanan.
Generally, I'm just not impressed with how Albany treats their public land. I'd previously noted that the Ohlone Greenway in Albany has a notable degradation in the quality of the path, which you see as soon as you pass into Albany from either Berkeley or El Cerrito. Similarly, the Albany park was full of dirt and gravel pathways where all the other parks around here have nice paved paths. When I picked up the Bay Trail going north into Albany, it was the ugliest section I'd seen, with highway immediately to my right, and a big wooden fence immediately to my left; I could just make out the Bay over it.
Fortunately I hit the best part of the park next, in what I think is El Cerrito, when I got to Point Isabel and the Eastshore State Park beyond that. I'd never been to any of these places before. I was amused to see that Point Isabel is a very busy dog park, while beyond that the Eastshore State Park includes some beautiful paths through rare saltwater marshes.
The trail in Richmond, up past the Richmond Inner Harbor and around the Richmond Marina Bay is very nice too. It's got houses and businesses, so it isn't as pretty (well, I mean, other than the Bay on the other side), but if anything the quality of the path and signage is even better than in El Cerrito.
I finally got tired when I was most of the way around the Richmond Marina and started heading vaguely away from the Bay. By chance I ran into the Richmond Greenway.
The Ohlone Greenway is a great bike path that runs along the BART line starting in Berkeley, but used to come to a dead stop at the Richmond border. When I was googling around after my bike ride last Sunday, I was very pleased to see that Richmond was working on the Richmond Greenway, which will run from the end of the Ohlone Greenway down to the Bay Trail. However, I couldn't tell if it had actually gotten underway in 2006 like it was supposed to (after many, many years of delay), so I was vaguely on the lookout for it today.
It looks like they've completed their "Phase 1", which is basically the western half. It's a good trail that runs along some old RR lines and looks largely like the Ohlone Trail. It comes to a very abrupt stop at 23rd street. They've got on street markings beyond that, but the bike lanes aren't always good and the signage is bad; I drifted over their pseudo-Greenway about halfway along the roads. It was still easy enough to get up to BART, where I was going, but probably not along the best roads. In any case, I took the good 'ole Ohlone Greenway home from there.
A good bike ride. It's kind of what I planned to do, but I hadn't quite realized it was so much longer than my last expedition. Some of my muscles are twinging a bit afterward, and I'd guess I'll be sore tomorrow. Between these two rides, I've covered about a sixth of the Bay Trail marked on their East Bay maps--and a considerably smaller fraction of the whole.
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Date: 2008-10-06 04:36 am (UTC)