I am an amateur bicyclist and like to bike around Berkeley on my 2008 Bianchi Cortina. It's one of the cheapest among somewhat fancy bikes. Berkeley is great for biking, because there's the bay on one side and hills on the other. There are a lot of small, quiet streets – a few of them are bicycle boulevards.

My first visit to New York, and how could I not use a bike to explore the city! Bike rental at Bike And Roll wasn't so cheap ($50 for a day), but I simply had to bike. I picked up the bike at pier 84, went to the Central Park, circled it, then went down along Broadway. A little detour to see Empire State building. Then down to Washington Square park and NYU. Then, went to Brooklyn bridge. It has a bikepath and walkway along its middle, over the car lanes. Then the financial district… Wall street etc. And then, all the way up to pier 84 along the amazing Greenway along Hudson river.

View Larger Map

The loop is made of four roads encircling San Pablo reservoir, Briones reservoir and the surrounding watershed region. Hefty 20 miles proved a little too adventurous for me and Subhransu, as we went out of steam for last 5 miles or so on Bear Creek road. Afternoon sun, opposing wind, tired legs and 3-4 hills with long sweeping climbs forced us to walk some of the distance in the last 5 miles. Last year's San Francisco-Sausalito-Tiburon trip was also 20 miles, but it went through such an interesting and varying landscape. Bears loop had a pretty boring and monotonous surroundings. The water below in the reservoirs and surrounding hills look great. But otherwise, San Pablo Dam road is just plain boring road with cars zipping by. Castro Ranch road has some housing alongside. Alhambra Valley road goes through protected watershed area with dried grass, some trees and small hills around. Bear Creek road is same, with a few horse ranches added. In the end, we came down to Orinda, and came back by BART.

View Larger Map

My first trip across the hills. I went up along Grizzly Peak blvd. and reached Orinda. Total distance of 9.6 miles, with first 6.3 miles of climbing and then 3.3 miles steep downhill. I came back by BART from Orinda.

View Larger Map

Last year, Subhransu and I did San Francisco, Sausalito, Tiburon trip. Total distance is something like 20 miles, and we covered it leisurely, with plenty of stops. Plenty of eating too – cereal bars at the vista point north of the Golden Gate bridge, pizza slices in downtown Sausalito and icecream in Tiburon. We came back by ferry from Tiburon.

View Larger Map

I also have the photos:

Bicycle Trip to San Francisco, Golden Gate Bridge, Sausalito, Tiburon