Distance: 18 miles one way plus ferry ride
Elevation gain: 490 ft
This is a flat, easy recreational ride with lots of company through many of the Bay tourist’s favorite haunts: the San Francisco waterfront, Pier 39, Fisherman’s Wharf, the SF Marina, Crissy Field, the Bridge, Sausalito, the Mill Valley-Sausalito Mike Path, Tiburon, and the Bay ferries. Each of these is a treasure worth hanging out in and exploring. The centerpiece is the Golden Gate Bridge: the most photographed man-made object on Earth. So this ride isn’t really about “cycling,” which is why you’ll be sharing the route with a few hundred wobbly tourists on rental townies. If you want to expand the loop to include more work, there are five excellent ways to do that, detailed in the Adding Miles section.
I know riders who say they wouldn’t be caught dead riding on the Golden Gate Bridge. Granted, you’re riding on a sidewalk that’s usually full of hordes of pedestrians stopping to gawk and take selfies, not to mention hordes of cyclists riding rental bikes and staring out over the water as they ride. To these naysayers I say in the nicest possible way, What the hell is wrong with you? Crossing the Bridge under your own power is the archetypal Bucket List experience. Just go do it. Walk it if you’d rather. I’m a cyclist, so I’m riding it.
The Bridge is open to cyclists every day of the year during daylight hours, but beyond that the schedule is shifty. The Bay (east) side is closed to bikes on weekend days because of the crowds. The ocean (west) side is open to bikes on weekdays after 3:30 only. At least I think so. The rules governing bikes on the Bridge are a bit complicated. If both sides are open to you, you must make a decision. The west side is much less crowded, but the views are only grand, not cosmically marvelous like on the east side. I’m pretty sure that the “no bikes on the east side on weekends” rule isn’t strictly enforced (like the Pirates’ Code, it’s more like a guideline) so if you want that Bay view you might try to poach it. Or ride the west side and accept second-best. Or ride on a weekday. The east side isn’t usually crowded in the morning (see photo below).
Navigating this route is pretty tricky throughout, so take along some mapping capability. For the City portion of the loop, the SF Bicycle Coalition has made a great bicycle map of San Francisco, and it will guide you. For the Marin leg, there’s the Marin Bicycle Map. Remember, google maps won’t show you any of the bike paths, which is half the ride.
Time management is critical on this ride, because on some days the Tiburon ferry stops running in the late afternoon, and if you miss the last one it’s a long ride back (or a trip to Sausalito to catch the ferry there). Check the ferry schedule for the last run of the day, and calculate backwards to find your starting time, remembering to factor in lots of time for a leisurely pace and lots of lingering and snacking. I would guess you’ll want at least 4 hours elapsed time.
About a quarter of this loop, the leg from the Pier 41 ferry dock to the Bridge, duplicates a leg of our other SF ride, San Francisco’s Wiggle Loop.
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