| I live in SJ and work in Menlo Park. My direct door-to-door commute is 19mi. Takes me about 50-55 minutes. None of it is on bike paths. I take Foothill from the cupertino border all the way to menlo Park. I can also go into cupertino and take the bike path to the edge of the 101 (close to the PA airport). If you want to make it longer, you can take Stevens Canyon to Foothill. This makes the commute 30mi but also less traffic and much more challenging to ride. I would say on average I commute to work about 3 days a week during the summer. I just don't like commuting back in the dark during the winter. In terms of accidents, I've had none. I had 2 close calls over the course of 3 years. One was a complete jerk and one was due to the sun angle (something you need to be aware of as a cyclist too). Bay Area is really awesome for riding to work. Foothill is busy but also gets a lot of rider traffic so drivers tend to be more patient. I also find that a lot of it is up to you, some riders ride like the road belongs to them. |
Once I was able to avoid the south bay life became far more pleasant.