Bay Area Bike Rides

Rating:
Summary: good one, but......
Review: "Bay Area Bike Rides" by Ray Hosler is a collection of dozens of Bay Area bike rides. The rides range from 4 miles to 104 miles and include rides in the North, South, and East Bay, as well as the Peninsula.

Hosler's book is broken into three sections: Mountain Rides, Road Rides, and Casual Rides. Each of the rides includes a text narrative taking you through the highlights of the trip (including historical commentary), detailed directions with mile-indexed checkpoints, a map of the course, and a topographical graph of the ride (showing areas you will go uphill and downhill, as well as the difficulty of the climb or decent). This book is very easy to read and seems to have been very well researched. I recommend it 100% for anyone living and cycling in the Bay Area.

Rating:
Summary: A well researched, well written book ideal for any cyclist
Review: "Bay Area Bike Rides" by Ray Hosler is a collection of dozens of Bay Area bike rides. The rides range from 4 miles to 104 miles and include rides in the North, South, and East Bay, as well as the Peninsula.

Hosler's book is broken into three sections: Mountain Rides, Road Rides, and Casual Rides. Each of the rides includes a text narrative taking you through the highlights of the trip (including historical commentary), detailed directions with mile-indexed checkpoints, a map of the course, and a topographical graph of the ride (showing areas you will go uphill and downhill, as well as the difficulty of the climb or decent). This book is very easy to read and seems to have been very well researched. I recommend it 100% for anyone living and cycling in the Bay Area.

Rating:
Summary: Author's Review of 3rd Edition
Review: April 23, 2002 - The third edition is out now and SHOULD be available at Amazon.com.
This edition offers 13 new rides and addresses observed shortcomings posted by another reviewer. The maps have been improved so that now it's easy to distinguish between dirt and paved roads. There's a section called "How to get there" that describes the best way to get to the start point. Still, I always recommend bringing a road map, if you're unfamiliar with an area.

The book quality is also substantially improved, with better quality paper and rounded corners.

I think you'll enjoy the new rides, most of which are shorter than in past editions. The mountain bike rides are particularly noteworthy.

...Let's ride! Ray Hosler

Rating:
Summary: good one, but......
Review: Doesn't tell you how to get to the starting point. Maybe should also give directions from major highways. 2) In the mtn bike section, could not figure out where I can start on a path. I chose mtn bike riding because I don't like being on the roads. It was hard to tell the difference on the key between dirt road and paved path. The key icons look very similiar.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent guide to Bay Area cycling
Review: I bought this book about a year ago when I first moved to the Bay Area, and did all of the East Bay road rides, and a few others. With the exception of one error that I found the hard way (in the Calaveras Road ride, Evans Road doesn't really turn into North Park Victoria Drive -- you have to make a right turn!), this book is accurate, interesting, and the routes are well-chosen and as nice as any I've found in the Bay Area. Most of the rides are fairly challenging for a casual rider, but certainly not impossible. I've used it as a basis for my own explorations, stitching various routes together.

I can't speak for the mountain bike rides, as I haven't tried any of them.

All in all, this is a great sampling of rides and a interesting read with your Sunday afternoon beer, after an invigorating ride through the beautiful Bay Area hills and canyons.

Rating:
Summary: Best of the ride books for the bay area
Review: This is a very practical book written by a pretty serious cyclist, it has the information you really want to have and pays attention to details often lacking in similar books by other authors. While there are some pretty good rides left out of the book, he covers a very good sampling of the best near the bay area including rides from all around the area. Suggestions on where to park, where services are available (and warnings about where they are not available), rough topological profiles, very complete route sheet distances and even a very decent amount of history relating to the areas of the routes is included. In cases where different books are suggesting routes involving the same road areas I have found Ray's rides usually to be the better suggestion. It is true that there are some long rides included in the book, but just a few, and they are great rides that are worth the effort.

Rating:
Summary: The best Bay Area roads have ups and downs
Review: When I wrote Bay Area Bike Rides I had been riding in the Palo Alto area for nine years and in that time I covered tens of thousands of miles, most of them in the Santa Cruz Mountains and Coast Range.

Here is where you'll find some of the best bike riding in the world. Bay Area Bike Rides covers all of my favorite routes.

It was written for the three major styles of riding -- casual, mountain bike, road, and that's why it is segmented into these three sections.

Every route was painstakingly documented by riding and measuring using an Avocet cyclometer.

Don't let the longer rides dissuade you from buying the book. You can easily do portions of a ride. You're getting more for your money this way.