Recommended Peninsula rides

A Canadian rider asked WeightWeenies forum about good rides to do for a racer visiting Santa Clara county (the San Francisco Bay area) on business. Cara recommended I post the list here, so here it goes. These are rides taking place now, in February. More options open up during Daylight Savings time. And, for example, the fall offers the the Low-Key Hillclimbs, near and dear to yours truly.

A description of local climbs is available from Stanford Cycling. This wonderful compilation is largely the work of Sergei Morozov, who unfortunately last time I checked was in exile in New York City. A frustrating fate for a climbing addict....

Keith Vetter's Klimb is a must-see route tracking utility for the San Francisco Bay area and Sonoma. It runs on a broad range of platforms. If you are thinking of charting out a route, you really need to give this a look. It's largely based on Bill Bushnell's comprehensive statistics, meticulously collected in the 1990's.

Another must-have local resource is The Krebs cycling map. It's not available at a bike shop in the Bay area, it's probably just because it's out of stock.

Local rides worth checking out, off the top of my head. There's others: a more comprehensive, not 100% up-to-date, list is maintained by Fremont Freewheelers:

• The Palo Alto Morning Ride: leaves 6:20am Tue & Thu from Starbucks on University Ave. Fast group ride with sprints.
  
• The Noon Ride, leaves noon SHARP from Page Mill and Old Page Mill near Foothill/Junipero Serra:
  • Mon: short, moderate pace,
  • Tue: race pace, longer. For example, here's motionbased data of the Corte Madera route.
  • Wed: climb OLH (390 vertical meters), descend 84. For example, here's some of Chris Hipps' data.
  • Thu: like Tue.
  • Fri: like Mon but longer, blast over short hill at end with sprint after.
  You can find data for these rides from MotionBased.
  
• Wed 9:10 am, Peets in Los Altos, Dave's Morning Ride: epic stuff. Really high quality riders, friendly, quality race training. Of course, work has a pesky tendency to get in the way of this one.
  
• Saturday: Spectrum Ride, approx 9:15 am from Los Altos (Foothill @ Edith) catching the group which starts 9am further south. Similar to Tue/Thu noon ride, but faster.
  
• Saturday, Peets in Los Altos, 9:10 am: Alto Velo B ride: a moderate pace group ride with climbing with generous regroups.
  
• Sunday, Peets in Los Altos, 9-9:10 am: Alto Velo A ride: a fast group ride with considerable climbing and limited regroups. Hard road race training.
  
• sanctioned races: See http://www.ncnca.org/ and http://www.ncncaracing.com/
  
• The Beat the Clock Series raises money for the the Lance Armstrong Foundation with its occasional time trials on Canada Road starting at 7:30 am.
  
• touring rides: interesting routes, with very generous regroups: Western Wheelers . Also Grizzly Peak Cyclists and the Alameda County Touring Cyclists occasionally organize group rides on the Peninsula.