<p>I got a question about biking around Berkeley, thought I'd share it with other interested current and future Cal students.</p>
<p>-Get a good lock if you have a decent bike</p>
<p>-If you have a nice to really nice bike (> $400 and more) don't leave your bike locked and unwatched for hours at a time. Get a cheaper commuter bike (one you can always resell later) when you want to commute and lock it for hours on end day after day.</p>
<p>-There are some fantastic trails around Berkeley, for both road and mountain biking. </p>
<p>Road: up Walnut street to the top of Grizzly Peak, then if you want to be challenged, on to Wildcat Canyon and San Pablo Dam road, beautiful winding roads through greenery and challenging slopes. </p>
<p>If you're a serious rider (or want to become one!), Cal has a phenomenal cycling club. National championship caliber, but there probably are some rec-level riders there as well.</p>
<p>mountain: tilden Park has a lot of trails. Check out the trail maps at the Missing Link on Shattuck abve University.</p>
<p>MISSING LINK is a fantastic bike shop cooperative, with a repair shop across the street. Very honest and highly qualified employees/owners, all kinds of biking resources.</p>
<p>Hybrid/city riding: BARTing to SF with your bike (allowed except during weekday commute hrs) is a great idea for a fun day of exploring, dining and riding in the City.</p>
<p>There aren't really any indoors places to put bikes...if you live in the southside units, there are bike cages to lock up your bike, but if you're riding it around campus, you don't really have a choice except to keep it locked on the bike rack and hope it doesn't get jacked.</p>
<p>If you get a good lock (one of those very sturdy U-locks), it shouldn't be a problem. At most, someone could steal your back wheel, seatpost, handlebars, or fork. Those things aren't very valuable, especially on a road bike (unlike a mountain bike, where a fork might be valuable).</p>
<p>Anyway, in general, don't bring a nice bike to campus if you can avoid it.</p>
<p>theres a specific way to lock a bike so that the back wheel, frame, front wheel, seat, and chainrings are all locked together. The other stuff is free, but the cranks take special tools and the fork and stuff might be hard to do in a really quick time. </p>
<p>Will theifs go to lengths just to steal a fork ?</p>
<p>If you live in the Units, there is really no point in biking to class!!! It's borderline illegal to ride in some of the main campus thoroughfares during busy hours anyway.</p>
<p>It's only worth it if you live in Clark Kerr and you want to eat lunch there.</p>
<p>the ONLY place you cant ride is Sproul Plaza (you just have to walk it through)</p>
<p>and if you are on a bike, there's no reason to go through Sproul</p>
<p>From Unit 2 there is a good bike route and its kinda far, so i think youre wrong</p>
<p>if you are going from unit 2 to a place fairly far from sproul on campus, walking could be 25 minutes...bike would be 10 or EVEN LESS</p>
<p>(PS there is a big bike storage area in the mid and there are tons of bikes there--lots of people use em--i think only around 10% of kids regularlybike to class tho)</p>
<p>It's not just Sproul, you're not supposed to ride in the path between Moffit and Sather Gate and from Sather to Moses during class hours("dismount zones"). Those dismount zones also include narrow paths all over campus and most bridges over Strawberry Creek.</p>
<p>The engineering and bio corners are accessible through other roads/cycling paths.</p>
<p>If you add the time it takes to lock/unlock, retrieve and park your bike, biking from the units to campus is not worth it (unless you want to go back for lunch and have only one hour for that), especially if your bike is nice enough to be stolen.</p>
<p>As well, if you bike from the units, you'll need to be careful before getting to campus about not going the other way in one way streets (most southside streets are one-way). You would be ticketed as if you were driving a car in the wrong direction! You could also get a ticket for riding on the sidewalk.</p>
<p>how about from uphill, like from around Foothill down to Dwinelle, Sather Gate area? Is that illegal during the mornings? I need to ride to get to classes...</p>
<p>You can bike to Wheeler from foothill. technically, you'll have to walk your bike the last hundred yards or so. But do you realize that it's only a half a mile to Dwinelle from Foothill? about 6-8 minutes walk downhill...</p>
<p>It's nice having your bike to go downtown or to the stores/restaurants on Shattuck "Gourmet Ghetto" about a mile west, or to ride uphill for a workout, but if you are at foothill, riding to class is a bit of an overkill.</p>
<p>I wouldn't trivialize the walk from Foothill to Dwinelle. That's one of the longer walks on campus. Going down isn't a big deal, but coming up is kind of a pain. I'd recommend taking a bus from outside Cory to Sproul to make your life easier. At least do so on the way back up.</p>
<p>Those 10% either don't live near a bus stop or don't leave their residences early enough to get to class via the buses. Or they haven't bothered learning the bus lines.</p>
<p>well i only have ten minutes to get to dwinelle from pimental after my chem class is over, so im riding my bike no matter what anyone tells me in the campus.</p>
<p>elmo, from Pimental to Dwinelle it's only 5-6 minutes walk downhill without rushing. From Foothill to Dwinelle is about 7-8 min walk downhill.</p>
<p>If you live more than a half mile to a mile from campus, it makes sense to bike to class. If you live in any dorm other than Clark Kerr, biking is not that compelling. For Foothill, biking to class is a bit unnecessary, but it's good to have a bike for other stuff (going for a late night snack, southside, downtown etc). Get a detachable front light and a back blinker, it's the law after dark.</p>