Geocaching expedition through S.F.’s Golden Gate Park

Caught Golden Gate Transit​’s Route 101 down to San Francisco on Saturday, Sept. 29, for an adventure in geocaching. San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency​’s Routes 28 and 5 brought us out to Ocean Beach, and we then made our way through S.F.’s Golden Gate Park​, hunting for caches as we went. Our final geocaching stop for the day was outside the de Young Museum​, near its “Pool of Enchantment.” Cool, overcast weather made a great day for traveling through Golden Gate Park on-foot. We’re looking forward to further geocaching expeditions aboard the area’s public transit.

Sonoma County employer earns ‘Bicycle Friendly’ status

​For the first time, a Sonoma County employer has earned certification as a Bicycle Friendly Business by the League of American Bicyclists. (​This welcome news comes via the Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition.)

Dare we hope that more businesses follow the example of Sutter Santa Rosa Regional Hospital?

My husband and I live and travel throughout a city that’s a Bicycle Friendly Community — but too often, sidewalks are the only safe place to ride along roads that were only built for cars. ​​It’s vitally important to have safe and complete routes to get us where we need to go.​

When we reach our destinations, we frequently find no secure place to lock up our bicycles. Too often, around town, we’ll see a bicycle still attached via a lock through its frame to a rack — only to see that someone has stolen one or more tires. Or a reflector. Or the seat.

What sort of message does a business think it sends when it posts a sign proclaiming itself “not responsible” for the theft of your bicycle?

In addition to exposing our bikes to weather and possible theft, many of the racks appear designed and installed by someone who doesn’t ride — someone who, therefore, doesn’t understand the practical needs of cyclists.

For example, we’ll find racks that were placed too close to a wall or other barrier — so there isn’t any room to attach a bike to the now-useless, solely decorative rack.

This absence of safe, usable, bike parking at the majority of Santa Rosa businesses really shows in glaring contrast to what Sutter is doing right ... specifically, providing “secure covered parking” for its employees who ride bicycles.

Personally, we’d love to see more BikeLink® lockers at business and government buildings. ​For a few cents per hour, we can lock up our bikes safe from thieves and inclement weather. Sadly, however, BikeLink® locations are still few and far between; we find them mainly at SMART Train stations and on the Santa Rosa Junior College campus.

Rails-to-trails through Sonoma, Mendocino, and Humboldt counties

A bill awaiting signature by California governor Jerry Brown would convert 300 miles of decommissioned rail line ​into a pedestrian and bicycling trail. The trail will still face numerous hurdles in the way of its completion, but just imagine what it could do for bicycle touring in northern California. (​Via Brian Coyne, the San Francisco Chronicle)

Trackable geocaching tokens

CityBus pass and PathTags token

Bought a couple of all-day CityBus passes, and headed out for geocaching adventure. First stop, “Good Grief Sparky!,” which requires the user to visit a Santa Rosa landmark — where, using information we obtained on-site, we were able to obtain the coordinates we needed to locate a hidden cache.

Geocaching

Jonathan and I have embarked on an outdoor treasure-hunting adventure! Geocaching involves using GPS to locate a hidden object.

With so many phones now equipped with GPS, participation can be as simple as downloading a free app and creating an account.

Caches come in a range of sizes, and shapes. This one had an appealing “hand-crafted” look, sort of a paper-collage effect.

The caches generally include a paper “log” for finders to write their names, but some of them also carry little “prizes” and even trackable tokens. If you take a prize from the Geocache, it’s nice to leave something too, for the next finder who comes along.

Jonathan and I went around to some local thrift stores and assembled a “stash” of trinkets, less than $1 each. Later, we might also purchase tokens from the Geocaching store.

I especially like combining Geocache with a ride via public transit or a trip on-foot or by bicycling. Yesterday, we caught Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit from downtown Santa Rosa. We disembarked in Cotati, and then used our apps to look for nearby caches.

West County Regional Trail via bicycle

Image credit: Sonoma County Regional Parks

After taking several successful round-trips on bicycle between Santa Rosa and Sebastopol, Jonathan and I made our first foray this week on the West County Regional Trail between Sebastopol and Forestville.

West County Regional Trail is 5.5 miles in length, according to Sonoma County Regional Parks. “The path is separated from Highway 116 and offers views of farms, pastures, and vineyards.”

We began our ride from our apartment to Santa Rosa-downtown and out the Prince Memorial Greenway, which, if we stayed on it, would become the Santa Rosa Creek Trail. But for this ride, we headed out the Joe Rodota Trail to reach downtown Sebastopol.

We had to navigate downtown Sebastopol traffic to reach the West County Regional Trail entrance. We fell in line behind a tour group of riders led by Getaway Adventures.

Once on the trail, we found it quiet and peaceful, fragrant from eucalyptus and far from traffic noises. We rode the trail until it met up with Old Gravenstein Highway; on future rides, we plan to tackle additional segments of the trail.

Commute by-bike for summer school

During the summer, I’m working for “summer school” at Montgomery High School in Santa Rosa. My work-days this week each began and ended with a bicycle ride. It takes me a 15- or 20-minute ride to reach Montgomery High School from our apartment.