The southern end of San Francisco Bay is not the part that appears on postcards, which makes it more interesting for anyone who likes places that are a little overlooked. Egrets, avocets and pelicans work the shallows, and the smell on a warm day is salt, mud and marsh.
This is Silicon Valley's backyard. Palo Alto and Menlo Park, with their leafy streets and big tech campuses, lie just inland, and Stanford University is a few miles to the west, with its sandstone arcades and palm-lined avenues. East Palo Alto, with nearly thirty thousand people, has a long history of its own as a working-class community, and has been changing quickly. The Dumbarton Bridge crosses the bay here to the east side, a long, low causeway across the water, and the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge protects the marshes and pond system on the shore.
The road here is a very different kind of riding from the wine country of the Napa Valley, a good hour or more north. It is flat, busy and urban at the edges, with traffic lights, commuter flows and bike lanes, and it is best taken as a quiet spell of reflection at the end of a ride, not a highlight. Weekday rush hours are slow, so aim for mid-morning or evening. On the bayshore trails the roads are narrow and often empty, with wind off the water and long views toward the Diablo Range.
Fuel, cafes and shops are everywhere around Palo Alto and Menlo Park, and the food spans every style, from taquerias to bakeries to high-end restaurants. If you have time, walk out on a boardwalk in the marshes at sunset, with the lights of the east bay coming on across the water. Spring and autumn are the best seasons, when the air is clear and the migratory birds are in.