Tour de Oakland - Level A Ride

Join the Gals for a leisurely sight-seeing ride on the "sunny side" of the Bay around Beautiful Downtown Oakland! We'll start and end our ride at Frank Ogawa Plaza, site of Oakland's iconic Live Oak and City Hall. We will tour by some of Oakland's urban landmarks. The streets are wide and pretty quiet here on the weekends - we'll ride by Preservation Park, Swan's Market, Chinatown, Jack London Square, the Oakland Museum, passing by Lake Merritt's Amphitheater and Pergola on our ride around the Lake. We'll swing into Belvedere Street to see the Boat House, Bonsai Garden and Children's Fairyland. Then we will ride to Grand Lake Theater and continue up Grand Avenue, for a stop at the Morcom Rose Garden on our way to Chapel of the Chimes and Millionaire's Row at Mountain View Cemetery, a stand of remarkable mausoleums to visit either up close (optional) or view them from the turnaround below. From here we will ride down the length of Piedmont Avenue. We may find ourselves arguing about where to stop for our break - there are so many great places to get coffee, snacks, lunch, scream...you name it, you can eat it in Oakland! When we get to the new Kaiser hospital, we'll jag over to Broadway for the final leg of our tour, passing Pill Hill, the Paramount Theater, and turn one block over to Telegraph Ave to the Fox Theater, the Cathedral Building (the band Green Day owns the top floor) and newly revived Latham Square before returning to Frank Ogawa Plaza to end our ride.

If this ride fills up, please join the wait list. We get a lot of last minute cancellations and space almost always opens up.

BE PREPARED -- Bring water it gets warm in Oakland's sunshine. Plenty of bathrooms and refreshment options all along the route. Sunscreen recommended.

Start time: Please arrive by 10:00 for a 10:15 start.

Level: A

Distance: 12.5 miles with minor uphill moments (~500 ft climb overall)

Start/Finish Frank Ogawa Plaza, corner of Broadway and 14th Street. Meet at the BART elevator there. Look for our green & white Gals With Gears banner.

This link shows the approximate route: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/27224525

We ride a relaxed pace, have regroups and no one gets left behind.

RSVP, helmet, bike in good condition and basic riding skills required.

Rain cancels. We will send a message via Meetup if we cancel to those who RSVP for the ride.

We are grateful to the San Francisco Bike Coalition and Bike East Bay for advocacy to improve conditions for bicycling in the Bay Area and also sponsor our rides. We encourage you to check out their work and become members -you can join at, or after, a ride for $25 per organization for a one-year membership.