Woodside via Canada Road (50 miles)

This morning I drove over to Burlingame on the Peninsula to do a 50 mile ride from the Velogirl's library, called "Woodside via Canada with Alpine/Edgewood loop". The peninsula isn't really my favorite riding locale, but they do have lots of rolling hills, which I thought would be good practice for the upcoming coastal ride.

The ride starts and ends in downtown Burlingame, which is actually quite quaint. Who knew? It then retraces some of the same roads as the Giro di Peninsula metric, but avoids the biggish climb up Page Mill.

Canada Road (miles 8-15) is closed to car traffic on Sundays. It's great to have the whole road reserved for cyclists, runners, and rollerbladers. A couple of miles down Canada I spotted a Greek temple out of the corner of my eye.



Naturally I stopped to investigate and it turns out that this is the Pulgas Water Temple, built in the '30s to celebrate the terminus of the Hetch Hetchy aquaduct that brings water from the Sierras to the bay area. Until 2004, water flowed through this temple into the Crystal Springs reservoir.

Further on, the route takes a little detour through historic Woodside and passes by the Woodside Store, a restored 19th century building once used by a Dr. Tripp.


According to the historical marker, the store was "built in 1854 among sawmills and redwood groves by Dr. R. O. Tripp and M. A. Parkhurst: operated by Dr. Tripp in person (who also served as dentist, librarian, postmaster, and community leader) until his death in 1909."

Animules: lots of horses
Distance: 50 miles
Time in the Saddle: 4 hours 45 minutes
Elevation Gain: 2850 ft
Route map: Woodside via Canada