Moving to the bay area (San Jose) and trying to decide what the best area to live in is for someone that would like to be able to run and bike from their house. I only need ~1k sqft of space and would like to try and rent a place at first for ~3k/mo.
Thinking west bay area would be best but also the most expensive. ie, Woodside, Los Alto or even Los Gatos - so 3k may be a stretch.
Wife will be working in Campbell and i dont know where i will work.
Any help and guidance is appreciated.
Moving to the bay area (San Jose) and trying to decide what the best area to live in is for someone that would like to be able to run and bike from their house. I only need ~1k sqft of space and would like to try and rent a place at first for ~3k/mo.
Thinking west bay area would be best but also the most expensive. ie, Woodside, Los Alto or even Los Gatos - so 3k may be a stretch.
Wife will be working in Campbell and i dont know where i will work.
Any help and guidance is appreciated.
I live on the Sunnyvale/Los Altos border, and it is AWESOME. 1 mile away from epic single-track at Rancho San Antonio, 5 or 6 miles from the epic Santa Cruz Mountains bike climbs, only 10 or 15 min away from Campbell and the same from San Jose. Most importantly perhaps, there are 3 Trader Joes within a 4 mile radius.
Nothing is cheap in the Bay Area, but rent is less expensive here than elsewhere. In Woodside, they charge a kidney for rent. Palo Alto: 2 kidneys.
I live in Santa Clara myself. In general I don’t think you can go wrong regardless of which city you choose. I’d opt for something near your wife’s work. Also, take a look at strava heat maps and try to situate yourself near a hotspot. http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#12/-122.07125/37.34359/blue/bike
The most popular bike routes in the bay area all seem to revolve around foothill expressway which is one of the really blue ones on the heatmap.
Also the “west bay area” is typically referred to as “the peninsula”.
Los Altos would be ideal. $3k/month should get you 1K sqft.
You can run over at Rancho, and bike over to Woodside and Skyline easily.
I’m over in Menlo Park; great area, but a longer commute to Campbell. PS make sure to get a 280 commute if you can, 101 is a mess.
If you often find yourself wearing your tri suits around town, might I suggest the Castro… Rents might not be as cheap as some of the other options, but you’ll fit right in…
I live in Santa Clara myself. In general I don’t think you can go wrong regardless of which city you choose. I’d opt for something near your wife’s work. Also, take a look at strava heat maps and try to situate yourself near a hotspot. http://labs.strava.com/...5/37.34359/blue/bike
The most popular bike routes in the bay area all seem to revolve around foothill expressway which is one of the really blue ones on the heatmap.
Also the “west bay area” is typically referred to as “the peninsula”.
haha, thanks for the tip on the peninsula, im still a newbie
i have been looking at strava labs a little as well. thanks for the input on foothill.
awesome, thanks much for the feedback
.
you might take a look at Los Gatos, I used to live at the summit of 17 then 5 miles SE on Summit road, great Mt. biking (I mean great), but not for a tri guy (too far away from a pool).
Near town, though there are pools, parks and nice rides - close to Campbell. Technically Los Gatos wouldn’t be considered the peninsula. The suggestions further north are great as well. Going a bit south to Morgan Hill might be great, it’s an area I don’t know much about.
In my age group (50-54) it seems like most of the top ranked USAT athletes are from the SF Bay area (or close). I hate that. If you’re a team person check out Team Sheeper, or, Kain Performance. Tim and Peter are for REAL.
I hope you enjoy Silicon Valley - after 10 years “I got paroled (ha ha) and when to nirvana - aka Bozeman MT”
I’m also in Menlo Park and it’s a little to “suburbia-locked” for good runs straight from my door. Easy enough to ride over to Woodside/Portola Valley but I would love to be closer to or west of 280. Let me see if I can draw a circle around my ideal location. Mine is skewed worth for proximity to SF, but you may want to look at the southern end:
Circle is where I live, and anywhere in the box is where I want to live. Most of it is open space, but Woodside, Portola Valley, Los Altos Hills, Emerald Hills (in Redwood City) would all work.
I’m also in Menlo Park and it’s a little to “suburbia-locked” for good runs straight from my door. Easy enough to ride over to Woodside/Portola Valley but I would love to be closer to or west of 280. Let me see if I can draw a circle around my ideal location. Mine is skewed worth for proximity to SF, but you may want to look at the southern end:
Circle is where I live, and anywhere in the box is where I want to live. Most of it is open space, but Woodside, Portola Valley, Los Altos Hills, Emerald Hills (in Redwood City) would all work.
That pretty much nails it. That whole red area and west of it toward the water = bike heaven, and run heaven. It gets really hilly once you’re at the western red line, awesome for climbs, and gets very sparse on traffic and population in the mountains.
Ironically, I live in that red box and I do 90% of my workouts on a treadmill and a Kickr and a Vasa trainer now =( (but it’s working!)
Rancho San Antonio is a large park with several excellent climb trails.
I’m also in Menlo Park and it’s a little to “suburbia-locked” for good runs straight from my door. Easy enough to ride over to Woodside/Portola Valley but I would love to be closer to or west of 280. Let me see if I can draw a circle around my ideal location. Mine is skewed worth for proximity to SF, but you may want to look at the southern end:
Circle is where I live, and anywhere in the box is where I want to live. Most of it is open space, but Woodside, Portola Valley, Los Altos Hills, Emerald Hills (in Redwood City) would all work.
The key is to be west of El Camino Real. I live just a bit (<1/2mi.) east of ECR, and all my runs/rides start by heading west.
wow, that is perfect. thanks!
I’m also in Menlo Park and it’s a little to “suburbia-locked” for good runs straight from my door. Easy enough to ride over to Woodside/Portola Valley but I would love to be closer to or west of 280. Let me see if I can draw a circle around my ideal location. Mine is skewed worth for proximity to SF, but you may want to look at the southern end:
Circle is where I live, and anywhere in the box is where I want to live. Most of it is open space, but Woodside, Portola Valley, Los Altos Hills, Emerald Hills (in Redwood City) would all work.
The key is to be west of El Camino Real. I live just a bit (<1/2mi.) east of ECR, and all my runs/rides start by heading west.
Yep, West Menlo gets you easy access to the Portola Valley loop for riding and Alpine Rd and the Stanford Dish for running (plus hill repeats on the steep part of Valparaiso). Los Altos is also very good – you can get to great climbs very quickly, and for running, it’s easy to get from downtown onto the soft surface of the horse trails in Los Altos Hills in less than a mile.
Lots of triathletes and programs here too; I’m partial to Team Sheeper myself, but you really can’t go wrong.
Regarding Los Gatos, it is a nice town, but the traffic really blows if you have to deal with 17/85. The 280 corridor is the place to be.
Welcome to training paradise!
Ian
I just moved to Redwood City from Philadelphia and it is amazing. I can bike and run in the most amazing places within 10 minutes. Also, rent in RWC is cheaper than most places in the Bay Area
I’m also in Menlo Park and it’s a little to “suburbia-locked” for good runs straight from my door. Easy enough to ride over to Woodside/Portola Valley but I would love to be closer to or west of 280. Let me see if I can draw a circle around my ideal location. Mine is skewed worth for proximity to SF, but you may want to look at the southern end:
Circle is where I live, and anywhere in the box is where I want to live. Most of it is open space, but Woodside, Portola Valley, Los Altos Hills, Emerald Hills (in Redwood City) would all work.
That pretty much nails it. That whole red area and west of it toward the water = bike heaven, and run heaven. It gets really hilly once you’re at the western red line, awesome for climbs, and gets very sparse on traffic and population in the mountains.
Ironically, I live in that red box and I do 90% of my workouts on a treadmill and a Kickr and a Vasa trainer now =( (but it’s working!)
Rancho San Antonio is a large park with several excellent climb trails.
What gets me is people asking about good places to run…people…running is good literally EVERYWHERE in the world…you don’t need to waste time GOING somewhere to run…you can run right out your door unless there is freezing rain. I am in Santa Clara right now, and the hotel complex i am at, there has been more than once that I just chose to do loops around the parking lot, which measures out to 500m, so it works out to be a convenient track for intervals…I see this as not that much different than running one a bike path along a canal. I’ll often end the run with 15-20 min of hotel treadmill hills if there are no hills nearby. Personally I find running in a lot of places around the world far superior to many places in the Bay area from a convenience angle…I just can’t waste time going somewhere to run…at home I often use running to actually get myself somewhere! I was going to say the biking is awesome anywhere that you can set up a computrainer, but I am certainly partial to the various climbs out of Palo Alto up to Skyline.
But I think from a time effectiveness angle, you have a good plan using your indoor tools, and you could certainly have the same tools set up in Anchorage or Fargo or Duluth.
I do find the traffic riding around in certain parts of the Bay area not that fun, but on the balance you guys have decent bike lanes here and I am actually shocked at how few people use them. There are more people using the bike lanes back home in Canada with snow banks on the sides than the people using bike lanes here…I don’t get it. Bike commuting is quite popular back home, but perhaps not as popular/viable here (although I don’t see why not).
Having said all that, if you are a techie the Bay area is the best place on earth to live if professionally you want to get to being the best you can be and accomplishing the most…the technical, financial (VC, angel), collaborative, communication, culture and informal connection related infrastructure are better here than anywhere on earth. I choose to live where I do and take the professional penalty, because the lifestyle I have access to and cost of living is ultra low relatively speaking. It then allows me to work for hobby/pleasure rather than having to work because I am a company wage slave. I feel I am much more effective in my professional life being decoupled from my paycheque as a result of being able to get financially further ahead in a low cost of living place…it does mean that I have to haul myself across continent to the Bay area way too often so maybe a time will come that I should be here anyway. It really is the center of the Roman Empire for technology…everything else is far flung colonies to be used to make money and innovation off of, but the big stuff all goes on here.
Heck, I run 90% of my miles on a freaking Treadmill in my garage right now!
Still, I’ll have to strongly disagree about everywhere being equal to run. When I lived in urban areas, like downtown LA or NY, running anytime other than 5AM was a royal pain, and I’ve also lived in other areas that I didn’t consider safe to run due to the very fast traffic density and lack of run-friendly areas.
Rancho, by comparison, is beautiful, all off-road (super safe) and lovely year round, as I’m sure you know.
Heck, I run 90% of my miles on a freaking Treadmill in my garage right now!
Still, I’ll have to strongly disagree about everywhere being equal to run. When I lived in urban areas, like downtown LA or NY, running anytime other than 5AM was a royal pain, and I’ve also lived in other areas that I didn’t consider safe to run due to the very fast traffic density and lack of run-friendly areas.
Rancho, by comparison, is beautiful, all off-road (super safe) and lovely year round, as I’m sure you know.
My main point is that it is possible to run anywhere. Heck I have done some of my most awesome runs in my life in what is now Ebola ridden Monrovia Liberia. I have run intervals in a 100m long side street in Beijing where it was so congested where I could not run more than 10 meters straight on the road my hotel was on…finally I found a quiet street that no one was really on and spent 40 min sprinting one direction and jogging back the other way. When it comes to running, you can always make your own venue. There are very few limitations thus the beauty of running if you know what I mean. You don’t need to be anywhere special in Silicon Valley to run…here you can pretty well run everywhere out the front door. As for personal safety, I’ve never let that stop me from running anywhere in the planet. I remember running at 4 am once in Shenzhen China and have the police following me for the entire run…they were probably wondering what this crazy guy was up to. But I’m not a woman and have less worry. My sister would not be able to engage in the same range of risk taking as me, although I’d contend that she probably outruns anyone trying to attack her!!! She’s probably the fastest 47 year old woman who never races…everytime I run with her all 100 lbs of her are bolting out at 4 min per kilometers dropping me instantly.
All this to say, you can’t really go wrong with anything in Silicon Valley. The running pretty well everywhere is fine and so is the riding…it just goes from fine to absolutely spectacular. I remember one run outside the Santa Clara convention center where I just ran loops of the massive Great America Park parking lot (next door to Levis stadium). It was around 9 pm, and I did not want to run on the bike path (not lit), so I just ran intervals around that lot. It was an excellent run. I think workouts are largely what you make of them. I think too often there is an inclination to focus on the external environment rather than what is going on inside the body and mind. The external environment in the Bay area is really nice overall, but after a while that just becomes more of the same and you are back to focusing on what is going on inside your body at which point you can just be on the computrainer or treadmill and get the same if not better quality as you do…then you go treat yourself every so often banging out some climbs on Page Mill and riding along Skyline, which I’d say is certainly a piece of heaven on earth.
I just need to leave an extra bike at Rob Gray’s house so that I can ride out there once in a while when I make it over here…
One more location I really like, is the riding out in South San Jose near Silvercreek and then making your way over to Mount Hamilton…but realistically speaking how often do locals climb Mount Hamilton? I think you want to pick where you live based on where you work and have half decent athletic options nearby that are easily accessible.