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Original Announcement:
Enjoy a 5 km or 7-8 km point to point course in the city streets of old downtown Palo Alto and its surrounding neighborhoods. Dennis Wilkinson is providing the courses and route choice opportunities! And then you're welcome to enjoy breakfast at Hobee's with us, where we are staging the event. They would appreciate a headcount, so give me a heads up if you plan on coming to this.
I spent my formative high school years in Palo Alto, and I visited downtown a lot. Making this map has revealed much to me that I didn't already know, especially about getting around. Many of the street blocks have alleys and parking lots dissecting them, so there's a lot of wiggly and diagonal routes available. The course will be set so that it rewards you to think, plan careful routes, and go off the beaten path a bit.
It's charming in the downtown and surroundings. In addition to the little park spaces, landscaping in general tends to be verdant and lush. There's a fair amount of retro-avant-garde architecture from the 60's and 70's that I especially noticed while making the map, and overall there's quite a span of building styles and architecture from over the years, going back to the late 1800's. Palo Alto was one of the first towns in the valley to really develop because of nearby Stanford University.
Although there are no major thoroughfares you must cross to do the course (aside from University Ave., if you count that,) traffic is a serious consideration out there. Avoid reading the map while crossing the street, and always look! Major thoroughfares are the boundaries of the map - Alma St., Embarcadero Rd., and Middlefield Rd. - so if you reach them, don't cross, because you'll go off the map and there are no checkpoints. And this is really just for fun - don't sacrifice your safety for a few extra seconds. You might factor in potential traffic in your route planning, so that you don't go back and forth over a street like University Ave. too much.
Details:
Starts available 7:00 A.M. to 9:00 A.M.
Cost $5, or included if you're registered for the whole week.
Directions:
From U.S. Highway 101 in Palo Alto, take the Embarcadero Road exit and go west towards Stanford University. At the major intersection with El Camino Real, turn right, then make an immediate right into Town and Country Village shopping center. Turn right and go along the edge of the building until you can make a left, then you should see Hobee's on your left.
Public Transit:
The Caltrain and many VTA and SamTrans buses can take you to the Palo Alto Transit Center, which is at El Camino Real and University. The VTA 22 line, for example, terminates at the transit center, and it stops on El Camino Real at the corner with Embarcadero.
Event Contact: Rex, 5 1 0 - 6 8 1 - 6 1 8 1, rex@terraloco.com
Map:
Scale 1:10000, 10 foot contours, produced July
2009 by Rex Winterbottom