The Peninsula/South Bay Scene

MTC planner Susan Heinrich checked out the scene in the West Bay and San Jose, rising at 3:30 a.m. and riding her vintage Nishiki 10-speed first from her SoMa home in San Francisco to the city’s 4th and Townsend Caltrain station, where she caught the 4:55 a.m. train to Mountain View (talk about dedicated!). She paused there to interview a few participants, then headed to the San Jose Diridon Station and ended at San Jose City Hall, where the Energizer Station was giving away free bike helmets — possibly the best freebie anywhere on Bike to Work Day.

Sean Simonson

Bike to Work Day was Sean’s first time riding to work since his accident 2 years ago that left him a quadriplegic. He has been training for two years on his custom-fit hand cycle, but today is the first time riding to work, cycling 17 miles (no train in between) from Palo Alto to Milpitas. “It was nice to see the sun rise,” he noted.

Spencer McDonald

Spencer is 56 years old and has biked to work (combining with Caltrain and VTA light-rail) every day for the last year and a half to Lockheed Martin, where he works as a furniture installer. He rides his bike seven blocks to the Bayshore Caltrain station, hops on Caltrain, then takes the VTA light rail to River Oaks, and then rides six blocks to Lockheed Martin. He does it to stay active, saying, “[Bicycling] is good for my everything!”

Sarah Portales

It has been awhile since Sarah, who lives in San Jose and works at San Jose State University, has ridden her bike. She needed a helmet to get riding again, so she picked up a free one from the city of San Jose’s Energizer Station. She is starting to ride again because she wants to set an example for her son, save on gas and get some exercise.

Paul Beak

Bike to Work Day was Paul’s first time riding to work since he changed jobs — he used to work in Sunnyvale but now works at Adobe in San Jose. He plans to bike to work in the summer when his children are not in school (he won’t have to take them to school in the mornings). He thought Bike to Work Day would be a good day to try out his bike commute to his new job. Paul took his bike on Caltrain from Sunnyvale to San Jose Diridon station and rode to work from there.

Anthony Merriett and Sergey Gorbatov

Anthony and Sergey are interns at City of San Jose. They took the unique opportunity to change up their work week by being bike mechanics at the city of San Jose Energizer Station. Anthony is in urban planning at San Jose State and Sergey is in business at the Santa Clara University.

Adele Newman

Adele bikes every day. Since today was especially hot, she decided to “be lazy” and take her bike part way on Caltrain. She took her folding Brompton bike on Caltrain and rode the train from Mountain View to the Downtown San Jose station, riding her bike the rest of the way to Verizon in San Jose.

Conor Lynch and Erik Munoz

Conor and Erik are 15 years old and are biking to school at St. Francis High School in Mountain View. Conor biked to the San Mateo Caltrain station, took Caltrain to Mountain View, and then biked to school from there. Conor encouraged his friend Erik to start bicycling to school and to meet at the Mountain View station to bike together. Conor has been biking every day for two months because he wants to save the environment. His parents are big environmentalists and encourage him to ride his bike. Conor got up at 5:30 a.m. to make it to Mountain View by 7 a.m. Erik had to wake at 5 a.m. because he had a longer commute. Erik lives in Millbrae and biked to Caltrain, rode Caltrain to Mountain View to meet Conor. They would like more room on the trains for bikes and a ramp to aid in lifting their bike up the steps. Erik went even further to say that he thinks there should be two bike cars on every Caltrain so that conductors won’t have to sometimes bump bicyclists.

Ken Ledbetter

Ken lives in San Jose and works at NASA AMES Research in Moffett Field. He has been doing a bike/train combo commute every day for years. He enjoys it very much because he’s productive on the train, it saves wear and tear on his car, and it’s good for the environment.

Jose Alvarez

Jose lives in Sunnyvale and has biked to work three to four times a week for the last year. Jose is a software engineer at Intuit, which offers showers in its building, as well as showers in the gym/locker room that’s also on site. When he moved further away from Intuit, gas got really expensive so he thought he would give bicycling a try. He has now also decided to train for the Aids Life Cycle. Jose appreciated that his commute on Bike to Work Day was very nice and warm — not cold at all!

Rocco Petrunti

Rocco has used his bike as part of his commute to work at Stanford for three years. Rocco bikes to the Palo Alto Caltrain station and then to the office from the Mountain View station. During Daylight Savings, he just bikes all the way home in the evenings. He is a member of the Stanford Commute Club and also maintains his rideshare profile on the 511 Rideshare site, in case he needs to carpool sometime.

More Peninsula Bike to Work Day Photos: