What happens when you plan a bike ride with 15+ Local Guides from all over the world, in San Francisco, the Sunday before LG Summit 17???
THIS happens!
Let’s see if I can manage to tag them all: @IrenaS , @FazZ , @YK1001 , @Andras_H , @JulienH , @CaduF , @MuhannadK , @Carl , More in the comments. LGC only allows 10 tags… D;
Using a thread that I started in response to others wanting to bike the city I call home, we put together the idea to rent bikes (I brought my folding bike from home) and ride along the San Francisco Bay shore. Originally, we were going to ride north from the Ferry Building toward the Golden Gate Bridge. Plan changed when we realized that San Francisco’s Fleet Week was the same weekend. 1 million people flood the city (and especially the areas I was planning to go!) to watch air shows and see the Fleet (the U.S. Navy) and all the grandeur of the giant ships back in port. This does NOT mix well with cycling. So we went south instead ![]()
Mission Bay is both an old and new part of town in San Francisco. Home to the Port of San Francisco, it used to be busy with all of the docks and warehouses needed to handle our shipping. Oakland has really taken over most of that on the opposite side of the Bay and SF’s port is slowly fading out.
But one thing that Silicon Valley knows how to do masterfully is pivot! That is exactly what’s happening here in the Mission Bay neighborhood.
In early 2015, Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, opened UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital. Nearly two years later the neighborhood is showing signs of all that growth. Shiny new apartment buildings, upswing in business for all the shops and restaurants in the area. Some really good food and locally crafted spirits are found there now. You can still see the remains and some operational manufacturing and shipping warehouses. The ones that are closed are being renovated into loft spaces and businesses while preserving their old bones. The architecture there is beautiful!
We biked out, using Google Maps biking directions, to Philz Coffee and then slowly made our way back to Justin Herman Plaza…with the exception of me. My bike got a flat tire when we were nearly done
I had to Uber the rest of the way and let my new friends go on without me…
Pro Tip!: We set up Location Sharing on Google Maps with all of those on the bike ride and a few that wanted to try and catch up with us. Best idea EVER!!! Because of Location Sharing, at least 3 Summit attending Local Guides were able to join up with us! I’m going to do this for ALL future Meet Ups. It just made it sooooo much easier! Through out the Summit, we continued to use Location Sharing and it saved the day on more than a few instances!
So who’s ready to sign up for the NEXT Pre-Summit Bike Tour of SF? I know I am! Better get to work on earning my way back!!! Starting NOW!!!
I hope we all get to do this again next year!





