The Wiggle

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The Wiggle's city-installed route sign on Haight Street. Although the route is primarily famous for its energy-saving route up hill (north and west), the city route signs are also posted visible to riders heading down hill. One such rider, pictured, is turning south on Pierce Street from the eastbound direction of Haight Street.

The Wiggle is a major bicycle travel route along streets and paths in San Francisco, California. The route is known for staying nearly flat while weaving among a cluster of hills in the central portion of the city. Many adjacent streets have dramatically sharper grades as a result of these hills.

Rising 120 feet over the course of one mile, the path follows the historical route of Sans Souci Creek, a body of water which has been filled in and paved over since the early 20th Century. The route is most often followed up-grade toward the northwest, diagonally through a neighborhood known as the Lower Haight.[1]

For bicyclists, among whom the Wiggle has achieved great fame, the route begins at either end of the Duboce Bikeway on Market Street at an elevation approximately 100 feet above sea level. It then moves in a zig-zag to the northwest along Duboce Avenue, Steiner, Waller, Pierce, Haight, Scott, and Fell Streets to the Panhandle Bikeway at which point it has attained a height of 215 feet above sea level. An additional 50 feet elevation are gained in the Panhandle, before reaching the highest point at the top of the Sans Souci Creek drainage at Stanyan Street. From that point westward, elevations generally decrease to sea level at Ocean Beach.[2]

The Wiggle is used by bicyclists traveling between major eastern and central neighborhoods (such as Downtown, SoMa, The Mission District, The Castro) and major western neighborhoods (including the Panhandle, The Haight, Golden Gate Park with its museums[3], and The Richmond and Sunset Districts).

While some bicylists use the route in the downhill direction, it's benefits in avoiding hills makes it most important as a gradual route up, with grades never surpassing 6% and averaging only 3% in a city boasting many street grades approaching 30%.

Contents

[edit] The Route

from City Engineer Michael O'Shaughnessy's map
A 1928 San Francisco Public works proposal to extend the Panhandle Park to Market Street followed the Wiggle route exactly, but without the wiggling. The plan called for demolition of houses to allow a straight route.

Below are five route-finding techniques for those who follow the Wiggle: Geography, Signage, Map, Directions and a Mnemonic trick.

[edit] Geographic Route-finding

Without memorizing streets, a simple pattern will produce the route easily. The rider or pedestrian wishing to go on the flattest route makes a turn toward the north or west each time the forward direction presents a hill steeper than the turn.

Thus, starting northbound on Church at Market or westbound on Duboce at Market this pattern will avoid all steep areas and produce a route from Market Street to the bike path in the Panhandle of Golden Gate Park and the main routes through the Park itself. Similar "wiggles" can be found using this method for reading the geography in other hill areas, though this wiggle route is known most widely.

[edit] Signage

Follow the Bike Route 30 signs from Duboce Avenue westbound (at Market Street or Church Street). In some places, the signs also say "The Wiggle."[4]

[edit] Map

[6] Google map with terrain.

[edit] Directions

Westbound starting at Market and Duboce [7] (google maps)or Church and Duboce, the route takes these steps...

  1. Duboce - Head west
  2. Steiner - Turn right (north)
  3. Waller - Turn left (west)
  4. Pierce - Turn right (north)
  5. Haight - Turn left (west)
  6. Scott - Turn right (north)
  7. Fell - Turn left (west)

[edit] Mnemonic trick

The initial letters in the sequence of roads follows the consonants in SWaP HiS: Steiner, Waller, Pierce, Haight, Scott

[edit] Geological process that created the flat terrain

The hills adjacent to the route, on the northeast side are made of underlying serpentine rock:

The adjacent hills on the southwest are of the Franciscan chert formation:

These hills are the northernmost manifestation of the San Miguel Hills (including Twin Peaks), which themselves comprise the northern tip of the Santa Cruz Mountains.[5]

Over many thousands of years, through a process of gradual erosion at the seam of these two formations, the soft, crumbly serpentine washed down from the hills. It formed into a flat valley bottom. This flat creek bed contained, until roads and other construction obliterated them, the meandering stream of the creek itself and two ponds. as with all such flat valleys, the location of ponds tended to shift, but they were generally located at what is now Divisadero Street near Oak Street and at Market Street from Belcher Street to Reservoir Street—a little known public street which is currently the parking lot entry for the Safeway grocery store at 2020 Market Street. (The back of this store is located at the start of the Wiggle.) The reservoir referenced was the successor to the pond.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Tubular Times article (1994) about The Wiggle which first popularized the concept to bicyclists [1]
  2. ^ Map of The Wiggle (with terrain and elevation contour lines at 40-foot intervals) in Google Maps [2]
  3. ^ MapMyRide charted popular route to the De Young Museum of Art in Golden Gate Park from near Market Street [3]
  4. ^ Map of all official San Francisco bike routes with grades and other data (PDF) [4]
  5. ^ Flora of the Santa Cruz Mountains of California: A Manual of the Vascular Plants by John Hunter Thomas, page 3 [5]

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wiggle"