My buddy and I decided to do a short bike ride today since we both have not ridden in a few weeks due to family and work obligations. We decided to drive to Black Mountain Road off of Highway 280 in San Mateo then ride from there. We rode down Skyline past the entrance to Sawyer Camp Trail, crossed the little bridge and my buddy pulls over thinking that something is wrong with his front wheel and I suddenly see him veer off to the left. I'm right on his wheel and I see what he was avoiding: a 2 foot long rattlesnake! As I was gliding past it the little tail was rattling at us but it was not coiled for a strike and I was about 2 feet away from it so it could not have struck me but it was still unnerving. This is the third snake I've almost ridden over in the three years that I have been riding but this is the first one that I've noticed was a rattler.

On our way back from our ride we stopped inside The Sawyer Camp Trail for a break and we overheard a lady telling a family about a rattlesnake she saw on the side of the trail minutes earlier and how another person on the trail had told her that she had seen an even larger one just days before.

Is it rattlesnake mating season?

I was planning on taking my kids to Sawyer Camp Trail tomorrow but now I'm thinking that either The Great Highway or The Bay Trail would be a safer bet.

3 of my buddies and I made a trip from Atlanta to Northern California this week to do some cycling. We came across this one on Geyser Road yesterday - he was in the middle of the road. About 18 inches long. Also saw several wild turkeys and a deer.
Great to see wildlife on rides!
Stinky

It is breeding season, but I suspect that a 2 footer is not old enough to breed yet. So likely they are just trying to warm up after a long winter's sleep, and find their first meal of the year.

Oh, there is only one type of rattlesnake that is native to the Bay Area - the northern pacific rattlesnake - http://www.calpoison.org/public/rattler.html

Seeing wildlife on a ride is no big deal for me (almost got ran over by a deer once, he bounded off into a different direction at the last moment before adding antlers to my helmet!). Seeing something that can kill me with a single bite so close is just unnerving to a degree that I cannot explain. Call me a wuus but I'm just a big city slicker at heart.