The hook
An 1852 roadhouse beer garden, second-oldest tavern in California, that also happens to be where the internet took its first real breath.
01Why it's worth it
Rossotti's, or Zott's, or the Alpine Inn, has been pouring drinks in Portola Valley since 1852, a weathered wooden bar with a creekside back garden of picnic tables where Stanford students, ranchers, motorcyclists, and road cyclists have always mixed. The odd part: on August 27, 1976, a Stanford Research Institute van pulled up, researchers set a computer terminal on one of those picnic tables, and sent a message over a packet-radio network onward to the ARPANET and all the way to Boston. It was the first time separate networks were joined, the literal first "internet" transmission, and there's a plaque out back marking it. So you can drink a beer at a 170-year-old tavern on the exact spot where the connected world began. It's an easy roll from East Palo Alto, which makes it the natural first or last stop of a ride into the hills.
02How to experience it
Grab a burger and a beer in the back garden and find the plaque about the 1976 transmission. It's on Alpine Road in Portola Valley, right on the way toward Woodside and the climbs, so use it to start or close out a coast ride.