Bicycles

NASA Ames Research Center is a pretty bicycle friendly place.  There are bike racks in front of many buildings, the speed limit is 25 mph (40 kph) in most places (and as low as 15 mph/25 kph on some streets), and a lot of people use bicycles to get around, permanent contractors and civil servants as well as students and interns.  However a few points are worth mentioning.

Bicycle helmets are required on ARC/Moffett-Field.  If you're on a bike and not wearing a helmet, the police will stop you, and you can be ticketed.  They're very serious about this, so don't test it.

Bicycles are required to obey traffic signs and speed limits, just like cars.  That's true in almost every jurisdiction.  However, while police in some jurisdictions may ignore traffic violations by bikes, the police at ARC do not.  They are very likely to stop you if they see you biking the wrong way on a one-way street, blowing through stop signs, or exceeding the speed limit.  To repeat:  STOP at the freaking stop signs, already.  Like staying under 186,000 miles a second, it's not just a good idea, it's the law.

Parking or chaining your bike on sidewalks or in front of doors or stairs is prohibited almost everywhere on ARC.  It's probably also a violation of fire codes, earthquake codes, and/or zombie uprising codes.

Finally, be aware that you may end up sharing the road with some odd contraptions.  A number of Segways are in use around ARC, as are several electric cars and car-like contraptions, and homebuilt robots and even stranger vehicles are occasionally spotted.  You don't have to do anything special traffic-wise when you see them (although you probably ought to give killer robots from the future the right of way), but if you stare at them too long and smack into a tree, you're going to feel silly.  You might have to make up a story about getting mugged by nine heavily armed Klingons in order to save face when your roommate asks where you got that black eye.

Incidentally, Mountain View also encourages bicycles, and has quite a few bike racks and bike lanes.  Bicycles are a pretty handy way to get around this whole area.