Lonn's Bay Area Mountain Biking Chronicles

A Compendium of Weekly Rides in the SF Bay Area

Recent Rides: Fremont Older November 7 Kennedy November 6 Fremont Older November 4 Alpine Road November 3 Saratoga Gap November 1 Fremont Older October 31 Canada del Oro October 30 Harvey Bear October 29 Sanborn October 27 Pogonip October 25 Coe October 24 Stevens Canyon October 22 Fremont Older October 20 El Corte de Madera October 18 Fremont Older October 16 El Sereno October 11 Fremont Older October 10 Fremont Older October 6 Grant October 4 Fremont Older October 2 El Sereno October 1	Don at the bench View to the Pacific Peters Creek Long Ridge Saratoga Gap Elevation Saratoga Gap Route
Alpine Road Night Ride - November 3 Distance: 15.87 miles Ascent: 2259 Moving time: 1:54 hours Some friends invited me on a night ride on Alpine Road. They said that the combination of good weather and a full moon was not to be missed. They were right! We started in Portola Valley and rode up Alpine Road to the end, went through the gate, and continued on the dirt. This was quite a bit of fun as we rode with minimal lighting. I thought, and several others also commented, that the climbs on the detour seemed easier than usual. This was a bit surprising since the amount of trail one could see was very limited by the lights and the uphill, twisty trail on the detour. It would have been nice to get a picture of one of the guys ahead of me in the glow of his light as he rode through the trees, but I knew that my camera would not have taken a good picture. We did some other riding (remember the first rule of Fight Club) before returning to the cars. Riding by moonlight was great. I really enjoyed this ride as I felt strong and rode well, I generally like night rides, the great weather and trail conditions, and the nearly full moon. Everything seemed to be in alignment!
Ride reports Map Photos Equipment Recommendations
What's New October 29, 2009 Updated Merged trail map and Harvey Bear October 24, 2009 Updated Merged trail map and Coe

Welcome to my mountain biking web site. By consistently riding between one and four times a week year round I have logged over 9,798 miles in the last eight years, almost entirely on trails in Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, and San Mateo counties in Northern California. I live near the coastal range, so there has been quite a bit of climbing involved. So far, my total elevation gain is somewhere over 1,599,000 feet (over 303 miles) of vertical climbing! Going vertically, this puts me somewhere between the International Space Station and the Hubble telescope!

Most of my riding has been with Ken, my brother-in-law, and Don and Anna. We have gone to almost all of the local open space preserves, state and county parks in and around Santa Clara County, and some places that just aren't identified. If you know of any good rides I haven't done, please drop me a note in the guestbook!

I have been taking a GPS on every ride (and a few hikes) for many years, so I have built up a pretty useful set of trail information. Using the GPS data, I have elevation profiles for each ride. I have merged multiple rides in each location into a single combined trail map that you can display in Google Earth. You might find this interesting (I think this is pretty cool). I have been having fun plotting the information from each ride on the computer and making all sorts of calculations. We have done quite a few major hills throughout Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties, including rides up to the Lick Observatory and Mt. Umunhum (the blue cube). My longest ride (so far) was a 72 miler cross-country from my driveway out to the coast at Pescadero and back. Over the course of our rides we have seen a wide variety of wildlife, including cougars, bobcats, coyotes, deer, wild pigs, rabbits, turkeys, foxes, quail, vultures, owls, woodpeckers, butterflies, ticks, mosquitos, flies, squirrels, rattlesnakes, lizards, newts...well you get the idea.

I have put together a few of my local ride profiles. Please click on the ride name you are interested in on the map below to see a detailed ride profile.

Here are detailed ride reports for some of my rides. Please take a look and let me know what you think by putting a note in the guestbook!

I have put some of the better pictures I have taken on another page. I usually take the camera, but the best picturs don't always capture the best views due to the riding, the camera and my completely amateur photographic skills. Even the better pictures fail to capture the scenes properly. Disk space is limited, so I have a lot of pictures from multiple rides that are not currently on my web site. Please contact me if you have a request for a specific picture.

I have selected a few ride recommendations that may be useful to riders new to this area. Please drop a note in the guestbook if you have additional suggestions.

You are visitor

Please sign my guestbook