Lonn's Bay Area Mountain Biking Chronicles

A Compendium of Weekly Rides in the SF Bay Area

Recent Rides: Stevens Canyon November 20 Fremont Older November 18 Alpine Road November 17 Fremont Older November 16 Sierra Azul November 15 Quicksilver November 13 Fremont Older November 12 Fremont Older November 11 Alpine Road November 10 Coe November 8 Fremont Older November 7 Kennedy November 6 Fremont Older November 4 Alpine Road November 3 Saratoga Gap November 1	Stevens Canyon Autumn What did I get us into? The climbing is done! Typical mid-November ride Sierra Azul Elevation Sierra Azul Route
Stevens Canyon - November 20 Distance: 15.31 miles Ascent: 2253 Moving time: 1:53 hours A storm was set to blow in today, so I tried to get an early start at Stevens Canyon to get a ride in before the storm hit. In the interest of time, I started at Redwood Gulch and rode up Stevens Canyon Road and then the Canyon Trail and Indian Creek to the summit. I was the only person on the trail until I saw a ranger doing some repair work at the Backpackers' Camp. The trails were covered with leaves and the ferns and mosses were a brilliant green. It was great to be out on the trail with the autumn colors and the quiet. The real story of the ride turned out to be the weather. My ride started with cool air (nothing that could not be solved with a long sleeve shirt) and it got moister the farther and highere I went. At first it was a very light mist, then a heavier mist, and then a slight drizzle that increased in denisty as I ascended. As I started up Indian Creek, the drizzle turned to light rain and a hint of wind appeared. As I broke out of the tree cover, the wind started picking up. By the time I got to the climb into Backpackers' Camp, the wind was howling. This was about the only time I can remember the wind actually helping push me up the hill. As I got there, I pass the ranger who complained about the cold, but I was doing fine with the heat being generated from climbing. As I got to the summit of Black Mountain, the wind was really howling and driving the rain horizontally. I didn't even bother to stop at the summit and returned to the Backpackers' Camp to put my windbreaker over my soaked shirt before heading down Bella Vista. The ranger was there again and trying to convince himself that it was not save to be working under the trees in the high wind. Now it was my turn to ride against the wind. As I headed down the singletrack, the wind was driving the rain into my face like an unending stream of needles. The gusts were so strong that it blew me off of the trail and up onto the hillside. At one point, I came around a corner and came to a complete stop as the wind blew directly into my face. I was completely wet and between the wind and my downhill speed, my hands were starting to get plenty cold. It was nice to reach the bottom and start pedaling again to generate some heat. At the bottom, the wind died down and there was a light rain, making the ride fast and enjoyable. The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful with the exception of meeting a different ranger walking along the trail at the creek crossing. I really like riding in the fall. The colors on the trail are a real treat. The air is cool but not cold. The people are mostly gone and the animals are out. Everything is as it should be!
Ride reports Map Photos Equipment Recommendations
What's New October 29, 2009 Updated Merged trail map and Harvey Bear

Welcome to my mountain biking web site. By consistently riding between one and four times a week year round I have logged over 9,937 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 1,623,000 feet (over 307 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.

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