Northern California - Silentben's Henry Coe Ride - report and pictures

A great ride. Thanks Silentben.

I knew that the other guys were riding to the start, so I got there early and did a 5 mile spin around the local area to warm up a bit. A good thing too, because the ride started at a brisk pace down the valley on this bike trail.

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d195/gw_12/bf-hc/hc1.jpg

It was my first time on the climb into Henry Coe State Park. A nice climb with moderates grades most of the way, a couple of downhills, and a few fairly steep pitches to keep it interesting. Nice views and lot's of signs that spring's almost here too.

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d195/gw_12/bf-hc/hc2.jpg

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d195/gw_12/bf-hc/hc8.jpg

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d195/gw_12/bf-hc/hc3.jpg

There's an old ranch, which is now the park Visitor Center, at the top...

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d195/gw_12/bf-hc/hc7.jpg

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d195/gw_12/bf-hc/hc4.jpg

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d195/gw_12/bf-hc/hc6.jpg

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d195/gw_12/bf-hc/hc5.jpg

continued...

Back down in Morgan Hill, seconds after I took this picture a MH cop pulled us over and lectured me on the need for us to stay to the right of the white line, in the bike lane.

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d195/gw_12/bf-hc/hc9.jpg

After lunch in MH, we continued to the west side of the valley up and around the Chesbro Reservoir

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d195/gw_12/bf-hc/hc15.jpg

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d195/gw_12/bf-hc/hc16.jpg

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http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d195/gw_12/bf-hc/hc11.jpg

Over Bailey, up along 101.

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d195/gw_12/bf-hc/hc13.jpg

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d195/gw_12/bf-hc/hc12.jpg

continued...

Nice pics Glen! Thanks for taking/sharing.

Back in San Jose, I split from to group to head back to my car while they continued north on Monterey Highway. I was just under 5000 feet of climb for the day, so I decided to find one more hill before calling it a day. I continued on Bernal and climbed to Santa Teresa County Park.

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d195/gw_12/bf-hc/ahc1.jpg

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d195/gw_12/bf-hc/ahc2.jpg

There was a "Private Property" sign right after the park trailhead at the top, which I assumed meant the surrounding land, not the road. A bit up the road this sign made it more clear. :)

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d195/gw_12/bf-hc/ahc3.jpg

So I turned around and heading back to my car. I ended up with 71 miles and 5500 feet of climb.

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d195/gw_12/bf-hc/ahc4.jpg

NIce pictures - looks like a great ride. Can't believe that you got pulled over for not riding to the right of the white line though. Sheesh!

Thanks for another great ride. That ride up to Coe park was longer than I thought. I did get my century for February, my stats where 107 miles and 5950 ft of altitude, which includes the ride to the start from Fremont down East SJ and over Silver Creek.

I think I need to work on my camera skills. Here are the only three pics which came out.

Good art! Thanks.

Nice ride...looks like spring is around the corner!

I must've just missed you guys. I was looking for you on the way down around 11:00.

Perfect climbing weather today, maybe a little too chilly and breezy up top for me to hang around for too long.

Jeesh.......what's with all the police interest in cyclists around the Bay Area lately. I'm sensing a trend.

There was a "Private Property" sign right after the park trailhead at the top, which I assumed meant the surrounding land, not the road. A bit up the road this sign made it more clear. :)

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d195/gw_12/bf-hc/ahc3.jpg

So I turned around and heading back to my car. I ended up with 71 miles and 5500 feet of climb.

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d195/gw_12/bf-hc/ahc4.jpg

That is actually the IBM campus. We ride through it all the time, they dont seem to mind. Hundreds of cyclists a day. The decent from where you were will come out on Harry Ave which is where Almaden Expy begins. If you had followed the direction I went you could climb up from the other side and decend down to Bernal. The Almaden side is private so little to noo traffic. Great for repeats.

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d195/gw_12/bf-hc/hc5.jpg


I got a nose bleed going up Coe. You can see the blood splatter on my arm in this picture (look close).

So I stopped, and when Glen/Ben caught up, I asked if any of them as a tissue. Glen had a "Wet Ones" wet nap in his saddle pack from like 1992. :lol:

So I squeezed it to get it mostly dry, balled up a piece of it, shoved it in my nose and tried to chase down the group.

I was almost latched back on to Ramon, when I started to feel dizzy from the chemicals in the wet nap. Which I later found out to be the following: SD Alcohol 40, Propylene Glycol, Aloe Barbadensis Gel, Glycerin, PEG-60 Lanolin, Disodium Cocoamphodiacetate, Potassium Sorbate, Citric Acid, Disodium EDTA, Fragrance. :eek::eek: LOL

At that point Glen/Ben passed me up and I started to fall back, and knew I had to get rid of the chemicals. Luckily the nose bleed stopped, and I tossed the wet nap. Around 5-10 mins later, I felt much better and got my 2nd wind and was able to reel Ramon back in around 3/4 of the way to the top.

I loved doing that Coe ride back in HS in the late 70's. I grew up in San Martin, and regularly rode up to Coe as a teenager. Back then I could easily do it on a bike with only 10 gears. I tried it last summer on my Ciocc with 12 years, and I decided I need to lose some weight and get in better shape before I can make it back up there. Thanks for the pictures from my hometown!

You can see the blood splatterNow that's hardcore.

I want a jersey that looks like it's soaked in blood.


Around 5-10 mins later, I felt much better and got my 2nd windDoper. :P

(Note to self: Carry ether-soaked wet-naps for possible hilarity.)

I want a jersey that looks like it's soaked in blood.

That's not a problem. Come on over, and wear the jersey of your choice. Bring a tire iron or a box cutter, depending on the effect you're after.


:D

Great pics.
It's amazing how green everything is; unfortunately all the green turns to flammable brown too quickly.

That's not a problem. Come on over, and wear the jersey of your choice. Bring a tire iron or a box cutter, depending on the effect you're after.Oh, I can do that part myself. That's no problem. There's a possibility of it coming off in the wash, though, so a printed-on depiction of splattered/sprayed blood would be more long-lasting.

This was a fun ride with a lot of miles on trails instead of on streets. Even though we had to occasionally slow down for pedestrians and strollers, the trails still provided a fun curvy alternative to the road.

I tried a new position for my camera - mounted on my seat post facing backwards. It worked out pretty well except it was harder to reach back and press the shutter button, especially while climbing on the steep parts of Dunne road

So here is my ride log. There is also a map here (http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2598610).

Mile 12: Met up with Ramon on Central Expressway. Marco is running late and is somewhere behind us :lol:
Mile 18: Ramon and I stop for a minute and Marco catches up. The three of us continue through downtown San Jose at a noticeably quicker pace than Ramon and I were setting earlier.
Mile 27: We hit the Coyote Creek bike trail at Tully Road. Access to part of the trail is fenced off and we have to carry our bikes across a small stretch of soggy grass. The trail has a lot of unsigned branches but somehow we take all the right ones. We go right past Hellyer velodrome and then finally pop out on Silicon Valley Rd at the exact same time that Donald is passing by. The four of us ride to the official ride start.
Mile 36: We arrive at Starbucks on time (!) and meet up with Sean and Glenn. Then it's back onto the bike trail again down to Morgan Hill. The trail is still fun but there's definitely some headwind. We see some wild pigs!
Mile 51: Marco needs a new cleat so we stop at the Specialized Concept store at Dunne and Condit. Nice shop.

http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/8167/pict0006ch7.jpg
http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/6061/pict0007id6.jpg

Mile 53: We turn off the main road and climb for a bit on Thomas Grade. This is a much quieter and slower section of road and bypasses the busy Dunne Rd.

http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/2333/pict0010aq3.jpg
http://img116.imageshack.us/img116/5598/pict0016bc6.jpg
http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/977/pict0019qc1.jpg

Mile 63: The top! It's rather anticlimactic to get here since you hit the road's high point and then descend a bit before reaching the end of the road. I buy a delicious bottle of cold gatorade for a dollar. We meet a couple of mountain bikers who have been riding dirt all day.
Mile 77: BigSean leads us to a little burger joint in Morgan Hill for lunch. There is only one little old lady working the kitchen and so it takes a long time for all of our food to get cooked but I don't think anyone minds the chance to rest. Donald takes a short nap here :)
Mile 80: Up and over a small hill on Llagas Road. There is finally some direct sunlight which makes everything look even nicer. There is a rather large flock of wild turkeys in the road but they scatter before we get to them.

http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/9161/pict0029em5.jpg
http://img82.imageshack.us/img82/9770/pict0030av6.jpg
http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/9388/pict0031ds6.jpg

Mile 84: Sean splits off on McKean and the rest of the group heads east on Bailey.
Mile 96: Glenn splits off on Bernal and Marco, Ramon, Donald, and I continue on Monterey Highway. This section of road is littered in gravel and debris. It is bumpy. Then we start hitting every single red light. There is a lot of traffic and each red light takes like 2 minutes. The good thing is that we have a tailwind and are seriously moving in between lights!
Mile 102: My left cleat is loose and shifting all over my shoe. This is the foot I usually clip in and out of and it's really hard to do this with the cleat moving all over! I begin using my right foot but it's still hard to pedal hard with a loose cleat.
Mile 105: Donald splits off for home
Mile 106: Marco, Ramon, and I hit the San Jose caltrain station. Gatorade here costs $2.25. It's nice to relax and I also fix my cleat.

Nice position for the camera but why does Glenn's pictures look a lot sunnier? Shadow from the saddle?

Nice position for the camera but why does Glenn's pictures look a lot sunnier? Shadow from the saddle?

I'm assuming Ben's cam is using a higher shutter speed. Not sure though.

Nice position for the camera but why does Glenn's pictures look a lot sunnier? Shadow from the saddle?

The sensor and optics in my camera is probably just lower quality than Glenn's. My camera is optimized for ruggedness, compactness, and simplicity instead of being a general purpose camera. All the shots I posted above are cropped down from the original 170° field of view :)

I could probably mess with the white balance and exposure settings after the fact to improve things. I guess I lack Pete's artistic eye for this.

I got some video of the descent on Dunne Rd that I'll try to edit down and post one of these days. There are a couple interesting highlights like when my blinky light goes flying off onto the road.

Great photos, looks like it was a nice ride on a fine if cloudy day. I wish I was there but at least I had a good day off the bike.

Great photos, looks like it was a nice ride on a fine if cloudy day. I wish I was there but at least I had a good day off the bike.

Well you were there in spirit (although your sandwich was not :lol:)

i'm about 30miles from morgan hill. lots like a fun ride, it might be worthwild for me to ride down there. but i dread taking old Monterey road the whole way, so many cracks, potholes and debrie. maybe almaden expreway to mckean rd.

only if i had a car...wait then i wouldn't be riding so much.

While folks were relaxing at Henry Coe SP at the top of the climb, I did a quick loop through the campground there and recorded some video of it.

http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/4290/coeloop.jpg (http://vimeo.com/3456998)
Here it is on vimeo (http://vimeo.com/3456998).

In this video I bumped up the saturation and value a little bit and of course rotated the video 180 degrees since my camera was mounted upside down ;)

I also shot video of the descent back down to the bridge but that's 22 minutes long and I haven't edited it yet.