Henry Coe

In the first half of the twentieth century Henry Coe used to own and run a big ranch in the Diablo mountain range south east of San Jose; in the fifties, after his passing, his family donated the land to Santa Clara County, and it went on to become the largest (non-desert) state park of California. It is beautiful, huge and rugged, and one of my favorite mountain bike playgrounds in the area, with steep climbs, rolling singletrack, numerous entertaining creek crossings and rough descents. The last couple of days we've been experiencing a weird inversion-type weather system in the Bay Area - foggy and chilly in the valleys, sunny and warm at higher elevations. And so, on this January the 23th we went biking in Henry Coe Park, enjoying t-shirt temperatures under a blue sky and heavy sun (not so back east), with incredible vistas ranging from the South Bay over the Monterey Peninsula and the Central Valley to the snowcapped peaks of the Sierra Nevada. So let's move into photoblog mode again:


Here I go, crossing the creek in motion blur


Near the Fractal Tree


T fighting the shadows

Needless to say, it was a great day. Everybody survived the fearsome descent over Grizzly Gulch well, and soon we found ourselves enjoying some nice food and Hefeweizen in Los Gatos. I was so wasted (from the ride, not the beer!) that I didn't even make it to the New Year's reception of the Belgian Club of Northern California in SF - sorry, good BCNC-folks!