Saturday, September 16, 2017

Biking John Nicholas Trail

On my last mountain bike ride at Almaden Quicksilver Park, I stopped by for a short break and got talking to another mountain bike rider. She told me about a mountain bike ride on the nearby John Nicholas Trail in Los Gatos (relatively nearby), which she thought was one of the best rides in the area.

Since I had never biked there, I was intrigued and curious about this new trail. She said it was not as grueling as Almaden Quicksilver, with more shade and prettier scenery.


I arranged a ride with some friends, and we arrived at the trailhead of Jon Nicholas Trail (in Sanborn Park).



We unloaded our mountain bikes and started our ride. The first part of the ride was quite level, on an extensive trail of other mountain bikers and hikers.


The trail was very scenic, with excellent tree cover.


Once we passed Lake Ranch Reservoir, full of fish, the trail started to narrow and wind uphill.


A few steep sections required pedaling in the lowest possible gear, but I reached the top (Vista) with only one stop.

I recorded a GoPro 4 silver video in standard and high definition (shown below) (use the link).



The view of the Vista is quite lovely, and I could see a vineyard in the distance.


Since I recorded the ride using Strava, I used Relive to generate a ride video.



The ride back down to the parking lot was high-speed! I really enjoyed biking on this trail and hope to do it again.

My Strava statistics are as follows:

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