| 2007/05/19 Biking the John Christian GreenBelt, Alviso 9 mile bay loop, and San Tomas Aquino Saratoga Creek Trail | |
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2007-05-19 23:58
by Merlin
in Exercising
Jennifer and I went for a local bike ride to check out a Sunnyvale John Christian Greenbelt bike path I didn't know about (suggested by my coworker Eric).
Once we connected it up to the bay, we rode to Alviso (North San Jose) and did a 9 mile loop there. I had more or less seen Alviso a bit before but hadn't stopped there and paid enough attention on what was there, nor did I really find the long trail that was there before I had a GPS and a picture of where the trail was supposed to start. Turns out Alviso is actually a quite interesting place as it was meant to be a major port of entry for the South Bay about 100 years ago (it's the furthest point south that boats can reach when they've come from the bay or the ocean), and it had connection with a railroad that's still there. They even came up with the name 'New Chicago' for it, but in the end things didn't quite work out. There were also some leftovers from the gold rush. While the area has a yacht club as it's the closest place to have a boat at if you're in San Jose, the rest of the area looks pretty run down. Odds are that it'll get cleaned up and improved in the next years, maybe ten, maybe more, but people are going to be building nice houses there sooner or later I think.
In the end, it made for a nice 24 mile ride, with wicked wind around the Alviso bay trail You can get the rest of the pictures of the Alviso Bay Trail, and the Green Belt as well as a collection of biking maps I photographed . You can also get the Garmin GPS GDB track of the Alviso Bay Trail, Green Belt, and the San Tomas Aquino Saratoga Creek Trail |
