Marc's Public Blog - Biking, Running, Rollerblading and other Exercising

Jennifer and I went to explore another piece of the bay trail between Sunnyvale and Moffett. As we went past the Sunnyvale SMART recycling station, the trail became iffy. Basically, it split in to multiple options, and became a real maze.
Then again, even getting there was "interesting", due to the water level behind high, and riding the water trail under hwy 237 was quite dicy: muddy, sideways, and we were afraid of sliding down in the water :)
The problem was that more than half those paths were dead ends. Some you could get out of by crossing mud or taking questionable paths, others, outside of swimming for a few metres, there was no way out, and you had to backtrack all the way.
First, we took a path that got us smack against the gate and restricted area from Lockheed, and when we went away from it, our "reward" was being on the wrong side of a "restricted area" fence, that we managed to go around.
After finishing a loop around the salt pond, I opted to take what looked like a more official trail back, and we ended up on the wrong side of the fence below. By that time, I was fairly pissed off: we had ridden a fair amount and just wanted to go home. We already had been tricked on a road that didn't connect and teased you by being almost there, but on the wrong side of a small channel of water. After crossing at a dubious point, pretty far away, we headed back and got stopped by that gate.
The stupid thing was that the gate was supposed to stop people from getting to where we were, and we were just trying to get out. What a moronic design! It wasn't hard to get where we were without crossing any gates, and that gate was so tight that it looked like it was meant to stop cars, bikes, and even people.
At this point, I was annoyed enough that I decided that we were going to scale that gate as I really didn't feel like turning back. While it's not obvious from the picture, I was able to lift the bikes above the gate, which was no easy feat, then managed to separate them enough to climb between them on top of the lock and without being stuck by the barbed wire. Jennifer managed to sneak between the gate and the ground.

An FAA radar used for the south bay




Jennifer was smiling after having crossed the gates, but not during

Summary: whoever designed those gates and roads that don't connect and then fence you in, should be shot :)
Anyway, the rest of the few picture are here