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

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2020/05/31 Urban Explorers

π 2020-05-31 01:01 in Exercising

Interesting walk under a secret tunnel under 280 just minutes walk form our house, a railroad crossing to nowhere, a secret BMX riding park and doors in the freeway wall with chairs to watch the traffic go by.

Map: https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/5023804251

We've been going through bike/walks around the urban landscape next to our house. We found a hole in a fence at the end of our street, so we went to check it out, that took us to 280 and stevens creek. There was a big tunnel for the creek, but a second huge tunnel, for I don't know what, it's big enough for a road (advance planning, nice).

Many years back, when I jumped a fence to get there, I couldn't go down, but someone nicely installed a rope ladder recently, so we went down and into the tunnel. That took us to the railroad (mostly unused) on the other side and connected to a street, or to sommerset park after removing a few metal wires that tried to patch a hole in the fence (thank you swiss army knife).

The secret BMX park is inaccessible unless you get to it through the railroad tracks from another access point. No idea who built it, it doesn't look official but yet it was well built: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.3322805,-122.0624639,157m/data=!3m1!1e3

We found that the freeway had doors in the wall, some you could just open and someone put chairs on the other side, maybe to just relax and watch traffic go by? :)

On the way back, I noticed that you could drive from a hole between the freeway walls through a railroad crossing that had been built for car crossing, to nowhere, the road stops there, although it almost connects to the stevens creek tunnel.

There is probably some interesting history and roads that maybe used to connect and don't connect anymore, or were meant to connect, but never did in the end. Either way, it was fun, we felt like urban explorers :)

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2020/05/22 45 mile loop to Alviso, Don Edwards Wildlife Refuge, and Back via the Green Belt

π 2020-05-22 01:01 in Exercising

A mere 13 years ago, when we still lived in Sunnyvale, we did the shorter bike ride to Alviso. The ride was 24 miles then.
It was time to go back, but now that we live farther, and that I extended the loop, it was 45 miles this time (the whole loop was about 7H of clock time and 5h of actual biking time, or longest for us this far). (click on the garmin recording for more stats and a bigger map)

nice pink house on the way to Steven Creek Trail

lovely tree

Norcal radar site

babies are grown up already

so proud

Eventually we got to Alviso, the land that time forgot:

prime real estate in a flood zone, awaits for you

interesting house

it was a mixed neighborhood

From there, we got to the Alviso Don Edwards loop (we did the longer double loop):

for once, a train that almost looked fast

salt from evaporation

After the long loop, it was time to bike all the way home (almost 2H), back around great america, 49ers stadium, and greenbelt back to Stevens Creek Trail:

This was our longest bike ride ever, it went well considering. Maybe 50 miles next time? :)

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2020/05/01 Finally did the Montebello to Back Mountain to PageMill Loop

π 2020-05-01 01:01 in Exercising

It's a loop I knew was possible after biking up Montebello some 10 years back, but going all the way to Pagemill seemed a bit daunting. Turns out, it wasn't and it's only a 25 mile loop, albeit with a 2600ft climb. (click on the garmin recording for more stats and a bigger map)

Here is the navigation track on google maps

Took about 25mn and 4 miles to get to the bottom of montebello (600ft altitude), and then we biked up. Jennifer did better on the way up than I did (last time, many years back, it was the other way around):

then up