A few days riding in the Diablo Range, Henry Coe State Park
West Coast Jeff
Then: a couple miles of dirt road before losing most of that elevation gain on a dusty, south-facing, switchbacked trail cut through a crop of manzanita, the lower portions of the trail in grass and oak and slopes so steep that if I went off the narrow trail I'd surely careen and topple all the way to Coyote Creek below, now winding its way through these hills. Down to the creek and cross at China Hole, probably a terrifying rapid at high water but now just a pit filled with round cobbles and edged with boulders bigger than me. I knock my bike across the rocks to a side canyon, the Narrows, which will take me straight through this next hill to a camp spot at Los Cruzeros. The trail through the Narrows was never built, just kicked in by people and cows walking through. It navigates the rock spires, chutes, pools, and bars of the canyon by clambering up and over boulders, cliffs, crossing the stream back and forth, at this time of year there's no running water, just frozen pools among the rocks. It is not rideable. I have to carry my heavily loaded bike most of that mile. This gorgeous canyon is likely only accessible and passable when the creeks are dry.
I throw a thin emergency bivy around my sleeping bag, hoping for a few extra degrees, having noting the frozen pools in the Narrows. Cold but dry, this was one of the first times I've gotten to embrace one of those things that make California bearable: no tent, just sleeping out, like that old Roscoe Holcomb song.
In the morning it takes a few minutes of hammering with rocks to break through the ice grown on a pool in the creek bed. Cattle water. Not ideal, but for now it's all I've got. Leaving my camping gear at Los Cruzeros I start pushing my bike up a dirt road to spend the day riding a big loop. Here is the thing about Henry Coe: the roads don't do switchbacks. They are built going straight up and straight down the hills. Many of them are walk-your-bike steep, both up and down. The fun riding is on roads along ridges or on the many trails zig-zagging up and down the sides of those ridges. While climbing from camp I quickly veer off the road onto a gentler trail to a spring where I can replace my cattle water with algae water.
Topping out in sun as the oak woods gave way to meadow, I remount the bike, hands and grips wet with sweat, and pedal over dusty, rolling road for miles on the snaking ridgeline. Breezing along in slanting sun on those high roads to Kelly Lake. Wind, cattail, ducks. Change a flat and eat lunch. Back up onto ridge roads until I peel off to descend single track down to my camp spot. The trail, riddled with deadfall, forces me to walk many portions.
Next day I dry the dew off my bag and bivy in late morning sun, back track through the Narrows, climb the slope of manzanita, pirouette down the winding pavement from the hill tops to the valley floor and pedal the 20 miles home to San Jose.
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Some April a few years later I returned to the park in the full swell of spring, streams surging, bright green grass and trees. I loaded my OM-1 with film but screwed it up and have no photos of the second trip. I did a longer route, camped and woke in dew, crossed streams up to my thighs, and for a mile or so walked and rode my Atlantis upstream in the ankle deep, cold, spraying water of Coyote Creek, boots strung across my top bar. I rode many more trails than the previous trip, flying along, fully loaded, on rocky single track through dry sand and grassland, through moist and shady groves, poison oak skimming my knees and bars.
When I checked in at the entrance during my second trip, the park ranger saw my loaded Atlantis and tried to warn me that it would not be adequate to ride the roads and trails in the park. I told him it was the same bike I'd ridden ~100 miles in the park on a previous trip, so he reluctantly let me proceed. He told me that if I hadn't had prior experience riding these trails on a rigid bike then he would have denied me access. Feel free to head to the park with your Rivendell and prove this same ranger wrong.
Andy Beichler
Sally Bidleman
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