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Length 9.5 miles
Time 2 hours
Total Climb 2000 feet
Fun Rating
4
Scenic Rating
5
Aerobic Difficulty
5
Technical Difficulty 
3


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Terra Linda - Sleepy Hollow Divide
80% FIRE ROAD1% PAVED19% ROAD






This is a short fire-road ride near Lucas Valley. By itself, this ride constitutes nothing more than an oddly branching out-and-back ride. Unless you're merely curious about riding at this location for the first time (as I was) or you're looking for a short ride because you're out of shape or an accompanying rider is, just doing this ride by itself might not be very attractive. This route would be more useful as part of a longer loop in this area, possibly extended to Big Rock Ridge across the Lucas Valley Road in Lucas Valley Preserve.

The ride starts from Lucas Valley road. You reach the top of the ridge after the first mile of the ride. It's not like it's all flat after reaching the ridgetop, but the steepest climbs in the ride arrive within this first mile (with the exception of the branch up Luiz Ranch Fire Road, which you can omit).

The ride will have you navigating paved roads for less than a mile to be able to get from the main part of Terra Linda - Sleepy Hollow Divide Open Space Preserve to the "San Rafael Ridge Area" of the park. On this particular ride, you then repeat the same on your way back.

Being mostly a ridgetop ride, you are at least rewarded with nice views. Bikers don't seem to be the only ones interested in this, though. The trails here seem pretty popular. You'll encounter plenty of joggers and dog walkers.

On the return half of the ride, you'll see that the ride goes a short distance up Luiz Ranch Fire Road and returns. The return on that branch is at the spot where I encountered a locked gate. That was as far as one could get in that direction at the time I did this ride. Today (as you'll also see mentioned in the viewer comments below), you can make it past that spot by following the more recently built 680 Trail. If you follow that trail, you could go on for several more miles and even reach "Big Rock" on Lucas Valley Road, after which you can return via the road. However, take into account the fact that this would not only seriously boost the length of this ride but also would probably double its total elevation gain. (Of course, you can also simply turn back from where you feel like on 680 Trail and retrace your path back.) On the other hand, if you bypass that spur on the route shown on this page, you will make this ride even shorter and shave off 400 feet from the total climb.



© Ergin Guney


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