Cycling in the Sunnyvale Baylands
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Geek Ride scouting expedition, August 26, 2000
Here's the GPS track image from a ride that Gary Haussmann and I did on August 26, 2000 when scouting out the Baylands for the September 2000 SBAY Geek Ride. The route begins at the Baypointe light rail station in North San Jose and goes up North First Street to the bike trail entrance just before Hwy 237. Then at Lafayette in Santa Clara, we go under Hwy 237 and over a block to Great America Parkway to pick up a part of the Bay Trail to the Sunnyvale Baylands Park. Many of the levees around the Baylands are maintained as multi-use trails. A former landfill is also now a hill with bike trails and a good view of the Baylands and the surrounding South Bay Area. The ride ends with a quick hop down Borregas Ave in Sunnyvale to the Borregas light rail station, where we can pick up a trolley back to Baypointe or to home.

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(1488x992 610K) (500x334 27K) 		This view is looking down from a hill at the Sunnyvale Baylands at the construction of Yahoo's new corporate headquarters at Caribbean and Mathilda in Sunnyvale, adjacent to the Lockheed-Martin site. (Aug 2000)
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(1488x992 646K) (500x334 26K) 		A view of the Baylands and the Bay from the top of the hill. (Aug 2000)
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(1488x992 516K) (500x334 28K) 		A view of the Moffett radar from the top of the hill. The trails surrounding it are part of the Bay Trail network that, when completed, will make a continuous ring of trails around the Bay. (Aug 2000)
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(1488x992 689K) (500x334 25K) 		Across the Bay, the white spot is a huge pile of salt at the Cargill Salt Company plant. Most of the ponds around the southern end of the Bay are salt evaporators owned by Cargill. (Aug 2000)
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(1488x992 511K) (500x334 22K) 		A closer view of the Moffett Radar from the public bike trails. Moffett Hangars 2 and 3 are visible in the background. (Aug 2000)

SBAY Geek Ride, September 24, 2000
On this second SBAY Geek Ride, we doubled the attendance. Brian Rudy, Eric Schwartz, Gary Haussmann and I went on the ride. We decided to modify the route to go straight into the center of Sunnyvale Baylands Park instead of around it on the levees. We still did the levee loop trail by the Moffett Radar. We also changed things a bit at the end of the route, ending at the Crossman light rail station instead of Borregas because we went to check if the Togo's was open next to the Crossman station. It's closed on Sundays so we took the light rail to the Togo's at the Lick Mill station.

This route also uncovered a bug in the firmware of my Garmin GPS 12CX receiver. The route within the center of the Sunnyvale Baylands Park crosses back and forth over the 122 degrees West longitude. Once we crossed west of that line, any crossings back to the east of it were registered as an incorrect 122.000 degrees West with the correct latitude. I'll report the bug to Garmin.

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(1488x992 481K) (500x334 25K) 		The September 2000 Geek Ride attendees on the Guadalupe River levee net to Hwy 237. Left to right: Eric Schwartz, Gary Haussmann, and Brian Rudy. Well, Brian got his smile in before the camera snapped... (Sep 2000)
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(1488x992 476K) (500x334 25K) 		The group checks the map and decides on a route at the entrance of the Sunnyvale Baylands Park. Left to right: Eric, me and Gary. Photo by Brian Rudy. (Sep 2000)
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(1488x992 481K) (500x334 25K) 		Just exploring... At the end of one of the boardwalks in the Sunnyvale Baylands Park. Left to right: me, Eric and Brian. Photo by Gary Haussmann. (Sep 2000)
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(1488x992 519K) (500x334 26K) 		...and here's what we're looking at in the previous photo.
Q: "How do we get over to that trail?"
A: You can't get there from here.
Photo by Gary Haussmann. (Sep 2000)
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(1488x992 446K) (500x334 19K) 		The group with the Moffett radar (and the Sun) to our backs. Left to right: Brian, me and Gary. Photo by Eric Schwartz, but my fault for picking the spot with the Sun to our backs. (Sep 2000)
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(1488x992 513K) (500x334 30K) 		Just getting finished with the loop trail. Left to right: Gary, Eric and Brian. (Sep 2000)

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