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Almaden Quicksilver park petition?

1K views 13 replies 6 participants last post by  BigLarry 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
Fellow mountain bikers,

I recently moved to the Almaden Valley area and started riding Quicksilver Park on a regular basis.

Would anyone out there be interested in helping me start a petition to try and open the park for everyone to enjoy? Does anyone have any suggestions on how to make the Santa Clara Parks and Recreation Department open this area up to bicyclist? It works everywhere else, why not here?

Sincerely,
Norcaloffroad (norcaloffroad@aol.com)
 
#2 ·
I feel your pain. Being very familiar with the Almaden area, I find it appalling that even the fire roads are off limits to bikes in certain parts of Quicksilver Park. Especially from the closest entrance to where I lived, just off McAbee Rd which turns into the old Pierce Rd. Total BS if you ask me. Instead they make you enter at Mockingbird or out in Old Almaden. Then as you close in on Guadalupe Reservoir you encounter a sign stating mountain bike riding is no longer allowed. The only positive thing I see going on is having the Mine Hill trail only for hiking. At least the hayburners don't have access as well. Anyways, good luck with the petition. I'm sure there are others as frustrated as yourself. If and when I move back to Almaden, I'll be there to lend a hand. Cheers.
 
#3 ·
Ebo,

Thanks for your positive response to my thread. My post was much more detailed until the local MTBR police made it politicly correct. Not only are we being policed at our tax-funded parks, but on this website as well. Oh well!

Anyway, I will put a petition together sometime this week and post the link on MTBR for all to sign. It's about time we start playing hardball with these politicians that way people that choose not to wear fanny packs and khaki clothing can enjoy these trails as well.
 
#4 ·
norcaloffroad said:
Ebo,

Thanks for your positive response to my thread. My post was much more detailed until the local MTBR police made it politicly correct. Not only are we being policed at our tax-funded parks, but on this website as well. Oh well!

Anyway, I will put a petition together sometime this week and post the link on MTBR for all to sign. It's about time we start playing hardball with these politicians that way people that choose not to wear fanny packs and khaki clothing can enjoy these trails as well.
I use this area a lot when training and would be interested in what kind of petition you have in mind. What was the detail of your original post?
 
#5 ·
Actually, I feel blessed

norcaloffroad said:
Fellow mountain bikers,

I recently moved to the Almaden Valley area and started riding Quicksilver Park on a regular basis.

Would anyone out there be interested in helping me start a petition to try and open the park for everyone to enjoy? Does anyone have any suggestions on how to make the Santa Clara Parks and Recreation Department open this area up to bicyclist? It works everywhere else, why not here?

Sincerely,
Norcaloffroad (norcaloffroad@aol.com)
I'm not sure what you're looking for - more entrances, singletrack, night riding,...?

When I moved to Silicon Valley, my wife saw the nice Almaden area with great schools and liked the area. I saw all the local flat paved bike paths for safe riding with my family, singletrack riding along many local creeks, and the parks like Santa Teresa, Quicksilver, and Sierra Azul that could be ridden from my garage. So I said "yeah, great schools, gotta live there!" ;)

In the past four years, I've seen Quicksilver increase the MTB entrances from one (Hacienda) to three. I can now bike through Quicksilver to Sierra Azul to make a very nice loop over the tallest mountains, remaining mostly on dirt.

Quicksilver hasn't opened up singletrack yet, and they seem obsessed with preserving the road. They'll close the park at the slightest sign of rain. Nevertheless, I find the dirt roads have excellent views, make for a nice wooded ride, the ride up from Hacienda is a nice constant steep climb making for a great workout, and the wildlife is abundant there. I feel grateful for Quicksilver park and pleased with the progress there for MTB.

Similarly, I've found Santa Teresa to remain a great park for gnarly singletrack. They tried to tame Stile Ranch with a lot of sanitization, but the shrew of a trail came back with erosion in less than a year. And they keep opening new trails to MTB, with yet another single track off Bernal just opening a few months ago.

Sierra Azul is available to ride even during rain, making for a great winter ride and it has great views. It doesn't yet have singletrack, but there's lots of land acquired and serious talk of singletrack happening over time. Of special interest is some possible new trails going down toward Summit road and Demo.

Finally, an entire new park has opened in the area this summer - Rancho Canada del Oro. There's many miles of nice 1.5-track open to MTB that will surely evolve to some nice singletrack as nature takes it's course.

So again, what's your beef? By comparison with places like Santa Cruz and the East Bay, I feel we've been very blessed in the south San Jose area.
 
#6 ·
norcaloffroad said:
Ebo,

Thanks for your positive response to my thread. My post was much more detailed until the local MTBR police made it politicly correct. Not only are we being policed at our tax-funded parks, but on this website as well. Oh well!
I really like what you're trying to do here, so I'm trying to help your thread move in the right direction. Posting about illegal trail riding is going to send your thread into ugly tangents and will only divert your intent.
 
#7 ·
Like I said before I do a lot of training there. Many of my clients are beginning MTB'ers and this is a perfect place to start with the nice easy loop. My beef is that they will not open up the Guadalupe fire road mine hill fire road to bikes. It is open though to two wheels...pulled by a horse. They allow horse carts on that section of the park and it just does not make sense.Can someone tell me what the logical reasoning might be? But when it comes to logical reasoning regarding trail access I have not seen much of that since I have been out here. Has anyone ever been running trail and experienced a couple of horse horse carts trying to pass you at a high rate of speed since it appeared they were racing. Maybe that was what a hiker only feels like when passed by a MTB I don't know, but I would much rather be run over by a MTB than HORSE CART.
 
#8 ·
Hey Larry. You sum things up very well. My only beef would be with Quicksilver excluding bikes from the McAbee entrance and then on over to Guadelupe Reservoir. Although I'm just talking about old fire roads, it's a pretty cool area. 35 years ago we all hiked there, road there (paper route Schwinn Heavy Duty's), sometimes moto'd there (risky), and often carried our bb,pellet, .22's with us. Times have changed, often not for the better. Banning bikes from this area makes no sense.
 
#9 ·
Let's be honest here. There are really great trails in this park and by putting our heads in the sand these trails are most likely going to be off limits forever. By the way, the horse riding community has a ton of power in this area, weather it be money or organization. I am just trying to point out the fact that we too can put our resources together to make thing go our way for a change. The last thing we want is to be on the same boat as the ohv industry in which there is a constant battle just to keep parks that have been around for 30 to 50 years open for people to enjoy. KEEP YOUR EARS AND EYES OPEN FOR MORE IN THE NEAR FUTURE.
 
#10 ·
Ebo said:
Hey Larry. You sum things up very well. My only beef would be with Quicksilver excluding bikes from the McAbee entrance and then on over to Guadelupe Reservoir. Although I'm just talking about old fire roads, it's a pretty cool area. 35 years ago we all hiked there, road there (paper route Schwinn Heavy Duty's), sometimes moto'd there (risky), and often carried our bb,pellet, .22's with us. Times have changed, often not for the better. Banning bikes from this area makes no sense.
From what I've read in local papers, rather than trail or dirt road damage from bikes, the opening of new entrances is hampered by the concern for parking availability and local residents. This concern has often applied to hiking and horses too, but they were grandfathered into many places. In particular, for a Guadalupe Dam entrance, they need to make another parking lot on Hicks road, like they did with the Woods trail entrance into Quicksilver. They need to find the room, which I don't see anywhere right off.

I also wish Quicksilver should consider opening up some singletrack. I see things going in the right direction, but I also see how much QS is used by hikers and horses, and how there's a real concern for trail conflict that needs to be understood and addressed. But it can't possibly be worse than St Josephs in Los Gatos, which I'm still amazed allows biking on the trails considering all the major traffic jams with all the spandex moms hiking there.

For now, when I want singletrack, I just go the other way to the steep hills of Santa Teresa, or else ride the flat but fun singletrack along side the Los Alamitos creek and Camden Rd. I use Quicksilver for nice MTB training rides through the beauty of the woods, or for access to Sierra Azul.
 
#11 ·
beaverbiker said:
Come on now, there's no gnarly singletrack in Santa Teresa.

I feel for you norcaloffroad. I grew up in Almaden and got lucky that back then, the no bikes thing wasn't really enforced. I'll sign the petition for sure. Also, there are other ways to show your disgust for Quicksilver mostly being closed to bikes. PM me for details.
I'm referring to Rocky Ridge and Stile Ranch of course. Call them what you want in your own definition. They're not Whistler or Northstar, but compare, in a different way, with Demo and other fun technical singletracks.

The Santa Teresa singletrack is a little different in that it's more exposed (no trees), with a lot more sharp rocks and less 1' and 2' drops relative to Demo. But it's still a lot of technical fun.

The biggest advantage to me is that this park can be ridden right out of my garage any morning of the week, versus a 40 minute drive to Demo, or more if the road stays out.
 
#12 ·
norcaloffroad said:
Let's be honest here. There are really great trails in this park and by putting our heads in the sand these trails are most likely going to be off limits forever. By the way, the horse riding community has a ton of power in this area, weather it be money or organization. I am just trying to point out the fact that we too can put our resources together to make thing go our way for a change. The last thing we want is to be on the same boat as the ohv industry in which there is a constant battle just to keep parks that have been around for 30 to 50 years open for people to enjoy. KEEP YOUR EARS AND EYES OPEN FOR MORE IN THE NEAR FUTURE.
I gather you are trying to say you want some singletrack opened at Quicksilver for MTB, which would be nice.

I'll be glad to help in the campaign. I do know ROMP and other organizations are working aggressively on Quicksilver, and were instrumental in getting the other MTB entrances opened. So MTB access is indeed progressing in a positive direction, although not at the speed we'd like.
 
#13 ·
BigLarry said:
I'm referring to Rocky Ridge and Stile Ranch of course. Call them what you want in your own definition. They're not Whistler or Northstar, but compare, in a different way, with Demo and other fun technical singletracks.
.
I have raced an MTB race exactly one time in my life, though I have spectated many, many times.

I rode Rocky Ridge when Stanford was hosting the race several years back. IMHO, anything that I can ride does not count as gnarly singletrack DH.

I had a great time and achieved my main goal: I did not get injured.

I keep both wheels on the ground at all times.
 
#14 ·
BeaverBikersDad said:
I rode Rocky Ridge when Stanford was hosting the race several years back. IMHO, anything that I can ride does not count as gnarly singletrack DH.
OK, I must have used the wrong word in "gnarly". So again, what would you call Rocky Ridge and Stiles? With all the rocks, drops, and twists, it's more bumpy and technical than the average trail - so maybe it's a "fun bumpy" singletrack? :p
 
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