Nice bag!

You could even get more extreme with that route, by heading down John Martins, out the other part of John Martins to Black Road, down Black Road (paved) to Lexington Reservoir, and then you could climb up one of those tough climbs and ride dirt all the way to and through Almaden Quicksilver.

Here's the report on John Nicholas, which I went to today:

All you advanced riders and advanced intermediates, nothing there for you! Boring! Nothing to see, move along! You wouldn't like the trail at all. You could do it on a road bike, ugh.

Advanced riders gone? Good. OK, now I'm just talking to people who don't want those technical features, right? Great. This trail is a gem. It's fantastic. You'll love it. I did it uphill, but it would also be good downhill.

You start off at the end of Sanborn Road. To get up to the dam, you have to ride up a rather tedious and steep dirt road. You may get off to go through the gate, and then you might say, well, I'll just walk this little steep section so it's easier to get started riding again. But it keeps on being steep, so just get on the bike and ride.

Soon you get to the dam, and to what is normally a lake but is currently a puddle. You're finished with the ugly fireroad and you've gotten to the good stuff. Go right and begin climbing through the woods. Now you're on the brand new trail, which I think is technically a doubletrack-- it's as wide as a Bobcat. The trail is sinuous, but instead of sharp switchbacks it has smoother curves. You cross three new bridges, noticing the beautiful stonework Tomikaze mentioned.

The trail climbs and climbs, swooping through the woods. It's steep, but not ridiculously steep. You come to a canyon corner with a gorgeous little stone arch bridge/support. At this time of year, watch out for salamanders strolling along the trail; I saw dozens, and sadly I think I squashed one poor fellow by mistake.

Near the top there are the easiest switchbacks in the world-- even I can do them. There's a section with spectacular views on the valley, and another section with spectacular views of a canyon.

Finally you T into the Skyline Trail, which is actually a fireroad. I went left because I needed to get to Skyline Road and head home. You could go right, go left to continue for some miles on Skyline Trail, or turn around and descend.

After a little bit, Skyline Trail comes to a parking lot off Skyline Road. I headed down Skyline Road, then Black Road. Halfway down I came to the other part of John Nicholas Trail, the fire road from Black Road back to the little lake. Long long ago, this fire road was open to bikes, and I have no idea why it was ever closed. It's a fire road through the woods, it's fairly flat, and it takes you to another fire road. Anyway, it's open now. You can take it to return to the lake, drop down the steep fire road, and return to the start.

The whole new section of John Nicholas is beautiful. It's smooth,  it has more curves than Marilyn Monroe, it has beautiful stonework, it goes up up up but not so steeply that you have to walk. You could ride it on a road bike, and at some point I probably will. Bravo, Santa Clara County Parks.

 

Tomikaze, thanks a million times! I'm going to head over there today to check it out.

I'm gutless and get nervous about stealth camping, plus to me even portapotties are better than behind a tree, so I like to camp in established campgrounds. So I'll note that the Castle Rock campground off Skyline is legally accessible by bike: you ride down the dirt road off Skyline that starts at the entrance to the gun club. 

The trail from Sanborn to Black road is open to bikes now?

Wow, that's great. The bag looks fantastic.

So you're just appliqueing the red triangles over the yellow, in the beginning? What needle are you using? When you sew Xpac onto Xpac, how bad is that for the waterproofness of the item?

That private property section is legal for hikers but illegal for cyclists. Beyond it, on the coast side, is a legal campground.

I'm sad that Mike Buncic wasn't elected to MidPen. I ran into him the last time I did a bikepacking trip. He was riding, of course. When I brought up the idea of through trails, he knew immediately what I was talking about. Oh, connecting routes, he said, and named several candidates including a through trail from Los Gatos via Umunhum all the way to Demo on dirt which he said was feasible. Also I think he said it would be possible to go to Skyline via Monte Sereno. I was like, OK I'm voting for this guy, he's perfect, but unfortunately I don't live in his district.

I've never ridden that section, but I'm pretty sure it is not paved. I can't figure out why it would be paved, since you have to go on dirt to get there. It belongs to a lumber company, I've been told.

The problem is at the Big Basin end, not at the coast end. If you start from the coast, whether you take Olmo Fire Road or Butano Fire Road, you end up on Butano Fire Road a bit after the landing strip campground. If you continue, you have to go through a section of private property before you get to where the Boy Scout camp turnoff is. That private property section is prohibited to bikes. I'm not telling anyone what to do or whether to ride it, but as a matter of information it is private property and the owners do not allow mountain bikes.

Technically, the Butano Fire Road is not legal over its entire length. There is a small section that is prohibited to bikes. 

Gazos Creek Road is paved for a few miles starting from the coast, but then it turns to unpaved. It's not like Gazos Creek is a paved road from the coast to Big Basin. Most of it is dirt, or rather, on the coast side, sandstone.

The fire road from Little Basin to Empire Grade appears to be a dirt road that is legal not only to bike on, but to drive on. When I rode it a few months ago, the lower gate (from Little Basin Road) was open, and the upper gate was unlocked. If the 'cross bikers had gone just a little further along Empire Grade, they could have skipped the part about lifting their bikes over the barbed wire, and just opened the gate and gone through. Then they would have gone down the fire road just a little bit, and come to an intersection where the left fork goes to Little Basin and the right fork goes to Eagle Rock.

I haven't ridden Summit all the way through, but I've heard (from roadies riding dirt) that it's good. It's on my list of rides to do. Possibly on a road bike.

It's my belief that the fire road cut-through from Little Basin to Empire Grade is legal. There's a trail nearby which is illegal, but when I was on the fire road a couple of months ago, I saw no No Bikes signs at either end. I think it's legal.

Credit card bikepacking. Sure. Why not?

That's awesome. You even included that little cut-through from Little Basin up to Empire Grade! But how about after you do the loop through Demo and go out Buzzard's Lagoon, you then take a left on Highland instead of a right on Eureka Canyon, go up to Summit, and cut through Summit all the way to Mount Madonna? Totally 100% legal, and it adds more dirt and subtracts more pave.

I also notice you didn't add the totally 100% crazy option:   after you head east and cross 101 in Morgan Hill,  cut through Harvey Bear and up to the Hunting Hollow entrance to Henry Coe, and then do a few loops there. Yeah. Because the rest of the trip is too easy.

I think it's probably easier to stealth camp than to find hotels.

I'd like to think of a two or three day trip with a lot of dirt, that includes San Pedro Mountain Road (aka Planet of the Apes). I did Planet of the Apes the last time I did a road tour down the coast from Oregon, and loved it. Maybe go to Skyline via Windy Hill as you did, drop down through Purisima Creek, then head north toward Montara (there's a path along the ocean for part of it) and ride the old Highway 1, then return south via San Pedro Mountain, the old old Highway 1. Or supposedly there's a way to ride through to the coast just north of Pacifica through Sweeney Ridge?

Great route, Jilleo. Now that I know about it, I have to try it, over several days, as a bikepacking trip. I'll reroute the section at the end that goes down Table Mountain, though. It's nominally uphill only for bikes, and I wouldn't enjoy the downhill anyway. It'll be easy enough to ride over to Grizzly Flat and down that way.

I have a Bagman. The one I have doesn't work on my bike; not sure of the vertical drop. However, with the Nitto Rack, I have successfully used a Nelson Longflap. It was OK, but I disliked that the bag doesn't attach to the rack, so it wanted to move and twist in unsatisfactory ways. My homemade bag will attach to the rack, like the Pedaling Nowhere bag.

Having now received the Leno mesh, I realize it's the wrong fabric for a pleated mesh pocket gathered at the top edge. It's stiff. It would work well for a flat mesh pocket with a zipper, but it's bad for a pocket with pleats. I had imagined a different fabric. Does anyone know what the fabric is that Revelate uses for the mesh pockets on the feed bags? That's the stuff I want.

Often if you fully line a piece, you don't need to finish the raw edges at all.

The Bagman doesn't work for my Surly Krampus. Not enough room between the tire and the saddle. Those Knards are huge; they have a 31.5 inch outside diameter.