Keith

Santa Cruz mt roads are awesome for training. There is a roadie ride that leaves the Los Gatos Coffee Roasting Co at 7:30 - 8am on Sat if your interested. Santa Cruz side of the hill [Aptos area] has some amazing back roads. Sat ride [starts at yacht harbor] rips sometimes over 100 riders very fast pace.



Eric

---

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


"on your Left"

When I was living in L.A. I thought I was a strong rider than I moved up to Santa Cruz and took the Saturday morning ride - and got completely wasted. To make a long story short, I eventually dropped tris and became a road racer - after riding with the Sat. guys. It took me a whole year (after years of training in L.A. as a tri-guy) to hang with the lead pack on the Sat. ride. The roads are perfect around SC. The Sat. ride heads South and East but there are rides that head up the coast(Swanton Loop), rides in the S.C mtns (try Felton - Empire Grade), etc. I would stay away from hwy 17 - usually this road terrified me on my motocycle. I've moved back down to the L.A. area so maybe hwy 17 isn't the "Death Highway" it once was. Can't say much for the San Jose area - Los Gatos is at the top of SC mtns and I used to reach the town from the Santa Cruz side so I would guess the riding is good. Enjoy your rides - I would love to move back someday.biobob

I grew up in Los Gatos and live just out of town. You can message me and we can talk offline if you want. But here are the basics:

Swimming - There is a great masters put on by Kain Performance at Los Gatos high school. Los Gatos Swim & Raquette Club (where I do most of my swimming) and Courtside have good masters programs in town. Outside of town, Santa Clara Swim Club, Mountain View Masters and Stanford Masters are great programs.

Running - Los Gatos High School has a foam core track. There is also endless trails throughout Los Gatos and the Santa Cruz Mountains.

Cycling - You'll be living in a mecca

---

---

"your horse is too high" - tigerchik

What the other guys said. Regarding 17, you don't ride your bike on it (except for a short segment on the shoulder for one of the ways to ride from Santa Cruz to Los Gatos). The car traffic is nothing compared to what it used to be and is not much of a factor anymore - surely not outside of the busy season (from Memorial Day to Labor Day).

A mecca is right. Just finished an afternoon ride in my new home, the High Desert just North of L.A. Even at 5:00 pm the temp was still around 98 degrees with 8% humidity. Did a hill climb and could barely swallow I was so dry - to be back in Santa Cruz...

For sure check out the back roads of Aptos and Northwestern Watsonville. When I was there, all of the bike shops (one on each corner) had a great map of all the good routes around town and up the coast - they probably still do.