At SVBC, our fun, laid-back social rides are our most-asked-about service that we provide, even though we also do ALL of the following:

Mentor grassroots advocates
Teach adults and youth about bike safety
Coordinate volunteer efforts to promote biking for everyday purposes
Manage the regional annual Bike To Wherever Days campaign
Host an annual Bike Summit, a one-day conference for transportation professionals
Host a monthly Biketivist Forum about various topics related to safe streets
Deliver produce boxes by bike twice a month with Veggielution
Teach about e-bikes on popular webinars
Train group ride leaders so friends can go on rides together safely
And much much more!

But our most popular service we offer are our social ride events - a place for folks to have fun, ride safely in groups, practice riding for everyday purposes, and make friends in the community through bikes.

Through Wheels & Waterways work, the SVBC programs team has grown a partnership with a fabulous grassroots organization, Keep Coyote Creek Beautiful (KCCB), who has helped connect us with other speakers and subject matter experts for Wheels & Waterways, including SF Bay Bird Observatory for our January 2021 King Tide Ride.

In October, KCCB’s Executive Director, Deb Kramer, was co-organizing a Watershed Day event in Morgan Hill. Knowing that we are seeking events to teach the community about our water resources in Santa Clara County, she kindly invited us to host a bike ride at that event so that she could teach bicyclists and event attendees all about the role the Ogier Ponds play in the Coyote Creek Watershed. It was the ride of my dreams - family-friendly, educational, short and sweet, and in gorgeous natural surroundings.

The Coyote Creek Watershed Days event featured presentations and activities from several other environmental nonprofits. It was brisk and overcast as all the groups got ourselves set up, but clear skies appeared around 9 AM as the event got started.

Around 11 AM, it was time for our bike ride! The first thing we did was our A-B-C Quick Bike Safety Check, where we check our Air, Brakes, Chain, and a couple other bits to make sure our bikes are ready for a smooth, easy ride. Then, attendees hopped on their bikes for a thorough educational tour of the surrounding areas!

An early interesting moment on the ride was when we stopped under Highway 101 to talk about the impact of the barrier to wildlife migration and biodiversity development through this valley. Deb brought lots of images and learning materials about the biodiversity that Coyote Valley supports.

Moments later, a little ways down the trail, we saw goats munching away: filling their bellies while helping us humans work on vegetation management on the Highway 101 corridor!

Finally, we got to the ride’s destination: The Ogier Ponds!

We learned about how these old quarries gave us material to be used in the construction of Highway 101, and have become a new habitat for wildlife in the area. In 1995, Coyote Creek flooded, and the river re-routed itself and flooded these old quarry pits.

And 2017 was also a big year for Coyote Creek - we learned about flooding and its impacts on the south-county area near the ponds. A previous connection across the east and west sides of the creek was damaged and has not yet been repaired.

Deb says:

This re-routing of the creek back to the original channel has led to a dramatic decrease in water to the ponds, which has in turn changed some of them back to open grassland. This effect has impacted waterfowl that used to visit the ponds. However, this change may also have a positive impact on the threatened, and perhaps no longer viable, steelhead trout fry, which require cool water to swim back to the Bay. The ponds contain large-mouth bass, which gobble up the tasty small fish.

Join us for our next Wheels & Waterways event on January 22nd, 2023 - the King Tide Ride - to see the highest tides of the year, and learn how Valley Water and our communities are bracing for impending sea-level rise in the next decades.