This is a long and flat ride on a paved recreational trail. It's actually the longest ride I've ever done on a trail of this kind. The entire length of the trail surface is paved, with a dashed stripe down the middle. There is not a single road crossing for the entire length of the ride, if my memory is not failing me. So, this is as "accessible" as an easy trail ride can get. Feel free to bring along the non-biker family members and small children pedaling their own bikes. If you end up having to turn around before finishing the entire length of this route, that will only be because of sheer distance covered rather than any difficulty factor of the ride.

In terms of elevation change, the ride is almost completely flat on average. As you can see from the elevation profile plot, the ride has barely 250 feet of net elevation gain in 16 miles. This doesn't mean that there aren't some "blips" on the graph where you climb 5 or 10 feet (or 20 on the rare occasion), but none of them are memorable. Still, at least as calculated by the software that I use, those insignificant undulations add up to close to 1300 feet of total climbing over the entire ride.

This ride actually traverses "Coyote Creek Trail - South" as designated by the San Jose parks website. There is also a (much shorter) "North" segment of the trail north of Montague Expressway, as you may see on that site. Even the southern segment has a short extension further north than the starting point of the route described on this page. I picked this starting point due to its easier parking, rather than insisting on starting at the northernmost tip of the trail.

The route starts from Hellyer County Park in South San Jose. One interesting tidbit even before you set out on the ride is right in this park: I hadn't known of the existence of a velodrome here before doing this ride. But, there it is; right by the suggested parking spot. Neat! You'll notice that the GPS track actually circles around the velodrome before setting out on the actual ride.

Coyote Creek Trail doesn't take long to leave Hellyer County Park on its way southeast. It passes through several more small urban parks along its length, but for the most part, it exists as its own lone path that roughly follows the creek from which it gets its name. The initial few miles of the ride are relatively shady and nice. As you go farther south, it becomes mostly bare and exposed, though there's hardly ever any shortage of shrubbery or even wetlands around you (just not as much above you).

Since the ride starts in South San Jose and extends basically to Morgan Hill, it might be stating the obvious to point out that this area can get pretty hot in the summer. Typically, temperatures around here are easily a dozen or more degrees higher than most other areas closer to the bay. So, you might want to keep that in mind if you are thinking of doing a ride here on a warm and sunny day.

The few points of interest along the length of the trail will include a couple of sets of lakes where people do fishing, skirting around the Coyote Creek Golf Course, and a radio-controlled model airplane flying area near the end of the ride (just before crossing under I-101 to get to its eastern side).