This is a short fire-road ride near Lucas Valley. By itself, this ride constitutes nothing more than an oddly branching out-and-back ride. Unless you're merely curious about riding at this location for the first time (as I was) or you're looking for a short ride because you're out of shape or an accompanying rider is, just doing this ride by itself might not be very attractive. This route would be more useful as part of a longer loop in this area, possibly extended to Big Rock Ridge across the Lucas Valley Road in Lucas Valley Preserve.

The ride starts from Lucas Valley road. You reach the top of the ridge after the first mile of the ride. It's not like it's all flat after reaching the ridge top, but the steepest climbs in the ride arrive within this first mile (with the exception of the branch up Luiz Ranch Fire Road, which you can omit).

The ride will have you navigating paved roads for less than a mile to be able to get from the main part of Terra Linda - Sleepy Hollow Divide Open Space Preserve to the "San Rafael Ridge Area" of the park. On this particular ride, you then repeat the same on your way back.

Being mostly a ridge-top ride, you are at least rewarded with nice views. Bikers don't seem to be the only ones interested in this, though. The trails here seem pretty popular. You'll encounter plenty of joggers and dog walkers.

On the return half of the ride, you'll see that the ride goes a short distance up Luiz Ranch Fire Road and returns. The return on that branch is at the spot where I encountered a locked gate. It seemed from the map that I should be able to continue, and the aim was to take that trail to loop up to a point further along Lucas Valley Road and return to the car by that road. A rider there with whom I happened to have an impromptu chat also implied that we're technically allowed to take that trail but gave me the impression that the trail is on private land and there might be some ongoing dispute about an easement. I don't have any information about this, so don't take this explanation as a formal statement in either direction. In any case, this spur off the main route is not exactly worthwhile if you can't continue any further, so you might as well bypass it (which makes this ride even shorter and shaves off 400 feet from the total climbing). That last stretch of the spur just before turning back at the gate is pretty steep.