Alum Rock

Alum Rock may refer to:

Alum Rock Park

Alum Rock Park, founded in 1872, was the first municipal park in the U.S. state of California. Located in a valley in the Diablo Range foothills on the east side of San Jose, the 720 acre (2.9 km²) park offers 13 miles (21 km) of trails, varying from fairly level along Penitencia Creek to sharp switchbacks climbing to the ridges to the South Rim Trail and the North Rim Trail. The narrow floor of the valley includes a visitor center, a small museum/animal rehab facility, picnic areas, playgrounds, lawns, sand volleyball pits, mineral springs, lush plant life, woodlands, creek play opportunities, and occasional group camping.

The ridge trails offer views of Santa Clara Valley and of the valley in which the park is located. Some trails in the park are a part of the Bay Area Ridge Trail; the Todd Quick trail connects with the Santa Clara County Open Space Authority's 1,600-acre Sierra Vista Open Space Preserve.

Equestrians and mountain bikers have access to some of the park's trails, while others are reserved for hikers only. Cross-country meets from schools around the area are held at the park often.

San José

San José or San Jose is Spanish for Saint Joseph and most often refers to:

San José or San Jose may also refer to:

Places

Argentina

Belize

Bolivia

Chile

Colombia

San Jose, California

San Jose (pronounced IPA: /ˌsæn hoʊˈzeɪ/; Spanish for Saint Joseph), sometimes stylized as San José, is the third-largest city by population in California, the tenth-largest by population in the United States, and the county seat of Santa Clara County. San Jose is the largest city within the Bay Area and the largest city in Northern California.

Before the arrival of the Spanish, the area around San José was inhabited by the Ohlone people. San Jose was founded on November 29, 1777, as San José de Guadalupe, the first civilian town in the Spanish colony of Alta California. The city served as a farming community to support Spanish military installations at San Francisco and Monterey. When California gained statehood in 1850, San Jose served as its first capital.

After more than 150 years as a small farming community, the San Jose area in the mid-20th century contained some of the last undeveloped land near San Francisco Bay. It then began to experience rapid population growth, much of it coming from veterans returning from World War II. San Jose then continued its aggressive expansion during the 1950s and 1960s by annexing more land area. The rapid growth of the high-technology and electronics industries further accelerated the transition from an agricultural center to an urbanized metropolitan area.

Mountain bike

A mountain bike or mountain bicycle (abbreviated MTB; or ATB, for all-terrain bicycle) is a bicycle created for off-road cycling.

Mountain bikes are typically ridden on mountain trails, fire roads, logging roads, single tracks and other unpaved environments. These types of terrain commonly include rocks, washouts, ruts, loose sand, loose gravel, roots, and steep grades (both inclines and declines). Mountain bikes are built to handle this terrain and the obstacles that are found in it like logs, vertical drop offs, and smaller boulders.

Mountain bike construction differs from a typical bicycle in many ways. The most noticeable differences are the inclusion of suspension on the frame and fork, larger knobby tires, more durable heavy duty wheels, more powerful brakes, and lower gear ratios needed for steep grades with poor traction.

Since the development of the sport in the 1970s many new subtypes of mountain biking have developed, such as cross-country (XC) biking, all-day endurance biking, Freeride-biking, downhill mountain biking, and a variety of track and slalom competitions. Each of these place different demands on the bike requiring different designs for optimal performance. MTB development has included an increase in suspension, typically up to 8" or 203mm, and gearing, up to 30 speeds, to facilitate both climbing and rapid descents. However, advancements in sprocket design has recently led to the "1x (pronounced one by)" trend, simplifying the gearing to one Chainring/Sprocket in the front and multiple sprockets on the rear of the drive train, more commonly, 9, 10 or 11 speed.