Ray Hosler's Blog, page 25

Hickory Oaks Trail brings out riders

Hickory Oaks Trail view looking northwest.

I’ve been riding on the Hickory Oaks Trail and Long Ridge for about 30 years. Today was one of those days you’ll remember for the fine weather and clear skies, as long as you take a photo.

Highway 9 still has a stop light about three miles up from Saratoga, but it looks like work will be done soon.

Skyline Boulevard has new pavement near the CDF station, but it’s still rough farther north for a few miles. Will they wait until next spring to repave?

Avoidable accident on Page Mill Road

No matter how it played out, there's no reason why Jeffrey Donnelly, age 52, should have been killed while riding his bike on Page Mill Road around 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 3.

I’ve taken Old Page Mill Road to Page Mill Road dozens of times and I can only imagine what happened. The 19-year-old Palo Alto motorist driving a 2014 VW Golf was probably headed for the Interstate 280 northbound on-ramp. Without a doubt, Donnelly was continuing straight, westbound, on Page Mill Road.

He may have been moving left to access the bike lane, which is positioned on the far left side of Page Mill. It’s an awkward situation but one that is hard to avoid with the double right-turn lanes for Interstate 280 just ahead.

While I believe that the motorist is ultimately more responsible in almost every bike-car collision, Santa Clara County and Palo Alto have some responsibility.

There should be a dashed-lane transition between Old Page Mill and the bike lane. Throw in some green paint for good measure.

It’s common knowledge that Old Page Mill Road is a favorite route for cyclists.

I’m not saying it would guarantee no further accidents, but I’m sure these markings, used everywhere in Santa Clara Valley, will help reduce the chance of an accident. The motorist would have seen the dashed lines and have known that bikes are moving left to reach the bike lane.

Many motorists don’t ride bikes and may not be aware that’s how cyclists ride through the 280 freeway interchange.

This fatal bicycle-car accident once again reminds us that the autonomous car will be the best thing that could ever happen to make cycling safer. Unfortunately, Jeffrey Donnelly will not live to see the day.

Below is a video of the scene of the accident. I encountered a car coming from behind on Page Mill. I looked back twice as the car slowed dramatically. It was only then that I continued left over to the bike lane.

DeAnza College makes a small change for cyclists

This access point at DeAnza College and McClellan Road no longer has chains across the path.

Back in July 2011, I mentioned on my blog how it would be nice if a small access road from DeAnza campus to McClellan Road could be open for two-wheel vehicles.

Lo and behold, it was done! I noticed it today on my ride. The access point bridges between De Anza College Parkway and McClellan Road, near the Hwy 85 overpass. There’s good visibility both directions.

Cyclists can now use this route as a continuation from the Mary Avenue bike path through Cupertino.

It may have been something the school intended to do well before 2011, but whatever the reason, it’s greatly appreciated.

Who can forget the pumpkin tree?

Jobst Brandt and Mike Higgins pass by the pumpkin tree on Pescadero Road in 1984.

I know I can’t. In the early 1980s the residents of a house on Pescadero Road hung pumpkins from their apple tree starting in late October.

We enjoyed passing by and admiring the tree every Halloween.

The owners of the house are long-since gone, along with the tree, but the memories remain.

Pumpkin tree location today.

Silicon Valley needs a transportation system like Zurich’s

One of the more colorful trams in Zurich.

Today’s San Jose Mercury News ran an editorial by architect Thang Do that outlined what we need to do to make Silicon Valley a better place to live.

He warns that with all the construction underway, we better do something about our transportation system or we’re headed for permanent gridlock.

He mentions Zurich as a shining example of a city that understands public transportation. Here’s why:

The city has an integrated and comprehensive network of tram, rail, bus, and even river boats to take you where you want to go in the city, throughout the country for that matter. One ticket gives access to all public transportation, with the exception of intra-city rail.

Imagine stepping out of the Zurich airport with all your luggage and walking fewer than 50 yards to a waiting tram whose platform is flush to the pavement. Just roll your baggage on.

A model of transportation efficiency. Hauptbahnhof station with bike racks.

Every tram has an LED screen that shows your location and the stops ahead, including connecting trams. Every stop has a shelter with an LED sign indicating the time of arrival for trams, along with machines for purchasing tickets.

Local trains accommodate bicycles and stations have large areas dedicated to bicycle parking. Many streets have bicycle lanes and because there are relatively few cars on the streets, traffic is not an issue.

Zurich and Switzerland have thought of everything when it comes to getting around on public transportation. There’s no need to own a car, which is a reality for most people living in the landlocked country. That’s a good thing because living in Zurich is as expensive, if not more so, than living in Silicon Valley.

We can learn from Zurich. The sad truth about Silicon Valley is that the Valley of the Heart’s Delight once had a wonderful light-rail network, which was dismantled piece by piece with the arrival of the automobile.

Light rail line from the late 1800s exposed on The Alameda in 1984 at Santa Clara University bypass.

In hindsight, we blew it, but we mustn’t give up hope. We can build a transportation system equal to that of Zurich. All we have to do is, in the words of Patrick Stewart: “Make it so.”

Even the fanciest shopping area, Bahnhofstrasse, has light rail.

Intra-city and intra-regional trains whisk you all over the country with ease.

Tram interiors are roomy and accommodate luggage.

Ticket machines are everywhere and take all manner of payment.

You can even take riverboats in Zurich. They thought of everything.

Mount Umunhum summit poised to open in Fall 2016

The latest word from the open space district is that the Mt. Umunhum summit will be open in fall 2016. That means they’ll repave the five-mile stretch of road up from Hicks Road.

There’s a trail under construction from the Bald Mountain Parking Area a couple miles below the summit, slated to open in spring 2017.

It looks like a decision on the fate of the cube will be determined after October 2017 when a private/public partnership needs to be in place.

As for the opening of Loma Prieta Road, which is what we really care about, there’s no mention of a timeline. I’m still wagering it won’t happen in my lifetime.

KQED posted a nice historic video on Mount Umunhum.

Moffett Field Trail closed

Bay Trail at Moffett Field is closed for resurfacing.

Bay Trail in Mountain View, at Moffett Field, is closed for resurfacing. It should be open in early February.

This is a nice trail to take around Moffett from Sunnyvale to Mountain View, although it gets muddy when wet.

The alternate route is described on a Bay Trail website.

Swiss roots go way, way back

When we decided to trace our ancestry, we had a secret weapon — the Mormon church. A relative belongs to the church and through his efforts we got the scoop on the Hosler side of the family.

The Mormons believe tracing ancestry is more than just a fun pastime, but a spiritual and religious imperative. Whatever their motivation, they’ve amassed a treasure trove of genealogical facts.

We didn’t expect to find any close relatives living in Switzerland. Our family, which is traced back to Sebastian Hassler, left the Canton of Basel in 1749 by sailing down the Rhine river and then to America on the Crown, arriving in Philadelphia, Pa., on August 30, 1749.

The Hassler name was no doubt changed to Hosler in America. Phonetic spellings of names was a common occurrence as officials struggled to document names.

Downtown Rheinfelden defines Swiss charm.

They settled in Berks County, where many Germans lived, otherwise known as the Pennsylvania Dutch. Sebastian had five sons by Barbara Degen, all but one (too young) of whom served in the Revolutionary War on the side of the colonists in the Berks Militia.

Trying to find records dating back to the 1700s must be quite a challenge. Back then mainly the wealthy could read and write, with a literacy rate of about 38 percent in Germany. That’s one reason why so few records exist. Wars and natural disasters haven’t helped matters.

Nevertheless, we have a wonderful book on the Hasslers written by Helen Dempsey Hassler published in 1946. She went to Switzerland to do research, although it’s unclear when.

She goes into fine detail, tracing the Hassler name to the Hasle-thal valley at the base of Meirengen. In what has to be one of most satisfying acts of serendipity, I rode my bike up the Grimsel Pass in 1985-86, without knowing about the family connection.

With these details in hand, we set off to Switzerland, even if only to see where our ancestors lived. We settled on a stay in Zurich, north of the Hasle valley and east of Basel.

Our first excursion took us by train for one hour to Rheinfelden, a quaint tourist town on the Rhine river bordering Germany. It’s near Basel, but part of the canton of Aargau, so it’s unlikely our ancestors lived here, but close enough. Many Hasslers lived in the area south of Rheinfelden, Buss and vicinity.

Our lone attempt to find out more information ended in disappointment at the city offices. They spoke little English and said they had no records.

However, during our stay we saw two signs with Hassler/Hasler; one for a profitcenter tool company, with Hasler emblazoned on their cars and the other a car dealership outside Zurich.

The best way to see Switzerland — by train.

For the trip to the Hasle valley we chose one of the most spectacular train rides in Switzerland, the Luzern-Interlaken Express.

Traveling by train in Switzerland gives you a new appreciation for train travel and how it could be put to better use in the U.S. We sat in the dining car and enjoyed a meal of fine cheeses and coffee, as the Swiss countryside with its curvaceous green valleys carved by glaciers and snow-covered Alps passed by.

All the more amazing is that this train uses a rack and cog system that allows it to climb one section of Brunig Pass on a 12 percent grade! Most trains struggle with a grade over two percent.

We stopped in Meiringen station and that was about as close as we came to the Hasle valley. I could take satisfaction in knowing that my bike rides up the Grimsel Pass took me past the original birthplace of the Hassler families. How fun.

Looking at Grimsel Pass from Furka Pass in September 1985. Perfect weather.

Finding our family roots in Italy and Switzerland

This isn’t on the subject of bicycles, but it’s something that we all can relate to — family. We’re all related, one way or another, but our family recently went to Italy and Switzerland to see where our ancestors lived in more recent times.

On my father’s side we have the Hoslers, who originated in Switzerland, the Hasli valley specifically, near Meiringen north of Zurich. The other side of his family is French, but we didn’t have enough frequent flyer miles to make it to Paris. My mother’s side is the Molisse and Bello family, which is from Sarno near Naples.

My mother, brother and wives packed our bags and flew across the Atlantic Ocean, which sure beats going by boat. We knew exact details about my mother’s family, although we had no contact with any family members.

Our search for my mother’s family started in Naples, where we met Adolfo Scotto di Luzio, a well-regarded tour guide based in Naples. He whisked us away in a new Mercedes-Benz Vito, destination Sarno, a community of 30,000 at the foot of the Apennine Mountains, near the source of the Sarno River.

We walk to Sarno city hall.

Sarno is not a tourist destination by any stretch. It’s a blue-collar community where paper, cotton, silk, linen and hemp are manufactured. There’s a lot of agriculture nearby on the plains lying at the base of Mount Vesuvius, an active volcano that hasn’t done much since 1944. Of course we all know about the AD 79 eruption that wiped out many villages, including the tourist destinations of Pompei and Ercolano (Herculaneum).

As we drove to Sarno, Adolfo talked about the many families he has helped find their ancestors, although in recent years there are fewer and fewer requests. He said he was not surprised that our grandparents left for America in the 1920s to seek their fortune. They were among the hundreds of thousands who left Italy searching new opportunities.

My grandfather, who fought for both the Italian and French army in World War I, managed to survive a bullet to the leg, which was never removed. He worked on Hoover Dam in the sweltering heat during its construction and eventually settled on Long Island, New York, bought a house, made wine and worked for the railroad.

A city manager looks up the Molisse records.

Adolfo had never been to Sarno, so he asked some locals sitting outside a cafe having a smoke about the location of town hall, where we would look for birth records. We parked a half-mile from the building at the center of town and walked down the main street where people went about their business. It looked like your typical Italian village with ancient buildings, cobbled streets, and Catholic churches.

We entered town hall around 11 a.m., just in time, as they shut down for the weekend at noon on Fridays. We walked up narrow stairs to the document area where a man and woman sat at their desks shuffling papers. The man had lots of work to do, but he graciously looked up the family records for Molisee. We had an exact date of birth, which helped immensely.

Thanks to Adolfo, we could explain exactly what we were looking for. Nobody in our family speaks fluent Italian.

Sure enough, the manager found some important documents about our grandfather after only a few minutes search in a closet filled with aging hardbound books. Adolfo said we were lucky our family lived in a small community. “In a large city they would not be this helpful.”

Family members and driver Adolfo listen to Molisse relatives trace their ancestry.

With the information in hand, we drove down the narrow roads to nearby Episcopio, a jurisdiction of Sarno where our grandparents lived so many years ago.

Adolfo stopped at an intersection where some local residents were gathered outside their modern home. To our right we could see an entirely new subdivision at the base of hills covered by a mix of brush and scraggly trees.

That housing complex was built following a devastating mudslide on May 5, 1998, that killed some 135 residents.

In the video link there’s a yellow church where, we believe, my mother’s parents were married. It looks fine now, but it was directly in the path of the mud flows that overtook fleeing people in the dark of night.

Episcopio church where my grandparents married. The church on the left is modern, with an ancient facade.

We walked over to talk with the family, which said its last name was Molisse, although just how they were related was unclear. My mother’s grandmother had 23 children, so it’s easy to see how that might be an issue.

We continued to the church and met some more residents who knew where a prominent attorney by the last name of Molisse lived. We were guided there by car, but the attorney was not home.

We finished our search at the town cemetery where we met some nice officials who showed us around. We found one Molisse family that looked like it might be a match to my mother’s grandparents, but it’s hard to say with any certainty.

Grandparents wedding day.

And so ended our quest. It was my mother’s chance to see where her parents once lived in their youth. We spent the rest of the day exploring the sights of Mount Vesuvius and Herculaneum, buried in the AD 79 volcanic explosion. Who knows? Some distant ancestors may be buried there as well.

Next, Switzerland.

Dumbarton Bridge and Coyote Hills Park tour

After reading about the tack attack on Kings Mountain Road, I decided to scratch my plan to ride there.

Turns out the tacks were spread over 50 yards back in June, but an effort to raise a $10,000 reward to catch the criminal made news, again.

I took various paths and expressways to make it over Dumbarton Bridge and then around Coyote Hills and along Alameda Creek.

That reminds me of the time I rode over Dumbarton with Jobst Brandt and friends on April 17, 1983, six months after the new span opened, while on our way to watch the Coors Devil’s Cup Criterium in Walnut Creek, won by Steve Tilford.

Because we were following Jobst, you can be sure we did the unexpected, which meant riding ON THE BRIDGE road, not the separated bike path on the south side.

Back then the striping was four lanes, two each direction, with a generous shoulder, so we rode without being hassled. Striping increased to three lanes after the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake. Due to construction near Crow Canyon Road, we also had to cross Interstate 580.

I’ve lived here long enough to remember driving over the OLD Dumbarton Bridge. Narrow would be the operative word.