We study graphs G in which the maximum number of vertex-disjoint cycles nu(G) is close to the cyclomatic number mu(G), which is a natural upper bound for nu(G). Our main result is the existence of a finite set P(k) of graphs for all k is an element of N-0 such that every 2-connected graph G with mu(G)-nu(G) = k arises by applying a simple extension rule to a graph in P(k). As an algorithmic consequence we describe algorithms calculating minmu(G)-nu(G), k + 1 in linear time for fixed k.