Hopefully this is all good, been itching to go ride since my bike is out of commission with no headset and stem right now, so I'm posting pics from my last ride. Which also happens to be in socal. I'll edit them and put new norcal ride pics up this weekend, promise!
On our way up for a day of shuttling
On my way sideways on kitty litter into a berm
Nailed it!
PS: I'm not normally so destructive on trails, that berm is a loose pile of erosion from further up the hill though, so anything that flys up just slides back down and lands on top of it again.
I set out today determined to find a feasible (and hopefully legal) route from Vallejo, through Hiddenbrooke, and out the bottom back to Benicia.
It looks SO close on the map...
Leaving the last neighborhood in Hiddenbrooke.
The orchard, and what I hope is the fire road that will bring me to Sky Valley Road in Benicia.
About half a mile in, I hit a cattle corral and a gate blocking the road. I couldn't quite tell from Google if the road passed by, or was blocked by the structure. Just a little west, there was a stream crossing and another road which ran parallel...
This looks promising, although I didn't recall seeing it on the map.
Yet another gate.
After this point, I crossed the creek again further downstream, and somehow found myself magically transported back onto the original orchard fire road, on the other side of the corral and gate. About another mile down the road, there stood a grove of trees between me and Sky Valley Road, in which resided a ramshackle trailer and about a thousand barking dogs. I decided to abort this route, since I was likely already trespassing, and will try a more civilized approach to requesting access at a later date.
Then I decided to try locating the fabled Bay Ridge Trail connector which some maps show as already being completed. I got to St. John's Mine Rd., which although doesn't explicitly say "No Trespassing," is protected by a fairly official looking gate.
I opted for the multi use trail instead, and eventually found myself overlooking Vallejo once again.
Back in town, I found a recently completed stretch of singletrack (well, kind of) above Blue Rock golf course. It's about half a mile long, and pretty fun. Today was a good day.
Close, actually its coming off that short section of fireroad and back onto the single track in the upper/middle section of coldspring. Santa Barbara though, so close!
Got a couple of killer days out on the trails this weekend
Sunday, out on the coast in Northern Sonoma County. More cars parked on Hwy.1 hanging out on the beach than I've seen, even on the busiest summer weekend. Temps in the high 70's, visibility forever... Too stoked to take time for pictures.
Monday, a quick ride up and back on Big Rock Ridge. Conditions perfect. Here's my son, way out in front taking in a view of the Bay and The City.
Saturday - Roadie action of the race a couple before mine (name the local racer boy in the ugly green kit)
Sunday - excellent GGB2MBC ride. purrfect weather! even better company!
Went to rockville today. Great ride, got to test out my new fork/stem/geometry combo. If anybody ever tells you a 40 lb DH bike with 8x8 in travel is too much for rockville, listen to them
The new boxxer was fun, but a little much, fun for the rocks and such, but the bike was a bit beastly up the hills.
At any rate, we didn't really stop for pics much, I got some of my friend Alex as he did one of the steeper rock rollers. My camera is sketchy at best with sports shots, so I took the picture and was totally pumped it actually took a picture when it was supposed to (frequently there is a 3-5 second delay between when I press the button and when it decides its good and ready). So I'm looking at the picture, totally pumped that I got it, when I hear "WHAM" and "OOOHHHHHHH" look down and there's my friend Alex writhing on the ground and the other guys standing around going "oh my god dude, are you ok?!"
Jumped off a little retaining wall (2.5ft....maybe) while spontaneously f'ing around after coming off some trails into a local neighborhood.
Just sat into the thing until the bashguard hit the ground. It felt like I had 12" of suspension and no rebound. I sure was glad that it happened messing around at 3mph, instead of bombing down some singletrack.
Could have been way worse..... I didn't even crash!
I'm pretty sure the straps on my frame pack kept me from stuffing the DT into my front tire and going down hard before they blew out.
In defense of the manufacturer, I've been beating this thing like a red headed step child since the day I got it, and using it well beyond it's intended purpose. I never took the time to apply some frame saver inside the tubes. There was quite a bit of rust inside. That said, I think all 29ers with extremely short head tubes and highly mitered junctions in that area suffer from this fundamental design flaw, to varying degrees. It broke right behind the gusset.
On a positive note, I got a good laugh out of the whole thing, and I definitely got a high smiles to dollar ratio out of this purchase.
mountain lion? some big prints nearby too from something that would have seemed to be heavier than a bobcat. more scat just out of frame too, quantity and size are what made me think it was not a bobcat as well.
2,537ft in 16 miles with adam in 1:50 on the cx bikes. fire roads were like gooey peanut butter from the rain. cx race gearing is too high for these, imma swap out the 12-27 rear for a 12-32 right after cx season is over.
That looks like the pink brick lady. Used to see her all the time, whenever we rode up Mt. Diablo. She rides a very distinctive purple IF touring bike with a moose? hitching a ride on the back. We noticed every time we saw her, that her pannier bags were packed to the hilt. When asked what was in there, she said, "Bricks!".
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