schnauzers.ws

Trying to make the most out of my travel schedule, I managed to sneak a couple of days in San Diego, with my friend Chip. He showed me a couple of his local trails.  Once again, all I have available in CA is my rigid SS.  I don’t know why I psych myself out for failure.  Every time I ride this thing, I am reminded of the simple fun it brings and how it forces me to be just a little stronger.

We did our day one ride at Sycamore Canyon.  He promised there would only be a “little” climbing.  Yeah, right!

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I spent another beautiful day in California riding with some friends along the Backbone trail in the Santa Monica mountains. Officially Zuma/Trancas Canyons, this area was a very pretty place. It was probably a little more than I bargained for an a fully rigid singlespeed, but still a lot of fun. I actually passed out for an hour when I got back to the hotel. Ok, maybe the two beers at Willeys had something to do with that, but it was peaceful.

We started out from the Tunnel 1 parking lot off of Kanan Road and headed south.

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How would you answer this? An open ended question? I think it is a great statement and I use it everyday. Why? Everyday is another one.

This one was in California.  I took the opportunity to treat myself to a weekend while in the middle of some business travel.  I dragged my one geared bike from it’s resting place in Irvine (my usual remote office location) to another office in Henderson, NV.  Then to the beautiful Thousand Oaks area in CA.  Yes, all driving.

Today, I got to experience one magnificent day.  Let’s see if I can describe each photo with one word.

START

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So there I was in sunny California, only it wasn’t so sunny this day. In fact, it was kind of misty as I watch the tri-Athlon people riding up and down the highway as I attempted to find some kind of truck trail. After driving forever at ten miles an hour, I was intent on not letting the series of unfortunate events effect my birthday. A little quick search of the iPad and I found another trail nearby. There all crapshoots, so why not pick one.

I landed at Whiting Ranch, smack dab in the middle of OC stip mall central. What could possible go wrong? I paid my three dollar parking extortion, though most seem to avoid it by parking in front of Starbucks.

A quick check of the back and the slod began. Lots of soft beach sand rapidly getting me nowhere until I got to the top. There I was greeted by many friendly mountain bikes who all seemed to be huffing and puffing about the long climb up. Maybe if was some kind of weight loss class, but they all seemed pretty tired. I inquired about a loop and the all had a look of death in their eyes. “Uh, you’ll have to climb all the way up that trail”. You mean the one that goes for about a mile at a 5% grade? “Yeah, that one.” UYh, OK, I’ll see you guys at the bottom.

So for each part of double track blech, there was a nice piece of singletrack. Bottom line is I enjoyed the ride, nice people, nice scenery, and plenty of cheap eats after.

Enjoy the video.

We start climbing up the fire road and I’m thinking that (1) this is
just a JAR ride with the starting climb and (2) this terrain doesn’t
look all that nasty.

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