On Tuesday, I met Charlie, Israel and Matt at Del Cerro. Charlie brought his new Tallboy, which I had a chance to ride for a lap. It definitely felt more plush, especially the fork. I think the seat was positioned a little further back than my Spearfish, and it put a little strain on my back, but I'm sure that can be adjusted. In any case, a sweet ride for certain. We ended up doing more than 2 hours of ride time and nearly 3500 ft. of climbing, which was good for a Tuesday.
It turns out a friend was in town and wanted to get together on Thursday night, so I had to skip the PV road ride and wait for the weekend.
Saturday was a busy day with my nephew's birthday party and a pub crawl planned in the afternoon, so Israel, Susan, Matt and I got an early start with the goal of a good four hour ride. We went to Santa Monica and decided to do a ride similar to what Israel and I did a few weeks earlier.
We started up Westridge, and I still wanted to pace myself and keep it fairly moderate, but push a little bit harder than I had been. Israel and I stayed together and Matt was close behind. We then went across and down Sullivan Ridge to the boy scout camp gate and climbed back up to the top of Sullivan Canyon. We descended the canyon and it was really fun. Some of the side singletrack trails connect together well, and the main canyon is in good shape, with some good opportunities for jumps and drops. Climbing back up was good too, as Israel and I kept a pretty good pace. We made it over to Hectic and dropped in there. It's always amazing how many hikers like to come up Hectic. Luckily, my timing was good this time and people were able to pull to the side as I descended and I was able to clean the whole run. It just shows the Spearfish is a pretty capable descender. The last climb out of Caballero Canyon is always tough, but again, I felt pretty good. Even when I got gassed I was able to recover. We ended up climbing back up to the start of Broken Arrow (car trail) then back to Sullivan Ridge. I wanted to get 4 hours of ride time in so we descended Sullivan Ridge down to the big tree, then climbed back up to Sullivan Canyon for a last descent. I had to get to my nephew's birthday party, so I bombed down and stayed mostly on the main trail. I made it to the car and the ride time was right at 4 hours. Felt good! Israel and Susan stayed to do a little extra, but I found out later that Susan crashed on Sullivan Canyon and hurt her hand. Hopefully she'll be okay for Mammoth next week.
After the fairly big ride Saturday, then the pub crawl and a few too many beers, it took me all day to rally on Sunday. I finally got off the couch, ran a few errands, then decided to go for an early evening road ride on the Crosscheck. I was hoping to get about 3 hours in with some steady climbing. Didn't quite get 3 in, but almost. Turned out to be a great afternoon for a ride. Was overcast for much of it, but good temperature. Here's a pic along the rugged coast of PV:
Here's the ride info. First time all year that I rode on both Saturday and Sunday. We'll see how the back holds up!
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