Trail Report - 11/11/09 - Santa Monica Mountains - CA

Nice long 18.4 mile ride...

Did I mention that Hector lies? Well, he seduced us all with tales of magical singletrack in the Santa Monica mountains along an approximate 12 mile loop. So we all (usual West Coast crew of Juan, Scott, Ron, Hector, Tim) made plans for our gov't sponsored holiday. We all met up around 0915 at a small strip of road Hector referred to as a "parking lot". I was very impressed to see Juan sporting a cycling jersey. Apparently he's done wearing cotton hoody's (more likely he's tired of me giving him grief). We started riding up this really nice singletrack with a very comfortable grade - read EASY CLIMBING. After 2.8 miles we reached a fire road where the grade takes a significant turn for the worse. Fortunately the road goes both up and down and the view west over the Pacific ocean is nothing short of magnificent. After 1.5 miles we reached a paved road which led to another singletrack known as "circle X". This singletrack proved to also be very pleasant with both ups and downs and great views. The only thing is - it felt quite long...and when we finally descended to the parking lot...it turns out we'd done 9.2 miles. So...the key is that Hector doesn't mean to mislead you...you just have to understand "Hector math". When he says a ride is X miles...you simply have to multiply X by 1.5 to get at the real ride length. We headed back after snarfing down our usual energy stuff. Much to my consternation, the brakes on my bike started acting up and I noticed "oh sweet, my pads are completely gone". More on that later. So we rode back and there was one exceeding tough hill on the fire road. You know the kind...where your heart feels like its going to boom-boom-boom right out of your chest. After that it was all gravy. I waited up at the start of the last bit of singletrack until Hector arrived..and then we waited. Apparently Scott had a flat. I ultimately had to go...so off I went. The next 2.8 miles are awesome winding singletrack w/ banked turns. It would have been perfect except my brakes decided that they either wouldn't work -or- simply just locked up. I got to the bottom and took off thereby missing the post-ride Dos Equis festival. Its unfortunate because an hour later I started having those post ride "feed-me" jitters.

Temp - Cool
Conditions - Hazy
Trail - Pleasantly difficult but lengthy Oh Sheets - See brake issue above

** Peace bro...we miss having you on the rides **

Tim V. (aka "The King")