Sing Loud, Sing Proud

I rode a 6.5 mile ride out at Wilder Ranch Yesterday. I climbed from about sea level to about 600 feet elevation over the course of two miles, with a majority of the climbing confined to short, very steep sections. I started down the other leg of the loop, saw how bad the trail was torn up from the rain, and turned around and rode back. I learned a few things.

1) Speed Kills, But Speed Saves

Climbing up a rather steep segment I heard a rider coming down call out a warning. I rolled to the edge of the trail to get out of his way. As he approached he hit a fairly rutted section. Rather suddenly he was flying over the handle bars. By the time I got to him he was already picking his bike up. "You OK I asked" "Yeah, I'm fine. New brakes." which in my mind explained his crash. Later, right before I turned back and rode out the way I came in, I passed a sign which said "Warning, heavy eroded trail ahead, please slow down" So I did, a little. I rode over a small erosion gullies and carved into a turn. Somewhere near the apex was an erosion gully perhaps 2 feet across. And of course it was right in my line for the turn. A way around? Not at my speed. Stop? Not at my speed. Remembering my crash from a few weeks ago, I took my fingers off the brake levers thinking that the brakes can quickly turn a low control situation into a no control situation. Right before the hole I pushed down on my handle bars and then pulled up, and jumped at the same time in an attempt to "Bunny Hop" over the hole. The front wheel made it over, and the back came down on the lip of the hole, but my legs were flexed and absorbed the hit. I then stopped and turned back, because I could see the trail was in similar condition tot heat home for the next one hundred feet or so, and then turned into a mud bog as far as I could see (and that was at leas a 1/4 mile). Had I slowed down I don't believe I would have been able to get the wheels over the hole and I would have gone down. At least the wet dirt was soft...

2) look at where you want to go, not where you don't.

During a short decent after the top of a rise on my climb up there was a point where a jeep (Presumably people doing trail maintenance) had driven through. Across the trail was a rut willed with black water. No way of knowing how deep it was I didn't want to ride through. In the center there was a "Bridge" of hard packed dirt about 4" wide. Which really, is not that much. I locked my eyes on it as I approached, and then looked on the far side as soon as I hit it. Once I got over, I could see my tire track running right down the middle. I began to experiment with this in the rougher sections. If I looked at where I wanted to go, I always made it through clean. If I looked at what I wanted to avoid I almost always hit it.

3) The unused trail

On the way back I decided to take a little short cut. IT would cut less than a quarter mile off my trip, but it looked like a sweet little stretch of single track. I noticed that there was not a single tire track in the dirt though as I started. I quickly learned why. The trail wound through the coastal scrub and was, at many points less than a foot wide. Being on a bike and riding facing forward you can imaging the problem with this. The brush was also very wet because the coastal fog had rolled in the night before. The experience would be much like standing in the shower, fully clothed, with the water spraying as cold as possible, while someone slapped you with a huge bushel of branches. I came out the other side, right where I thought I would, completely soaked, laughing like an idiot at the ridiculousness of it.

4) Assume all mud is deep

rolling at a casual pace down a gentle hill the right side of the trail was heavily eroded at one point. The left side had some standing water, maybe an inch deep, with "A little mud" at the bottom of the pool. Rather than drop down into the gully, which would have been impossible to escape from without dismounting I figured I'd hit the mud. I've got fenders right? I do have fenders, but the mud was DEEP. My front wheel sank to just below the brake rotor, and the rear wheel until the derailleur was kissing the mud. Of course I stopped almost instantly. I pulled the bike out with a slurping noise and decided next time I'd skirt the trail on the grass.


I love to ride.