Bulldogs of Fall
by Rob Blue on October 9th, 2006
Today seems to have been our first MTB ride of the Fall here in Southern California. Contrary to popular belief, we do have seasons here, they are just not as dramatic as in my hometown of Chicago. The contrasts between season come on in a hurry here though. Two weeks ago, Sunday’s ride was in the hundreds and today the temperature according to my car was a brisk 46 degrees fahrenheit. Although it gets a little chilly, we still get to ride year round without having to resort to spiked tires.
Have I mentioned how much I love Stan’s NoTubes sealant. Take a look at that photo of the sealant fixing that puncture in my tire from the dreaded goathead. Here’s how good that stuff is, there were dozens of those little thorns in both my tires when I unloaded my bike at the start of the ride. I pulled out the biggest ones and let the NoTubes do it’s job. Take a look at the Google Earth file of the ride and see that we rode all over through all kinds of rough terrain and I did not lose any air pressure by the end of the ride. That’s why I swear by the stuff. If I was riding with tubes I would have been walking.
For today’s ride Mikel wanted to hit Malibu Creek State Park, the site of next weekend’s CORBA Fat Tire Fest. Mikel is going to be giving a free skills clinic along with Marla Streb at the Fest so he wanted to see what the trails were looking like. Recently a friend of mine from work asked me for suggestions on what kind of bike to buy. Of course I steered him towards a Scott. Zach ended up buying a sweet Scott Scale 30 and I told him he needed to break it in by coming out and riding with us. He was ready to go when I got there.
Zach earned our respect big time today. We sort of meandered around the lower trails for a bit going through this fun rock garden singletrack section which led us to the base of Bulldog. The Bulldog fire road is a tough climb. It starts out pretty mellow and saves all of the steepness for the end. Many a new rider has cursed it’s name. We asked Zach if he was game for giving it a shot and he was in. That guy made it all the way up wearing regular running shoes and no clips! I never heard him complain the entire way. Awesome!
We ended up running into some friends of mine, Dave and Mitch, at the Castro Peak parking lot. I have worked on a lot of projects with Dave over the last 4 years. He’s a great guy and I was glad to see him out hitting the trails.
I have ridden this area for years yet Mikel took us up a section of slickrock that I didn’t even know existed. It was really amazing to ride over these crazy rock formations. Mikel says it is very close to what he’s ridden in Moab. I have yet to get out there but it is high on my list for road trips.
I am hoping to ride a lot of new places next year with the new team. Things are shaping up to be loads of fun.
