The drizzle began to fall just as I walked out to the garage to pound
the cranks onto my brand new Profile hub. The weather report called
for a 40% chance of rain but that just got bumped up to 100%. We all
know what that means... muddy muni! 'Excellent...'
(http://tinyurl.com/dk3h8)
Nick Brazzi and I met Corbin Dunn and Trevor Blackwell in 'a little
neighborhood' (http://tinyurl.com/7seqz) just off the UCSC campus.
Instead of our usual rides down the backside of the campus into the San
Lorenzo valley, we planned to take a trail skirting the outside edge of
'Wilder Ranch State Park'
(http://www.parks.ca.gov/default.asp?page_id=549). Like our usual
rides, we had several miles of winding singletrack ahead, all
underneath a canopy of towering redwoods. We shuttled up Empire Grade
to start the ride, saving us a few miles of uphill riding (yecch!)
The trail launched us straight into the redwoods on gently rolling
singletrack. The tree cover afforded us a little shelter from the
drizzle, but the ground was already saturated. The redwoods pawed at
us as we rolled past... the trail was a veritable slalom course where
one dodged redwood trunks, roots, branches and even a few deadfalls.
After a few mild downhill sections we found the beginning of the many
stunts Mailboxes has to offer... several doubles challenged us to
"clear the gap". We took a few launches apiece and with no success we
rolled on.
Now the trail got a bit more challenging. Here and there we came upon
trees laying across the singletrack, some with dirt ramps, others
requiring a rolling hop to continue along. I'd hear an "oomph" and
someone would shout "pileup!" as a tree would bring our train of riders
to a temporary halt. Where we found a nice ramp we'd all stop and give
'er a few goes until we all felt that we had conquered the obstacle
(we'll see on the next ride 🙂 ). Then we came upon another or
Mailboxes' treasures... a nice, wide ladder just a few feet off the
deck gave us all a little taste of North Shore.
Just beyond, we encounter another tree across the trail. The tree was
shaped such that a natural ramp appeared in its midsection. Of course,
we all had to stop and give it several tries. After a good 10 minutes
of various comical dismounts (Nick ended up sitting on the log
comfortably after his first UPD), Corbin rode the tree until the
overbrush mobbed him. I made it up and over the log, as did Nick, and
that was good enough to keep going.
Around a bend, the ground dropped out from below us. A long, steep
downhill section threatened to gobble us all up and spit our munis out.
There was a "left" and a "right" option to continue, "left" being a
twisty, rocky descent that alternated between steep and kinda steep...
"right" was a straight shot, straight down. Very steep. Don't try
walking down steep. Slide down on your butt steep. Did I mention that
it was raining? At this point the trail was good and muddy, and the
rocks had become rather slick. Corbin made quick work of the "left"
option with the help of his squeaky Maguras, and hiked back up to brave
the "right". After a couple slides he determined he was taking it too
slowly, so he powered down with a turbo-charged quickness. To our
amazement, he made it about 3/4s of the way down. His uni got too
anxious and flew the rest of the way down, leaving Corbin with a small
hike to find his wheel.
I took the left with a good amount of backpressure, clearing it on the
first try with a whoop and holler of joy. Nick followed after a false
start, and Trevor pieced it together to bring us to the bottom. We
played on a couple more stunts before continuing on to the Next Big
Drop. This one was shorter, but had way more rocks and roots. Luckily
there were trees at the bottom of our attempted lines that helpfully
caught Corbin and I before we plummeted off into the ferns. Yes, we're
treehuggers and we're proud. We cleaned this section in small pieces,
slipping constantly; some of us decided to slide down on our rear ends,
but we all soon met at the bottom.
The rest of the trail was uneventful, although the terrain varied
widely from soft loam to slick mud to slick rocks and all variations
inbetween. The rain picked up a little more, dripping down through the
canopy to strike our helmets with a "thwap" and drip down off our
noses. We ended up on some overgrown fire road, dodging horse
droppings, heading towards the gate that would take us toward the UCSC
pastures. As we hopped the gate, we finally emerged from the canopy,
with a view of rolling green pastures blanketed with fog and cow
patties. We zipped across the pastures back to the roads, the rain now
washing off some of the mud I collected in the forest. A few blocks of
pavement and sidewalks took us back to our cars, where we concluded our
riding for the day.
The combination of yesterday's flag football and today's muni ride
leaves me walking stiff-legged like a modern Frankenstein (as Nick had
observed), but I'm already looking forward to riding Mailboxes again on
Christmas eve. The new Profile setup is infinitely greater than my old
UDC square taper hub with mismatched bicycle cranks, and it's begging
to see more airtime. Trevor got bitten by the Muni bug and the trail
left Nick hungering for more, so it looks like our little group will
reconvene in the 'Cruz shortly!
--
maestro8
Those are my principles. If you don't like those, I have others. --
Groucho Marx
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