still going strong

Still going strong!  Ride at Purisima Creek this evening.  Havent been blogging for a while Im back again!

Very Busy

I'm back after being consumed with many tasks.  Fortunately I have been able to keep up with my fitness and  bicycle rides .  I strive to do fitness related activities daily.  I have been on bike rides at my usual places and  doing various amounts of mileage but usually nothing less than 10.  I will be updating more in the future . 

Skeggs Ride 6/3.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnlwZz6948Y&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Lots of riding lately, here's some video!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=ULKbyGJCDV3mo&v=KbyGJCDV3mo&feature=player_detailpage

Coast trail

Todays ride was along the coast trail, I elected to ride my single speed bike today.   This trail consists of mostly pavement and a couple of fields that offers a little bit of off road riding.  The section that I rode was from the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Half Moon Bay CA. to the Princeton Harbor in El Granada, Ca.  and back to the Ritz which I live near by (about 10 miles round trip). 
My original intention was to go to the gym, but since I lost my key card for my gym I was unable to enter today as no one else was there.  This prompted me to go for this last minute ride .  The ride was smooth and uneventful except for having to dodge people who walk .  It seems like there were a lot of people today that just did not know which side of the trail to be walking on.  Otherwise it was a great ride the beaches and the water was very nice as usual . 

Skeggs ride today.

As usual, I went for my routine mountain bike ride today.  This ride was at Skeggs (ECDM)  http://www.openspace.org/preserves/pr_ecdm.asp on my Specialized Stump Jumper FSR  Elite   http://www.specialized.com/us/en/home/ .  The conditions were overcast slightly windy and  foggy.  The large redwood trees collected moisture from the fog causing almost rainy conditions in the deeper forrest.  This made for some excellent traction.  The ride began by heading down el corte de madera creek trail and then up resolution trail to fir trail. Next I decended down manzanita trail ending at timberview trail.  At this point I had a choice to continue up timberview and start to head back or head down timberview to crosscut trail and extend my ride.  I chose to extend my ride as I was feeling energized.  Heading down crosscut was great single track.   I soon found myself headed up blue blossom trail and then making it out to bear gulch road thru gate 6 .  The ride up to this point was great, the traction was perfect and the cooler weather helped me to remain cool as well since this was the longest climb of the day. So I proceeded on bear gulch road to the intersection of skyline boulevard  which is all pavement .  Heading north on skyline boulevard for a short distance is probably my least favorite part of the ride as I have to ride on a fairly busy highway until I enter back into the trail system through gate c m 04  which brings me on to sierra morena trail and back to the truck.   What a great ride!  I was able to log in about 12 miles and I only saw about a dozen people out riding!  I couldn't have asked for a better day ! 

An excellent blog

I have been following this blog for a while now   http://www.salinasramblersmc.org/tobin/blog/blog.htm  it's an interesting blog about an area that offers some of the best off road motorcycle riding in the country .  The area is called Clear Creek Management Area located in Coalinga, California.  This area has been host to 2 major AMA district 36 enduro racing events anually for many years. 
Unfortunately this area has been closed by the bureau of land management since 2008.  There have been many ongoing efforts to have this land re opened . The link above to the blog  describes in detail many efforts and many details of why the land should be opened again.  

yesterdays ride

I was able to have a chance to ride yesterday in water dog lake park in belmont once again.  The conditions were decent but mostly dry and dusty.  It was fairly windy outside on the upper trails but once I descended into the canyons the weather was nice .   My ride consisted of approximately 8 miles of single track trail aboard my 26" single speed hard tail bike, taking me about an hour to finish. I took my usual route and it seemed to not be as crowded as days in the past.  The ride was pretty uneventful as far as head on collisions may go.  
As far as the rest of the week goes this was the only ride I was able to do, although, I was able to make it to the gym on a few occasions for my weight training circuit .   Looking forward to some weekend riding! 

More on Hangtown!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9DXreOa-vs

Motocross yesterday and Awesome 2 hour hike

Hangtown National Motocross!  It was from yesterday in Sacramento, CA.  great day of fun. 
Also did a 2 hour hike today at Purisima Creek Redwoods, CA. See pic.  also saw an eclipse picture is attached! 

Todays ride.

Todays mountain bike ride was rather lengthy , I was able to knock out 16 miles at El Corte de Madera aka "Skeggs" in approximately 2 and a half hours which I believe is pretty good time considering the steep terrain .  The conditions in the single track were optimum, and the area was sparsely populated, it seems like there were only a couple riders out . During the ride at around mile 10 I made a very amateur mistake of shifting during a less than desirable time  causing me to shift hard  and slightly tweak my chain.  I could tell something had happened to my chain because there was some abnormal noise coming from my bike after the hard shift .  Just a bit further at around mile 11 my chain broke .  This happened on what is known as the resolution trail, named after a san mateo county airliner crash in 1953  http://www.weeklywalker.com/Walks%20by%20county/San%20Mateo/ElCorte_theresolution.htm   .  Luckily, I had a chain breaker tool with me and a repair link to repair the damage and I was able to ride out again with no other problems .  This incident just confirmed that carrying the proper repair equipment is essential when mountain biking especially in the area that I was in today which happens to be a remote area and  very long walk out if you cannot repair your bicycle .   Tomorrow, its off to the hangtown national motocross event !  stay tuned !

Mountain Bike Ride Today

The bike ride today was done on my single speed mountain bike at water dog lake park, Belmont, California.  Weather was cold on the upper trail but became nice once I got into the canyon.  Conditions were dry and dusty.  The trails were populated with many other riders; I came to this conclusion after experiencing two near head on collisions with other riders almost right after entering the trail system.  The vegetation seems to be coming back on the sides of some of the trails after being completely destroyed by some people who claimed to be doing trail maintenance last year.  The vegetation was nice and green from the rain hitting the area over the last month.  Hopefully all of the vegetation will grow back and the trails will once again become the single track it was in the past.  However, one problem, it looks like someone has been bushwacker happy on one of the trails, hope this does not mean the trails will be hacked again.......