I have fond memories of learning to mountain bike at Sycamore. We visited Newbury Park last weekend so Hannah could get some time with her maternal grandparents and so Julie could see some of her girlfriends in the area. So on Friday afternoon I found myself with several hours to kill. Earlier I sent an email to a Newbury Park bike shop asking about any rental mountain bikes they might have but had not hear back from them. Luckily, my father-in-law has a rigid frame bike that looked like it was capable enough. After fiddling with the gears for a bit, trying to get the full range, i gave up and just made sure I had granny gear since I doubted I would be going full speed over the rough patches. I found an old helmet and off I went. I rode to the Wendy Dr trail head and started down. It was beautiful … so green and sunny and the temperature was just right at 70. They must have gotten a lot of rain recently. I started on my usual warm up loop and found that they are now letting bikes go on the Hidden Pond trail. This started off good but got a bit steep for me, so I ended up hiking some of the top. I veered off Hidden Pond to head back into the main network of trails and ended up on what I used to call the add on loop. This took me back down to Big Sycamore Trail. From there I headed towards Hell Hill, intending to ride it up to the Back Bone Trail the first time and then a second time to do Guadalesca, but I got stopped by the newly opened (to me) Coyote Trail and decided to try it. The bottom was pretty good single track but as I got near the top it got to steep for me. I didn’t realize that this trail went back over to the paved road near where i picked up the add on loop. Next time I may ride it by going the opposite direction for the technical downhill parts it offered. From here I picked up a trail (Sin Nombre Trail, i think) that intersected the Ranch Center Fire Road and ended up back on Big Sycamore for one last climb up out of the canyon. Great fun for a Friday afternoon. Great trail, but I really missed my 19” Marin Wolf Ridge and some gloves by the time I got back to the Wendy trail head. Ironically, later that evening as I was gingerly sitting down on a sofa, I checked my email and saw that the Newbury Park Bicycle Shop had emailed me back. Turns out they do rent mountain bikes. Good to know for the next time we take Hannah to visit. Total ride time was four hours. I uploaded some pictures here.
3/3/2008 ~ 3 min read
