With the worst winter in years hitting eastern Canada I decided to bail and head south to California a few weeks earlier than usual. Good thing too from the sounds of things - snow, snow, snow and more snow is all I'm hearing. While in California I get to ride with Eric a bunch as he lives just around the corner from where I stay (those from Ontario might remember Mark Hlady who rode for Ital "back in the day" - the Hlady's have been putting me up each spring since 1999).

And what does riding with Eric entail? A whole lot of dirt, at least by most road rider's standards. Coming down early to California I was figuring on some rain and so decided to bring the 'cross winter/rain bike. All the better for hitting those dirt sections. And best of all, I found some 32C tires the other day for only $5 a piece. All set for the dirt.

To the south we ride Mt Madonna, a steep (they're all steep actually) 3km rain-rutted climb that brings us out on the hills above Santa Cruz for a breathtaking vista of the coast south toward Monterey. This one has a paved descent.

To the north we ride the trails in the San Pedro Valley Park. On these days we start out on the local group ride, the Spectrum ride, and then head north once the ride turns around. Usually there's only four or five of us, but last weekend we had a group ten or twelve rolling north to the trails. Things started off well on the trails - and then the curse kicked in. I'll say curse because any other explanation wouldn't make sense.

Up the hill we rode a steep, paved, single lane trail. Easy enough. To come down though we had to ride the dirt. No problem. At least until we hit the unexpectedly steep section. We hung off the back of our saddles, mountain bike style, avoiding the larger rocks and dipping in and out of the ruts. Still, no problem. That was until the group got its first flat of the day.

The flat repair was impressively fast, and off we went again. For all of 500m. Turns out the sidewall was torn. We booted that and were off again. For all of 500m. The same rider flatted again, this time the other wheel. He told us he'd meet us at the coffee stop. No problem.

The rest of the descent happened without incident and we headed south on HWY 1. One more dirt climb and descent to go before the coffee stop, and a whole load of flats - this is where the heavy part of the curse kicked in. The climb up old HWY 1 (not used since 1932 and now a park) doled out two flats to the group. Both of which we fixed at the top of the climb before starting the dirt descent. On to the descent. We hadn't gone more than 1km before the first flat. Repaired that one, and pssss the same guy pinch flatted again 100m later. Those of us who had ridden a bit ahead couldn't figure out what was going on. And then while waiting another rider realised they had a pinch flat as well. It seemed like we were never going to get out of the park and onto the asphalt.

Despite all the flats the ride was a blast, with some great views and challenging riding. And to top things off we decided to ride up one last dirt climb, Purissima Creek, to get home. Smooth and covered in fallen cedar and pine needles, riding this climb is like being on a plush rug. What a climb it is! 5km straight up the side of the hills, pitching up and up and up. Using a 39×26 still left me grovelling and yanking on the bars. Some of the guys had to walk the steeper sections.

Somehow, from Purissima on, the curse no longer haunted us. In fact, it was almost like we had some good karma for the last home-bound stretch as all the lights tuned green for us as we trucked home.

You can check out a GPS map of our ride here: http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/4608596

This entry was posted on Monday, December 17th, 2007 at 4:52 pm and is filed under Andrew Randell. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.