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Here's Sunday's of a BTCEB ride I led that you may enjoy. Dimond in the Rough - A Group Ride Report - 9/19/99

All the BTCEB members and friends with an interest in jewelry assembled at the Bridgeview Gate for our first official ramble down the Dimond in the Rough. We had a great turnout of 9 riders that included: Eric Muhler Rick Serena Dimitri Ozeransky Karl Vavrek John Keeler David Kopp Joe Towbis Eddie Pledger John Bowers Everybody was ready to ramble and so after brief preparatory remarks that lasted twenty minutes the Vizier gave the go sign and everybody rode off up Bridgeview to catch up with Joe who couldn't stand any more yakkin'!

Now Dimond Canyon Trail has the potential to be a real dab fest and today's excursion didn't disappoint. We had dabbers in the first turn, and many more too numerous to count. I'll bore you with my own personal statistics, which were I dabbed on Switchbacks #2 and #6 going down and on # 6 only coming back up. But there, like a teenager whose spent too many nights in the forest gamboling with all the forces teenagers like to gambol with, I've jumped ahead of my story.

Heading down the Park Blvd. side of the canyon we found several great places to dab. Waiting at one of the many trail junctions, the Vizier managed to start off, run straight into a hidden poison oak stump, and endo into the waiting branches (welcoming arms) of the PO bush! Nice move, Vizier! We went down to the creek except for David who had already flatted and was back on the trail changing his tire. At the bottom, I pointed out the ideal route for this ride once the sewer replacement work is done coming up from El Centro Ave. Then we all turned our bikes around and started back up the steep trail from the creek. KA-CHANGLE-RAAANNNGGGG!!! It seems to be open season on chains lately. Eddie's had broken and shredded and was actually wrapped around the rear derailleur.

Before you could blink the Viz had a Speed Link out and Eddie, who still has 8 cogs and a traditional width chain, was back in business. When we got up to the level section of the trail, we found David still trying to get his second attempt at a new tube to work. When that one wouldn't hold air, either, the Viz whipped out a tube and some CO2 and said "Let's get this over with!" In short order David was ridin' again. Did I forget to mention the very narrow 6 inch section of trail around the rock outcropping of jagged shale? Joe got up close and personal with that rock with his right shin. Good blood and a nasty scrape later he was still willing to go at it.

Because of the mechanicals several riders made it to the top of Dimond at Bridgeview well before the others. John Bowers decided he was going to get schismatic and headed back the way we had come. The rest of us headed for Joaquin Miller via mostly dirt. Dimond Canyon trail goes off the edge of Bridgeview, at the northern end, down a severe set of concrete steps that were installed well before the advent of mountain biking. I would like to see this section of trail replaced with a bike appropriate trail. This would be another project much like our last one, but shorter and not as steep. Eddie probably feels the same way. He tried to ride the steps and endoed big time off the side. Picking himself up in good fashion, he proceeded a bit more cautiously.

Once on the pavement, we rode up Monterey Blvd., under the 13 freeway in the pedestrian-bike tunnel, up Mountain Blvd. to Woodminster, up Joaquin Miller Road to the poet's cabin, and jumped into the Bishop's Walk Trail that starts at the cabin and climbs around to Lookout Point. 3/4 of the way up, the Viz, showing a modicum of strength, zipped a little rock and butt-dabbed into a patch of sticks that left his right cheek a little ragged. Oh well... We did Sinawik Loop and then went back around it and up Palos Colorados on the opposite side of the creek the second time up. We rode up and around on Sunset Loop and started up $2 Hill on Sunset. This trail has had most of the technical obstacles ameliorated by constant riding. However, the grade itself, and certain little technicalities still maintained the power to derail all of our most valiant efforts. The Viz who made it over Parts One and Two without a dab was resting in the easy part, saving strength for the last short tough part, and a little rock zipped out from his rear wheel and he was suddenly pointed right at the side of the hill with a log between his front wheel and the trail. No way! I failed too.

At the top of Big Trees Dimitri decided to bail. We wished him a safer ride home than the journey some of us had sustained so far, and continued enjoying all the little technical aspects that JM trails have to offer. We stopped for Clif Bars and GU and Karl picked up some garbage, but understandably left the used condoms for a more fearless and stalwart citizen. None of the rest of us had the guts either. It was remarked that the trails were in great shape, and that the park was generally very free of litter and garbage.

We descended Cinderella and did the Sunset out-n-back, but in one of those sudden bursts of inspiration, Rick, John Keeler, Karl, and David decided to bail down Castle Drive pavement. It was up to Joe, Eddie and I to go back the way we had come and we did. The ride out of the park was considerably less painful than the climb in and we whooped and hollered our way back down to Bridgeview and through the canyon, back to the cars.

This ride was a junket with no pretenses of being an epic, but everybody seemed to enjoy the technical aspects of this type of fire-road-free riding. (Not to be confused with fire-road, free-riding) We were always going over, around, under, up, or down something! Lots of dabs helped steer us toward how to improve our singletrack riding. And I still maintain, that once this entire route is in proper condition for bikes, there will be no other trail system like it in a metropolitan city limit of over 350,00 population, anywhere. It is an invaluable asset and a gem. That's what I call a "Dimond" in the rough!

STATS: 12.57 miles. Nine riders, eight riders, seven riders, three riders.

168 dabs (uncorroborated).

One bashed shin. One bashed right butt.

One flat (three fixes required). One broken chain.

Two rigid forks. One Schwinn double-boinger.

One poison oak endo. One concrete step endo.

Nine batches of singletrack fun! outloud a couple of times .

Eric Muhler The Grand Vizier

ericmuhler@btceastbay.org

http://www.btceastbay.org