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Subject: Out Of Town Ride Report Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1999 12:24:51 EST From: D4er@aol.com

Freaks- This is a ride report I did for BTC-East Bay.

On Sunday, 3 of us, all members of BTC, did an off-road ride with the Almaden Cycling Club (San Jose), in Nisene Marks State Park and Soquel Demonstration Forest, near Santa Cruz. This is a short report about that ride. Almaden Cycling Club, with 900 members, is most likely the largest bike club in the Bay Area. They have an extensive group ride schedule, with a number of mtn. bike rides.

Valerie (Mtn Val) Doyle, Ryan Christbaum, and myself drove down to Aptos, near Santa Cruz to join them for a 34 mile ride in The Forrest of Nisene Marks State Park and Soquel Demonstration Forest. The drive took 90 minutes, and there were about 15 riders at the start. They were very friendly, excited to show us their favorite routes, and also happy to have people from Berkeley join them on the ride. We started with a mile long single track along Aptos Creek, (the only single track legal in the Nisene Marks) then did a 12 mile climb on a fireroad, going from sea level to an elevation of 2,500'. Mostly redwoods, very smooth easy grade, with lots of bikes and a few hikers. We regrouped at a great overlook, at mile 9, looking out over the Pacific, and then continued on, on a slightly steeper grade, for another 4 miles. We stopped at the top of the ridge, with a view to the south of Monterey Peninsular. At this point, we entered the single track of the Demonstration Forest. We did a 5 mile fairly steep descent, at times technical, but mostly very rideable and fun, through a redwood forest. This trail was called Saw Pit, and ranks with one of the best downhill trails I have ridden locally. The climb back was on a combination of fireroad and single track and that returned us back up to the ridge and the State Park and the screaming 13 mile descent down the road we came in on. Again we did the rolling one mile single track along Aptos Creek near the park entrance, back to our cars.

Impressions: The people on the ride were very social, seem to ride together a lot, were strong, fit riders, enjoyed each other's company, were not very competitive, and were fun to be with. There were about 7 or 8 women on the ride, which is more than any group mtn bike ride I have done. I also noticed that they had more dual suspension bikes than the people I usually ride with, who mostly favor Ti hardtails. It was enjoyable to ride in a new area, and I love riding in redwoods, with ocean views. The number of different loops seemed limited, but the ride we did seemed like a classic. I would rather drive 90 minutes to ride in this area than a similar, or possibly longer drive to Boggs. We did a total of 34 miles, and of that I would estimate that 10 miles was single track, so not as much of the narrow stuff as Boggs, but I found it more interesting, more challenging technically with stiffer climbs, and better signed than Boggs. If you want more details, with driving directions, please contact me. Note: The BTC Group Ride schedule will resume in April. (Mountain Biking Basics rides continues all year.) Until then informal rides can be posted to the e-mail list.

Danny Forer, Group Ride Coordinator