Monday, May 25th, 2009

MTB: A Short Spin at Henry Coe

We had a late start after sending off the little tweety bird to the rescue center, but we weren’t going to let it deter us from riding Coe, especially on such a nice day. While gray, foggy, and miserable at home (on the ocean side of Skyline Ridge), it was at perfect temp in the Bay Area at around 70’s all day.

The route was for the most part my idea, but we sorta played by ear a bit. We went up Lymon Wilson, a pleasant climb, and the tall grass at the upper part and on Bowl trail was unreal. Often times, I felt that I was riding in a narrow tunnel. Down Grizzly Gulch Trail, up Dexter, down Kelly Lake Trail, and that led us to Kelly Cabin Canyon Trail. I worked on this trail in January with the IMBA crew and have read that it had become a fun trail to ride since the trailwork. It was not bad, but it could definitely use more traffic and maybe just a little bit more work — a couple of steep switchbacks are getting loose and collapsing. Over all, it was very rideable except that Erik, being in the lead, felt the urge to stop every two hundred yards to do tick checks. He had every reason to do so because he almost always found some ticks in action.

We continued to Cross Canyon Trail and climbed up and dropped down to Grapevine Trail. Anza Trail took us back to Coit Road, that concluded our ride on the dirt.

It was just a leisurely ride, no real agenda, no pressure to make footage or mileage. We enjoyed it. We also had some very pleasant encounters with a few horse back riders. On Lymon Wilson, after I crested on a steep hill, I saw a few riders coming towards me. So I stopped and pulled aside. I didn’t mind stopping for the horses, and I was going to take some pictures and wait for Erik anyway. They came up and said cheerfully, “today, you mountain bikers have the right of way.”  I didn’t know where that came from, but I said to them, “Oh, don’t worry, we mountain bikers can stop too.”  We wished each other a great ride. After the ride, Erik chatted with two horseback riders for a good half an hour about Henry Coe in the parking lot. I know there is a reason why we drive out of MidPen for Henry Coe!

Pictures are in the gallery.

Lymon Wilson

Erik pulled this Coe-sized stick off of his derailleur.

A big tree branch fell on Anza and blocked the trail.