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PaulJ and I rode the first pre-ride at Demo Forest on Tuesday. It was muddy and fun.
Wednesday was my anniversary, but my wife had some stuff to do, so I went for a ride before our big night out.
Last summer I rode up to Henry Coe HQ from my house, so this is a re-run of that ride, but this time I brought my crappy old Kodak DC215, since my Nikon needs some shop-time that I can't currently afford.
It's 12 miles to HQ on the road, and almost 3000' of climbing. I rode another 1.5 miles into the park on the only dirt that wasn't closed for a total of 27 miles. It took a total of 3 hours.
In the beginning, Thomas Grade
Hey, you can see my house!
Anderson Lake, over the first grade
6.25 miles out is where the real climbing starts
I've always wanted to try this little section of park. I'm pretty sure it's not officially open, but I know one official website that makes it look like it is. The first gate here is the start, at the top of the second climb up towards Coe. The trail looks sweet, and it would be nice to have another local dirt option.
Gates of heaven?
Further up, there's this other gate, that has a trail that follows a ridge I call the "love rollercoaster". It's hard to get a picture that shows the whole ridge. That trail ends in the same valley as the previous one. There's a fairly unambiguous "No Tresspassing" sign though. I had that gdmf song in my head the whole way down.
Curse thee Satan and thy temptations!
The only trail open in Coe park on this day was the parking lot trail. It's only 0.5 mi, but it's sweet. The rule is no singletrack for 48 hours after a half-inch of rain. The parking lot trail is exempt. I think.
Parking Lot trail
These two pictures were taken on the way out
On another day, Kyezle stacked hard enough into this crack, 0.7 miles into the park, that he had to abort and take naked pictures of himself instead of finishing the ride.
Kyle's Crack
Poppys in the fg, heaven in the bg
This is where it was all going to take place. Manzanita point on the ridge here in the foreground. Camping, drinking, riding. Alas, if not for the rain... Lotsa good riding there in the distance.
Manzanita Point
I took this pic from the furthest point on my ride from my house. It's the bench at the top of the climb where Manzanita Point Road and Poverty Flat Road intersect.
I love my bike. Shown here in it's current form.
The downhill is really awesome. It's about six miles of country road with almost no cars, and almost all downhill. I want to think I was going 40 on some of it.
Hopefully there will be another post later with a couple pictures of the Thursday MBTB pre-ride at demo forest. Three days so far, and four to come! Woohoo!
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(6 posts)
