|   Demolicious Ride | Sabine
Jan 20, 2003 10:15 AM | | Oh yeah, all is good with the world again. At least for me. Riding
Demo always puts me in a groovy state of mind. Even though the ride
was yesterday, I'm still feeling the buzz...or is that the pain in my
legs and grumbling in my stomach from all the climbing?
We set out to do the Nisene-Demo epic. Climb to the top of Nisene
Marks, drop into Soquel Demo Forest for two laps of singletrack
goodness, then back out and down Nisene. About 40 miles, 46 of which
are climbing.
"We" was me, Shelly, Arleen, Leah, and Chris, Arleen's personal chair
lift. The ride started out in the cold, damp thick forest of Nisene
Marks. The sun may have been shining, but not in this Netherworld of
Jurassic Park sized ferns. We were cold. Chris was telling us stories
of how his hands or feet or something froze while riding in Nisene
once. Thanks.
But no worries, the pain of the cold was soon relieved by the pain of
climbing. A few hundred feet up and we were out of the inversion
layer and feeling sort of toasty. Time to strip off the arm warmers
and settle in for the climb. We climbed at a leisurely, civilized
pace, but just fast enough to not get passed by runners. Nothing more
demolishing to the bike ego than to get passed by a person on foot.
We stopped for a quick refuel at Sand Point.
If this were one of my afterwork rides, this would mean the end of climbing. But our climbing had just begun. No time to enjoy the view, Demo was calling from the other side of the mountain. Getting to the other side of the mountain meant climbing the steepest part of the Asstoss Fire Road. We weren't talking anymore, but there were no runners up here to worry about. Silently, we crunched up the hill, groaning at several false summits, we reached the top of Santa Rosalia.
A quick brake fix 
and a quick
catch of the breath 
and we dived into Demo. A few feet into the trails, and my mud worries were over. The trails were perfectly tacky. Yummy. Traction was so good you could climb a wall if it was made out of this dirt. Shelly and Chris did, by climbing that rocky steep icky hill.
We decided to warm up with a drop down Tractor. Just the thing to get
our groove on, what with all those swoopy bermy corners. Sorry no
pictures. Hard to stop and take pictures when you are getting your
groove on.
Occasionally, when you are descending for a long time, a little voice
says, "are you having fun? I hope so, because all this down means we
have one hell of a climb coming. enjoy." Ugh. Up the fire road, up
stinky Sulfer Springs. Arleen took the chairlift. Bet you didn't know
there was a chairlift in Demo. Well, there is, but only for Arleen.
Leah was looking spunky, climbing and mashing gears. We stopped to
catch our breath, Shelly announced that we were about halfway up.
Leah didn't look so spunky anymore.
The last part of Sulfer Springs is particularly evil. After all that
climbing it gets really steep and rocky. It was right about at that
point that Arleen and Leah decided one lap was enough. 
They were happy with their decision. 
I was tempted too, for a minute, but then I thought of how sweet Braille would be all tacky and smooth. So Chris, Shelly and I headed back for more, while Arleen and Leah climbed up and out of Demo.
Braille was Braille. Fun, steep, drops, logs, stuff to play on.
Shelly would gracefully go over the ramped logs and yell back at
me, "do the log!" So I would. I made it! That became my mantra. Do
the log. Until we came up on a sort of nasty looking one. I did not
do the log. Shelly told me that Petra crashed on it. Shelly also told
me that when telling her crash stories Petra would describe it as 4
feet high, which is about 3 feet of exaggeration. Crash stories rule.
We stopped to take a couple of pictures. Shelly on the teeter-totter
and Shelly on the tree.
I wanted to take another picture of Shelly, this time with her head attached, but Chris was waiting at the bottom, and the girls were waiting at the top.
We all wore big stupid smiles at the bottom of Braille. You now the
smile, watch people as they exit a really fun downhill. Its a good
childish grin. Our climb was uneventful, the top part of ridge put a
twinge in my legs. It was a relief to pop out of the forest, onto to
the top of Sanat Rosalia where Leah and Arleen loked fresh as
daisies. We had plans to ride other "trails" down to the bottom of
Nisene, but as Arleen said, "which ever way is faster to food". So we
blitzed down the fireroad and back to the parking lot.
I stretched and cracked my back and enjoyed the "buzz" that a long
fun day of mountain biking always gives me. I saw that we had been
riding for about 5 hours. Shelly told me that when her and Petra
would do this loop hard it would only take them 3 hours and 20
minutes. Yeah? oh yeah? well, I bet they didn't stop to take cool
pictures. Or, maybe they took the chairlift.
Sabine
http://www.velobella.org/ |
| Thanks for the memories. | Fast Eddy
Jan 20, 2003 10:34 AM | | Francis, Ray, KennyG and a couple others were there Saturday morning, but no one brought a camera. We did a similar itinerary, Braille, Sulphur Springs, Tractor, and back, but from Highland, not the 12-mile-climb.
Gears would've been nice coming up Sulphur, and suspension would've been cool on a couple of those bumpy braking sections on Ridge Trail.
It's sure pretty up there these days... |
| How yummy were the trails? | Sabine
Jan 20, 2003 10:47 AM | | sticktion!
I wanted to bring my ss...but was sure glad I had gears on the trip up to Santa Rosalia and the 2nd trip up Sulfer. Granny!
Too bad those guys weren't up there yesterday. We could have had a Steelman Swarm. |
| I couldn't've made another trip up sulphur without a nap. | Fast Eddy
Jan 20, 2003 11:26 AM | | It was a tacky little bit of heaven up there though... |
| demolicious! | bones
Jan 20, 2003 10:48 AM | | Great post Sabine, looks like fun-fun. I know the false summits up that &#%$&# fire-road, just ask Francis about how he can "smell summit". Lol!
Thanks for bringing me back, I loved that place. The Vellobellas must have turned heads.
-20 today, but all is good, spring is only a couple months away.
brad. |
| brrrrr... | Sabine
Jan 20, 2003 11:51 AM | | and here I am complaining about the cold in Nisene. |
| Awesome ride report! | Zonic Man
Jan 20, 2003 10:54 AM | | Aren't you guys doing that again sunday before your meeting thingy? |
| not Nisene | Sabine
Jan 20, 2003 10:57 AM | | we'll probably do a Wilder/UCSC ride. Just as groovy, not as epic.
thanks |
| FUN! | Zonic Man
Jan 20, 2003 11:19 AM | | Suzy and I rode UCSC before (just pogonip though, because I would NEVER ride an "illegal" trail) and it was fun. |
| great weather yesterday | mr_spin
Jan 20, 2003 12:33 PM | | Shorts and short sleeves in January is hard to beat! I was in Demo yesterday, too, but didn't see any riders in synchronized kits like you guys. We ran into (almost literally) a group of idiots riding four across on Hihn's Mill who seem oblivious to the fact that we were descending right into them at speed, with nowhere to go. I ended up going right through the middle of them. Then they got back into formation in time for my friend to punch a new hole through them. Idiots.
We went up Sulphur around 12:30-1:00. The last section is never easy, but that full-width muddy section near the bottom of the second part really bumps up the difficulty level. We just went down Tractor and out. A short day, but then we started/ended at the far end up Highland and had done an 85-mile, 9000+ feet road ride the day before.... |
| Demolicious Post | radair
Jan 20, 2003 2:50 PM | | Thanks!
Go Bellas! |
| I thought you looked familiar! | kyezle
Jan 20, 2003 4:05 PM | | I almost took you out coming down the first part of Ridge Trail! I'm still not used to seeing riders come up that way. My wife and I were there on our singles and thoroughly enjoyed the awesome conditions. We left the fog-soaked valley and climbed up hwy 17 into blues skies and warm air! I knew it was going to be a sweet ride. By the way, if you ever feel like riding your ss with another "bella", my wife could definitely use some more female riding buddies. She'd look pretty good in one of those jerseys, too... |
| I'm a doofus | Sabine
Jan 20, 2003 4:56 PM | | I was worn out puppy by then.
Thats the faster way out, but not the easier.
Have your wife email me
sabine@velobella.org
she should get on our rides list and stuff. |
| Dirt Divas! | Blade
Jan 20, 2003 4:30 PM | | Man... I got three inches of snow last night and temps around zero all weekend, however, I did manage to get a whole crapload'o'miles on the trainer this weekend. Where's this trail at? Seems like one I need to add to my "When I win the lottery and only have to ride where ever I want" list... |
| Sexy skinsuit | cleatgrrl
Jan 21, 2003 9:53 AM | | I loved your report and all the pretty ladies rockin. It looks so warm there. How cold was it in the cold parts?
We had 10 degrees here Saturday, I went all hypothermic after 1.5 hours on the road and it blew, but Sunday's ride was fine. Hmmmm...how long do you think I could do base miles in AZ for 2K? |
| Sexy skinsuit | Sabine
Jan 21, 2003 12:09 PM | | it was probably in the high 60s, low 70s in the sun. If it makes you feel any better its cloudy and in the low 50s today.
I got my postcard too. Why did they use a shot of Alison's butt? |
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