Sunday, May 17th, 2009

MTB: ROMP Ride at Skeggs (Checking out Giant Salamander)

I had known about ROMP’s monthly group rides at Skeggs for a while and this was my first time attending one after seeing Josh’s reminder on MTBR. We started with five of us, but we lost Hank shortly into the ride after he over-shot the turn off to Blueblossom. Later when we saw him back at the parking lot, we learned that his chain broke twice on his ride.

I don’t know Giant Salamander well enough to comment on its re-routing. My main concern is riders can fly fast on it at some of those rolling ups and downs without a good visibility to what’s beyond the next hump. I’m not a fast rider and was still surprised by the two riders standing off the trail when I “flew” by them. I just hope we don’t hear about bad collisions on this trail in the future.  It can be a pretty lucrative place to set up speed traps if the rangers are willing to hike in a bit. Let’s hope they don’t know that.

I took a couple of the photos at the Red Barn on my way home. When I rode to Skeggs from La Honda and back, I kept thinking I would much rather be riding on the dirt in those surreal hills than on this highway where cars kept blasting by me. I’m going to the La Honda Creek Master Plan Project: May 19 Meeting to let them know just that!
Vandalism?

Red Barn on Hwy 84

Maybe someday I can ride over there.