So I have biked all of the bikeable areas of Rancho San Antonio now. Sadly, there aren’t very many. I blame asshole mountain bikers for wrecking too many trails trying to look like the mountain bike advertisements. Many of the trails I know that I could bike without running people down or causing any more wear than a jogger, but I’m just not allowed.
I biked up the Mora Trail for a stretch… it’s uphill most of the way, so I ended up running out of steam and not wanting to risk my need-to-be-adjusted-after-150-miles-of-fun deraleurs uphill to downshift to the smallest chainring and thus portaging it up the hill. Got my heartrate pumping. Mora trail is hard to find… the Meadow Trail is bike-friendly until it hits Deer Hollow Farm and then it’s not bike friendly, so I kept looking to the right trying to figure out where the Mora trail forks off and it turns out that there are three trails that fork off the Meadow Trail and two of them have no-bike signs and one of them doesn’t. And once you get uphill, on top of the Mora Trail there’s a water tank and a beautiful vista.
I finally figured out, after a bunch of combinations and permutations, how to properly pack my tripod. I just use the cargo netting atop my trunk bag to hold it. I was trying to have it hang down like a pannier bag on the side and that just wasn’t working. But I took my tripod and my 35mm camera loaded with ISO 20 microfilm and the 28mm and 70-210mm zoom lens, plus the G7. Do I get enough crazy photographer points? It was 20 speed film that is more like 12 or so in Rodinal and so even in situations where a more normal selection of films would be handholdable, I needed to use the tripod.
So, I biked a mere 8.47 miles and reached a maximum speed of 27.2mph downhill (I used the brakes a lot). I was getting 20mph on some of the level sections, which isn’t half bad for a mountain bike and an out-of-shape nerd but probably not nearly as impressive for a road bike.
I’ll post the pictures in a bit. Still have to finish the roll and develop them and/or download the digital shots.
I think the correct route would have been to do the ride in reverse. The uphill segment would then be on much less steep streets and then I’d be able to coast the whole way down the Mora trail. And I think the next thing to explore is to ride to Deer Hollow Farm, lock the bike, and then go hiking.
Still trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my day…