RR: San Juan to Blue Jay out & back.

[Keith B]

[FONT='Courier New']Here’s a few pics and words from yesterdays ride up to Blue Jay. [/FONT]
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[FONT='Courier New']Riders were Andy, Anne, Damon M, Eric & 6spot.[/FONT]
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[FONT='Courier New']After last weeks all out thrash on the main divide this was a nice cruise of a ride. Eric was out to set his best time – so we only saw him at the half way stage and up at Blue Jay. [/FONT]
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[FONT='Courier New']The dead fox at the top of the switchbacks reeked of death 4 weeks ago but today it just looked like it was waiting for some grungy hiker to make it into a fur hat or something – downhill winter mitts anyone?![/FONT]
[FONT='Courier New']6 spot had locked his keys in his car before we started and he caught us up just before cocktail – Damon and I decided to nail the last section which resulted in a lot of expensive sounds from pedals and crank arms hitting rock. Got to love the way those 29er’s roll over the rough stuff.[/FONT]
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[FONT='Courier New']From cocktail up to Blue Jay the trail is pretty technical and by the time we came back to cocktail rocks everyone seemed dead-beat mentally. Chasing 6 spot down from Cocktail was great fun. He set a ripping pace and keeping right behind him was the only way to keep out of the dust that was thrown up. [/FONT]
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[FONT='Courier New']This has to be one of the best single track descents in southern California as it has a bit of everything; speed, hairpins, jumps, exposure and all manner of turns. I made it 3 hairpins from the bottom before wiping out by trying to carry too much speed through one of the hairpins. After telling 6 that it was easy to get out of clipless pedals one foot got jammed whilst trying to bail out and as the Stumpy made a desperate bid to bury itself in the bushes I flew off down the trail in true Superman style – except I discovered that I couldn’t actually fly.[/FONT]

[Sprockethead]

Yeah it was a lot of fun. I'm not sure if riding up to Blue Jay is worth it, going up is not the problem. It's coming back down towards Cocktail Rock, you're tired then you have to deal with all the technical climbing. I was getting pretty low on water and very tired by then. Plus the beat down from the sun didn't help.

I was sweeper so I was the last to leave Cocktail rock after our rest. Right before I left, I heard a hissing sound. I looked at my tires and they were fine, then I started looking for snakes. Nope, it was all good so right before I took off, my rear tire made a funny sound. When I looked again, it was completely flat. Weird, I was sitting on my bike during the break and no problems. I swapped out the tube quickly but I only had my CO2 pump. I only used one cartridge because I wanted to keep the spare incase I flatted again going down. To top it off, I lost my regular hand pump a few weeks ago and I only had hmm, 25 psi in the tire. I was pretty worried about pinch flatting on the way down so I took it easy. No major problems on the way down except I did roll the sidewall over a couple of times and luckily, nothing happened.

[sauce]

looks like you guys had a blast! and what a nice day! i wish i could have gone ... we have to all go in december! keith, is that your bloody leg?

[Geronimo]

That's the pg-13 picture of Keith's leg.

[Keith B]

Here's the R rated version complete with vampire fly....