Aliso (more of a cool story than RR)

[slowSSer]

so, hit aliso yesterday a.m. with a friend who's getting into mountain biking. leaving home at 7:00 with santa ana winds, I thought that aliso would be warm, dry and windy. I couldn't be more wrong...

the cool part of the drive in was all the haze/dust in the air- the sun shining thru this made everything have a yellow hue to it. rather cool.

things got interesting on the way down aliso creek road- just as you're heading down to the parking lot, it got so foggy that driving about 30 mph was required.

the ride just got more interesting.

time to suit up, dry off the bike seat (that was strange- is it really THAT wet?) and include arm warmers and knee warmers in the ride kit. stash the sunglasses in the jersey pocket for later.

riding from the parking lot to the trail head was cool and damp- a little speed meant more wind chill, so we slowed down the pace. heck, it was early, so why rush?

a cool part was that the air was so wet that black arm warmers were nearly silver with dew and the bike was damp enough that brakes squealed like wild pigs- bell not needed this am! the dust thrown from our tires quickly caked on legs and bikes giving them an interesting textured patina of sandpaper like quality.

the ride up the main road was peaceful, nothing but simple conversation and the sound of tires crunching damp sand. the fog kept the valley quiet and seemed to add to the flow of the morning. my friend wanted to stop far less and kept up just a bit better.

the sun started to peek thru by the time we got to cholla, ending the special quietness that aliso gave to us that morning. oh well

other memorable notes:
-friend made it down rockit his 1st time w/o issue
-I did a second loop and made it up mathis w/o too many stops (I hate being out of shape) and proceeded to t.o.t.w. and down meadows for a fine 2nd loop.
-i'm a little too far out of shape to be sporting the ridgid SS. my wrists still hurt. maybe it was the "down meadows" part of the ride...
-my friend is going to turn out to be a killer MTBer. he'll be kicking my butt in no time.

[denmother]

We were at Santiago Oaks at 1pm yesterday attempting to do some DH shuttles. The wind at the top was gusting at 80 mph. We managed to get down safely (after being blown over and sandblasted) and were greated by rangers in 2 different spots telling us that OC parks are closed during inclement weather and you should call first before going to ride (which they explained includes severe windstorms). We apologized, didn't get cited and promised to call next time. I guess that had 6 downed trees and they didn't want any injuries.

[foofighter]

sounds like you had a cool ride...when we set off to do san clemente it was pretty foggy on some sections of the 73 but it quickly cleared up.