heading out to the valley this weekend any rides?

[tkblazer]

I'm planning on heading out to the valley to visit my pops and thought i might make a weekend out of it. My dad lives in the west valley (woodland hills area). After seeing video and pics from gouges ride, backbone has peaked some interest. What are some fun, technical rides that i should try? A guide would be best, but i can try to go off instructions on geoladders. Just going from pics, Backbone trail from Corral cyn to encinal looks pretty sweet. Big sycamore loop maybe? no idea what is a good ride...

[dhshuttlemonkey]

Hummingbird in Simi might be worth checking out if you want a technical ride. Most people ride it as a shuttle.

[tkblazer]

i've seen the parking lot for that trail (chumush) before, but i'm not up in the area often... might be worth checking out i supposed since its only about a 10 -15 min drive from my pops house

[FoShizzle]

i will let you know if i can ride this weekend....we can hit something around that general area for sure.

[tkblazer]

Originally Posted by FoShizzle

i will let you know if i can ride this weekend....we can hit something around that general area for sure.

sweet.. you can check out my white bars

[JimN]

Originally Posted by tkblazer

i've seen the parking lot for that trail (chumush) before, but i'm not up in the area often... might be worth checking out i supposed since its only about a 10 -15 min drive from my pops house

A group of us will be riding Chumash (and other trails in the area) on Sunday. Our usual route: up Chumash trail - down Hummingbird trail - over Santa Susanna Pass - up Johnson's Motorway - back down Chumash trail[SIZE=2]. Ends up being around 20 miles total with plenty of fun, technical singletrack. We're meeting at the bottom of Chumash at 9:00 AM. You're certainly welcome to join us.[/SIZE]

Directions: From the 118 freeway in Simi Valley, exit Yosemite Ave. Head [SIZE=2]north on Yosemite to Flanagan Street. Turn right onto Flanagan and [/SIZE][FONT=Arial][FONT=Verdana]continue all the way to the end of the street. Park here.[/FONT][/FONT]

[Pain Freak]

Nam I highly recommend you do this ride with JimN. He is part mutant and can ride faster then a speeding bullet, but he'll take you on the fun stuff and he'll always come back for you. You guys have fun. To far for me, I've got to be home by 1 pm.

[tkblazer]

Originally Posted by JimN

A group of us will be riding Chumash (and other trails in the area) on Sunday. Our usual route: up Chumash trail - down Hummingbird trail - over Santa Susanna Pass - up Johnson's Motorway - back down Chumash trail[SIZE=2]. Ends up being around 20 miles total with plenty of fun, technical singletrack. We're meeting at the bottom of Chumash at 9:00 AM. You're certainly welcome to join us.[/SIZE]

Directions: From the 118 freeway in Simi Valley, exit Yosemite Ave. Head [SIZE=2]north on Yosemite to Flanagan Street. Turn right onto Flanagan and [/SIZE][FONT=Arial][FONT=Verdana]continue all the way to the end of the street. Park here.[/FONT][/FONT]

sweeeeet i'll try to make it out.. i found this interesting picture of chumash trail

[Pain Freak]

Gawd, you're making this hard on me!

[Burner]

that pic of chumash looks perfect for the rigid ss! ouch

I've ridden the rocky peak fire rd up and taken hummingbird down, that's a really fun trail but that fireroad sucks, esp at the bottom, where it was really deep sand (last year).

[JimN]

Originally Posted by tkblazer

sweeeeet i'll try to make it out.. i found this interesting picture of chumash trail

Cool! Yeah, that's Chumash. Lots of rocky goodness out there. Even more so on Hummingbird. Hope you can make it.

Originally Posted by Pain Freak

Nam I highly recommend you do this ride with JimN. He is part mutant and can ride faster then a speeding bullet, but he'll take you on the fun stuff and he'll always come back for you. You guys have fun. To far for me, I've got to be home by 1 pm.

Gee, Mike, thanks for the vote of confidence! Honestly, I feel more part slug than part mutant these days.

Sorry that you can't make the ride. You'd really like it. There's no way we'd finish up early enough for you to get back home by 1 pm, though.

[tkblazer]

jimn, have you ever gone down gspot? the trail, not the..... well you know. i'm pretty sure i'll be able to make it. who or whom should i look for at the trailhead?

[JimN]

Originally Posted by tkblazer

jimn, have you ever gone down gspot? the trail, not the..... well you know. i'm pretty sure i'll be able to make it. who or whom should i look for at the trailhead?

Gspot is an illegal freeride trail in the same vicinity as Hummingbird. I have not ridden it.

My wife and I will be at the trailhead a little before 9:00 AM. We'll be driving at blue VW Touareg. She rides a ti Merlin Echo. I ride a silver Niner Air9 with a rigid fork. See ya there.

[tkblazer]

here's my lame ass RR since i forgot to bring my digi cam

since i wasn't feelin to great i decided to skip the backbone ride and ended up traveling a short distance to the Chesebro Canyon ( http://www.geoladders.com/show_route.php?route=228 ) For some reason i could tell it was a geoladders route since it was pretty much all climbing from the get go. I ended up running into another mtn biker dood and followed him along some sweet singletrack with some tech sections tossed into the mix. Overall this trail really reminds me of El Moro with the open hill climbs.. i'll have tom explore this trail a bit more in the future.

Next up was the chumash trail with Jim and his buds.. First off holy crap we had a big group of people. I believe the final count was 16 riders, mostly guys but i tihnk there were 3 women that were kickin ass. The trail starts off with some climbing. It reminds me of STT except its steeper and longer. Towards the upper 1/3 of the climb it starts to get really rocky and technical. Once at the top you cruise for a bit and keep climbing until you finally get a downhill fireroad action.. Right before some huge rock formations is the Hummingbird trail. This trail made all the suffering i took on the climb worth it. The upper part is just fast singletrack that will bring a smile to your face instantly. Then..... you get to the fun technical parts where rocks are all over the place, then you hit some switchbacks.. I'd say at least 5 or 6 of them. You keep heading down and its more of the same, just a ton of studder bumps, squeezing through rocks until you get to an area which is just some big slickrock. This place was pretty cool and there was this tricky rock roll section to get back onto the trail. You keep descending for another 1/2 mile or so until you reach the lower parking lot. Since i wasn't feeling all that well i decided to puss out and call it a day. Jim and a bunch of the other guys kept going to who knows where. All in all i will definately be back here for more. Hopefully next time i'll bring my stinkin digi cam with me.

Thanks to Jim for setting up the ride, a bunch of cool people out there today. Props to Jim for doing the ride on a rigid bike too you rock

[JimN]

Originally Posted by tkblazer

here's my lame ass RR since i forgot to bring my digi cam

Nice meeting you, Nam! Sorry that you didn't feel like hangin' in for the rest of the ride. It turned out to be a little over 20 miles total with 3,700 feet of climbing. After Hummingbird, we rolled up Santa Susanna Pass, rode a portion of the Stagecoach trail and then connected over to Johnson's. Johnson's starts out as a rocky fireroad climb, but it soon turns into a rather technical singletrack. It's more consistantly technical than Chumash, but a few notches lower in difficulty and not quite as steep. It requires a lot of concentration, which is a good thing since it keeps your mind off of how tired you are. We finished off with a fun run back down Chumash - a great way to end the ride. Had some cold beers back at the trailhead, and then headed to Don Cuco for Mexican food.

I think that one of the OC guys took some action photos on the techy parts of Hummingbird. I'll post 'em up here if he sends me copies.

[tkblazer]

i would have loved to finish the ride with you guys, but i think the ride on saturday must have taken some gas out of the tank. I'll tell you this, I will be back there for more and i'm going to clean that climb one day.