Ride Report Aliso/Wood Cnyns Park - Mentally Sensitive opening

I encountered the unexpected on this trail yesterday around noon. About halfway down, right at a severe switchback, were stopped at least a dozen riders, conversing in Spanish. I drifted around the corner, and slowly wheeled by the long line of nose-to-heel riders, with no problems. I let everybody know I was riding solo. After I passed the last one, I picked up speed again. The dust is still pretty thick in places, so the more the merrier. But I was curious about where the tour group came from.

 

They are around someplace most of the year. They are moved around to different parts of Laguna. It is crazy how fast they can clear a area.

Dean

 

Got off work this morning and headed straight to Aliso for a quick loop. Climbed Meadows to get to Mentally Sensitive.

Sign near the bottom of Meadows


Sign at the top


Meet up a few others who haven't ridden it either so we headed down together and I was able to snap off a few pics of an upper section of the trail.













As everyone already mentioned, still very loose. Much looser than after we worked on it due to traffic, but with some moisture this morning due to the foggy conditions, no dust.

Now that I got a chance to finally ride the trail, I can see what it needs to make it flow better. It'll take a good, light steady rain to get some moisture to set the trail. I spoke with Ed afterwards and he said we will have another trail day when the soil is moist enough to work and we'll put water bars and berm some of the turns.

Just to give some of you an idea of the steepness of this trail as it compares to Meadows. Here is the elevation profile of the route: Up Meadows, down Mentally Sensitive


For now, it's a really, really fun trail to descend, but way too loose to even try to climb it right now, so I didn't even try.

 

Thanks for the pics. Gene! We loved the trail!

 

I'm looking forward to riding this trail a lot. Good tech at the top and flowy towards the bottom.

Thanks for the pics.

 

It is good to ride a trail, that you and your buddies worked on, Thanks Share.

 

Has the heavy morning fog/dew lately helped the trail conditions at all?

 

Not really... just keeps the dust down. It will take some soaking rain to make a difference... that and more necessary trail work, as Gene pointed out.

 

Rode it yesterday (Thursday) around 13:00. Challenging trail. As other noted, it is between Car Wreck and Meadows in terms of difficulty. And no surprise, the surface is (still) quite loose. Perhaps a bit much for my first time back on the bike in over a year, but it was impossible to resist the pull of a new trail. As for finding the beginning of this trail, climb up to the top of meadows and go left (away from houses on upper ridge) on the trail/path that parallels the paved road. A few minutes of riding will bring you to the beginning.

 

Mentally Sensitive is by far the sexiest trail in Alieso (w/ exception to 5 oaks) because it forces you to step up your game and use some creativity to pin those sharp, unbermed turns.
Seems like people are tripping on the loose sand, but it's actually your friend. (-as earlier mentioned, helps you speed check without compromising estrogen levels from being a brake whore). Just grip wide, throw those elbows up, drop that seat like it's hot and surf down like you're riding a dirt bike.
Terrain is very Mammoth-esque, and a pleasurably different riding mix than anything else in Alieso. We are truly lucky to have such variety.

I'm a DH dude with an AM bike (if I lived closer to any bike park I'd trade out my whip for an 8 inch beast in a heart beat). However, 90% of the time I ride solo bc none of my buddies are ever down to shred (so an AM bike makes more sense). If you have similar riding philosophies, please PM me. I'd love to find new peeps to ride with.

In conclusion, if you haven't already dropped in on Mentally Sensitive, what are you waiting for? Do it!!!! It's an amazing run def worth the climb. Thanks to all of you who contributed to this creation!

 

Finally got a chance to check out the new(ly legal) dirt. It will be great once it gets ridden in. It definitely had lots of loose topsoil like others have said, but nothing that impaired anything. Just don't expect to loose lots of speed quickly. Lots of fun, just wish there was an easier way to get to it.

 

Finally got a chance to ride the new trail last saturday and I decided to bring my GoPro along.
Here's the vid.
[video=youtube;24Pj-FK5xpU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24Pj-FK5xpU[/video]

 

At exactly 1:00 into your video is the steep drop, followed by a sharp right turn, that send me flying over the bars today.
I have not cleaned this trail since my first run on opening day. That sharp right turn, with a soft left shoulder, has gotten into my head.

You can see the body holes in the shrubs to the left at this turn. That's what I was looking at when my front wheel sank in and threw me.
I was pleased to dust off and ride away with a fractured finger. I'm tempted to drag a shovel up there and try to build some kind of berm.

 

Ouch!#-o sorry to hear about the fractured finger. A couple of those soft turns caught me by surprise, had my front wheels sink in them, luckily I didn't go OTB. Healing vibes to you!

 

Some more video..

Here's another video taken with the spanking new Go Pro HD II! The camera angle was a tad high, but the picture quality is incredible. Enjoy..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JokbOqQX_50

 

I worked on the trail and it looked "challenging"! Haven't had a chance to ride it yet! It took a lot of work and we were talking that it needs a good rain and then another work day to get it dialed.

 

I finally got around to riding it on sunday as well. seems like an overall fun trail. It gets a little boring with the steep roller to blown out sharp corner thing repeating the whole way down though. I hope they can get that light, steady rain they need to set the trail before the big stuff hits though. there seemed like a marked lack of water bars/grade reversals/etc. for a trail this steep, especially a legal one. I could see all of that loose sand that the traffic is generating just flowing straight down the hill and blowing all sorts of things out...

I'm also a little bitter about the trail. in the fast section after the drop (which was rerouted with a fence), hit an invisible loose spot, trucked a bush stump, and bruised my knee up something fierce. not too happy about that, but I hope to give it a go once its actually finished.

 

Is this your video? If so why embed it if you are going to disable embedding?

 

So where do you drop in ?
or how do you get to this trail from Carwreck ?

 

Not sure where Car Wreck is, but coming from TotW, it's about a half mile past Meadows.