Ride Report "Ventura County Love" Cheeseboro Canyon Ride

Here is the first of many rides we hope to do in and around Ventura County. Five of us came out today for a great ride in the soon to be dust bowl of Cheeseboro Canyon.

We met up around 7:30, a few of the guys were new to the trail. We set out up the canyon trail, keeping a pretty good pace. There was a good amount of sand on the trail, seems it gets looser as the weeks go by. My Kona Coiler was doing pretty well but I struggled a bit to keep up with some of the other guys who were lighter in the saddle.

After a good amount of smooth trails things start to get more technical and have a bunch of short technical uphills (check out the climbs on the video). We made a left on Sheep Corral and headed for Palo Camado. I took a pretty good spill on one of the uphills after getting caught up on some sizeable rocks, sometimes the clips just don't want to let go!

When we hit the top of Sheep Corral we got a great tip from another rider about a black diamond rated single track which brings you all the way down instead of taking the fire road. This ended up being the highlight of the entire loop - great views with steep drops on each side!

Reaching the bottom of the downhill we continued on the fire road. About half way to the private property ranch (where some people bail out of the loop) we came up a rather large man with a rather large horse. He was pretty flustered despite us slowing down well ahead of time.. "Don't want you guys hurtin' my horse!". Well sir, the horse looks like he is in enough pain as is.

The rest of the trail consisted of gradual uphills countered by, what seemed like, very short downhills which failed to reward you for the climbs. After catching a break in some shade under a tree we hit the last single track section which takes you back to the upper parking lot of the park.

Overall a great ride! Sorry, no pictures, but here is a video of the whole ride edited down to 7 minutes with a sweet soundtrack (brought to you by Torche). Enjoy!



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Try watching the original size on youtube for better resolution.

 

Looks like you went down Gas Pipe? Fun trail,tech climb out,rocky down.

 

I had a blast on the ride and thanks for waiting up occassionaly. As you saw I was the slowest uphilbut am getting in shape, so I should get faster.

The diamond single track was really fun to go down.

Look forward to more rides with you guys.


Jake

 

Hope I can make the next one guys! Sorry for the last minute bail...

 

Great to have you along! See you on the next one!

 

I'm glad I got a chance to ride with everyone who showed up. Let's setup another ride sometime soon!