A friend of mine whose mug shots have been sprinkled all around this website took a hiatus from riding in 2017. I am pretty stoked to have nudged him enough to get back to living dirty on two wheels.
We decided to do the south side of Lake Hodges for the return ride. The nice about the south side is you can make things pretty easy, there is some technical spots and there are lots of options to add more mileage.
I am enjoying the riding this time of year in San Diego. The wildflowers here and there along the trail is a real treat. There were lost of the colorful stuff out on my favorite routes as of late out at Black Mountain.
I went out to Daley Ranch to get my climb on as that place is really good for doing that. There were looks of puffy clouds in the sky which made for some really pretty scenery. I was pretty impressed with just how much water and moisture was on the ranch. Pretty much everyone of the ponds and water holding areas was at capacity. It was impressive.
All of that water was certainly allowing for spring to hold on strong as almost all of the grasses were still good and green and the wildflowers were plentiful.
During the back half of my ride the clouds darkened up and even managed to get sprinkled on a little bit. Not enough to make a mess of things but enough that I deployed the rain cover for my pack.
It has really felt good to be able to ride again and I have been working on getting back into shape while taking a measure approach to the riding as the knee gets stronger. I certainly do not want to have a relapse of the pain issues.
I have been able to get in three rides in this past week. First of was Lake Hodges where I did the north and south sides for about a 20 mile effort.
I did my local ride from the house and felt pretty good on it.
And I meet my buddy Dave for a ride and La Costa which included some of the Back 40 goodness. Maintaining proper social distancing was pretty easy with Dave. I could barely keep him within 100 feet let alone 6 feet.
On the backside trails we came across a Rattler. He was pretty happy where he was at so we had to give him some encouragement to get off the trail. There were no sticks of the appropriate length around so I stood behind my bike, held onto the saddle and rolled the bike up close to the snake. One the front wheel got within a foot of the snake he figured it was best to give up his ground. If you have your arm outstretched to you saddle and lean over while you do this you can keep seven plus feet between you and the snake. I like to get these folks away from the trail when I encounter them as you never know when some Ahole is going to come along think these things need to be killed.
After we got this fellow to move along we finished up the ride. I felt really good about how I finished up the ride. It was a good week of ridin
I meet Steve and Jim out at Big Laguna Meadow for a bit fun in the sun. Road work had the normal staging area closed so we went further up road and started from Red Tail Roost. Starting from there is a lot of fun as you kinda get to have desert before the main course. After the descent we climbed up Aqua Dulce but instead of doing the expected Los Gatos run we continued climbing up to Wooded Hills and took the trails up over that peak.
The knee continues to improve to the point of almost feeling good but I am making a concerted effort to spin more and mash less. By feeling good I mean I don’t feel it at all. It is back to just being part of the whole system and not making a fuss about itself. I have lost a good bit of fitness but that is on the mend as well.
After descending the Wooded Hills trail down to the old county road we turned and climbed up that road to Chico Ravine and took it down to the meadow. I can not recall the last time I have gone down Chico so it fun if for no other reason than it was a switch up from usual route. We futzed around on the meadow and some of the side trails in the area before working our way back up to Redtail Roost
That last single track to get back up top is tough. I was pretty happy with my effort on that section. I was certainly slower with the whole spinning effort to this recovering knee but I had enough energy in the tank at the bottom of the super steep section that I was able to clean it. It feels good to be able to put in a solid ride again.
First I must RANT! I am came across this dead rattler while climbing up one of my local trails. This is such bullshit! I’m pretty sure there was no real reason to kill this rattler. If they show up at your house they are asking for a whacking. If you go over to their house you should leave them be. The only crime this snake did was probably blocking somebody’s way along the trail.
Okay RANT over.
Last week my doc shot up my right knee with a huge syringe full of steroids, cortisone and other joint goodness. My knee hurt from the injection for a couple of days and then felt much better. I went back to out to my local trail twice over the last couple of days and while I have overall fitness I need to get back, I had no knee pain at all on the climb today. I was not pushing the knee but I was able to put in the required effort in the granny gear without pain. Finally after three months I am seeing some significant progress with the knee. Now if I can just keep the rest of my shit from falling apart.