California

It's amazing how many people that are stuffed into California. The number of cars is even more amazing. The result being astounding traffic. It's really incredible. If you have yet to experience the traffic in LA or the Bay Area (San Francisco/Marin/Oakland)...stay away and just take my word for it. There are times of the day when there's NO traffic and you can get from the City (SF) to San Rafael in 15 minutes...but those times are shrinking fast. Traffic starts at 2pm and lasts till 7pm. When I grew up there, there was literally no traffic, but I left about 13 years ago. There are a lot of Hybrids in California, moreso than Colorado (except Boulder), but there are also many large SUVs.

I spent the day before xmas in shopping center parking lots trying to find a parking space with my mom in a very large GMC SUV. My mom uses the big SUV for the two dogs they have, and she feels safer in them for some reason. I do what I can to convince them otherwise, but I give up. She mainly uses a PT Cruiser which is also a questionable vehicle (I just think it’s ugly and drives poorly).

The last thing I’ll say about cars for now is something that came from my wise friend Nate: (paraphrasing here…): “the distance between having a small car and a SUV is not even close to as large as the difference between having no car and a car.” Basically, the bicycle rules, create your own fumes. End of that thread.
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So while in California, I checked out the local skateparks that have been created since I left home for College in Colorado. San Rafael built a huge park designed by the editor of Thrasher Magazine in SF, and it has a large bowl. This park from the pictures looks insanely good. But it’s not. The trannies are too shallow (not steep enough)…it’s hard to grind many parts of the park because of this. It has an interesting layout, with the purpose of getting FLOW between the elements, but it doesn’t work as well as it could…it’s a shame that they spent THAT much money on this park and this is what they got. The big bowl is pretty sweet, but the shallow end is too shallow and not steep enough. The deep end is a almost perfect, except for the water seeping through the uphill side of the bowl and creating a puddle at the bottom of the bowl. Sketch! They used local cement contractors and it shows. Use the pros people! The skatepark builders know what they’re doing! There were kinked trannies all around, and a copy of the mickey mouse clover bowl at the Denver park…but MUCH less steep and basically un-rideable (seriously). The clover is a waste of cement.
The Novato park is a bit better but smaller. It’s similar to the Boulder skatepark in it’s flow and carve-ability but it lacks any bowls or a spine. It’s also all under 6 feet high (no vert).
The park that caught my eye the most was the new Scotts Valley park (where you ask?). On the way to Santa Cruz on the 17. It’s very large and has some very cool angles and walls. For example, a 10 foot tombstone with pool coping in the middle of a kinked HUGE bowl. Scary. It has some serious speed lines and looks dangerous to the little kid (which is a good thing, makes them learn faster). Of course it was raining that day though so I didn’t get to skate it.

It was sunny for the first three days and rained for the second three days I was in CA.
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I went for a Xmas Eve day ride with TK and the Kelly brothers. Nate was flying back too late to get this ride in…so I borrowed his Santa Cruz Blur. I’ve never ridden a dual suspension bike on an actual ride - only around the parking lot. It was an experience for sure. We rode China Camp trails out the back door of TK’s house and only saw ONE other person on these legal singletrack trails. China Camp is unique in that it’s one of two small places where singletrack is legal in Marin. There are lots of illegal trails by freeriders being built…but that’s another rant. Mike Kelly, the elder statesman, rode TK’s Ionic Steelhead Singlespeed (TK had it converted by Rick Hunter to a single years ago). Mike is usually the most out of shape because he lives in NYC, but he hammered like I’ve never seen before and really impressed me. Me, Matt and TK hung and talked at the back while Mike powered up the cement section of the climb…like the start of Magnolia in steepness.

The Blur is a trip. I can see how one would like to have this as their mountain bike, but it’s not for me. If my rides consisted of rocky downhills and uphills and no roads or smooth trails inbetween…I’d get one. But since I want to commute via trail, road, smooth singletrack and go uphill in the most efficient manner possible, a dualie is too squishy and unresponsive for my needs. Remember, I’m used to a rigid hardtail…so this was an eyeopener. But I can say with personal certainty, that the only place these things excel is on fast and straight rough downhills. Cornering sucks on these things due to fork dive, and so does going slow over the back of the seat on steep singletrack for the same reason. It may be smoother, but there’s less control of where you go. Uphill they lag, even though they are quite comfortable…but not much more comfortable than a Thudbuster seatpost that won’t add as much weight. Granted, the Blur has very LOW loss of energy compared to many dualies out there, but I could feel it for sure compared to a hard tail…especially when you stand up. Forget about it. I’m not going there until I’m too crippled to ride a rigid hardtail (if that day ever comes!).
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Marin riders each year (twice a year) have a solstice ride that is 100 miles of trails all over the Marin County watershed. Gravy is rumored to send out the route maps and “lead” it. It starts at 4:20am on December 21st and at the same time on the summer solstice. The ride is done when (and if) you finish it. TK finished the summer one but not the winter one this year. It sounds like an amazing experience, but you’ll get lost if you’re not local or following a local (or have a really good trails map…).
You won’t find the map or any info for this ride on the web though…you need to know a local…very low pro.

Over.