Fun in Malibu (Part 1 of 2)
I've been super busy the past few days and haven't had time to properly write up the trip to Malibu, so I'll do that ... ... ... now.
There is so much to put down and I have a ton of pictures, so I'll try and keep things short.
Matt, Andrew and I planned a day trip to the Malibu area this past Saturday (March, 17th) to see what kind of trails were out there. We have been getting tired of riding in the Santa Ana's and figured a change would be good. We found two routes to do in the area and the plan was to ride the first one, eat lunch and then finish with the second trail. First ride would be ~22 miles and the second would be ~14 miles.
I showed up to Andrew's at 7AM and we somehow got all three bikes and the three of us into his Honda Fit. For those of you that don't know ... a Honda Fit is even smaller than a Civic. Hahaha.
Pic of the bikes in the Fit:
We grabbed some donuts and took off for the trailhead. Malibu is not close, so it took quite a while to actually get there. I didn't know it at the time, but Andrew had gone to school at Pepperdine, so he knew the area pretty well. Good thing too because I found the entire place pretty confusing.
When we got to the trail we parked on the side of PCH and rode to the start of the ride which was in Point Mugu State Park.
Parked on PCH:
Matt and I both went over and pee'd in the ocean, which helped relieve a lot of pressure and stress. Haha.
To the ride ...
What can I say about this ride? It was an _insanely_ awesome trail. I would ride this loop every day if I could. It started out like a lot of trails with a boring fire road into the park, but pretty quickly turned into a shallow climb up into the hills.
Unfortunately there was a thick fog over the entire park until a little past 11am, but it was still awesome. I think if there had been no fog we would have been able to see the ocean pretty well at the start of the ride. Oh well.
The climbing wasn't tough at all and the pace we set was pretty mellow. We eventually got to the first descent on a trail called "Backbone". There has been some confusion with the trail because apparently there is a trail called "Backbone" that runs for 40+ miles through the Santa Monica Mountains, but we doubted this was part of that trail. Who knows.
Me with a dumb smile before going down "Backbone":
The ride down was all singletrack and really nice. It was hard packed without anything really technical on it. We ran into quite a few guys riding up, but other than that there was no reason to put a foot down. It felt a little like going down Holy Jim, but without the exposure (read: cliffs).
After getting to the bottom, we rode over to the next climb and met some park rangers. I've never seen park rangers on mountain bikes before, but there they were. We talked with the older ranger (must have been in his 60's) for a while and he knew about GeoLadders and even dropped the name "Pacman". Hahaha. He asked us if we were strong riders to which we replied "Yes." Apparently we were headed for "Hell Hill" and needed to be good riders to conquer it.
Hell Hill wasn't that bad. It was long and it had a few steep parts, but I managed to make it up without having to get off and without pushing all that hard. My heart rate never crossed into the danger zone and I felt ok when I finished it. I think making it up Hell Hill made us all feel pretty good because the ranger was trying to talk us out of doing it. Ha.
We then cruised over to another singletrack descent, which had to be my favorite downhill section of the entire day. We all flew down pretty fast and just had a fantastic time.
I ended up eating it at the very end of the down section, but came away ok. I realized that riding really fast means making really fast decisions about which line you want. Left, right, left, left, right ... you need to make up your mind fast. Unfortunately I picked a bad line, rode into a rut and hit the end of the rut with my front wheel. I couldn't slow down in time and I went tumbling off to the side into the bushes. Matt was right behind me and almost ran over me after I fell in front of him. Whew!
Once we finished the singletrack we stopped to eat and some guy came up from behind us and told us we were flying on the down. That made me feel good since I'm better on the climbs than I am on the downs.
Pic of me after the singletrack:
I'm smiling in the picture above because I think we were talking about pooping or something. Hahaha. It's an inside joke.
We then rode to an abandoned ranger station where I realized my front tire was slightly off due to my crash. We stopped to pee and fix our bikes before moving on.
Matt and I:
Matt used the outhouse to pee in. I would have just gone in the bushes. It feels better you know?
We then rode on to another amazing section of the trail. We climbed a singletrack section to get to this awesome open meadow. It was just ... I've already used all the adjectives I can think of to describe it. The best part of this part of the ride was that you couldn't see anything other than nature. No cars, no other people, no antennas ... just gorgeous green trees and a huge open meadow. It was perfect.
On the way back to the car we hit a singletrack called "Two Foxes" after riding through an oak forest. It was pretty fun and all three of us couldn't stop talking about how great the trail was.
Right before getting back to the car I saw Matt go up the side of small climb and do a cool jump. We rode past this part and then decided to go back and take pictures of all us doing the jump. We spent maybe 20-30 minutes taking pictures of all three of us doing it. Haha.
Here are some of the best shots from the jumping (we don't get much air, but it felt cool):
Andrew Jump 1:
Andrew Jump 2:
Matt Jump 1:
Matt Jump 2:
Ryan Jump 1:
Ryan Jump 2:
I have a pretty serious look on my face. I'm going to make two mental notes for the next jump pictures we take ...
1. Smile and relax
2. Realize I have no events coming up and I have medical insurance. GO HIGHER AND BIGGER!
We rode to the car after and had to pack up our stuff, which took forever. Apparently I had a large wet spot on my shorts and it looked like I had "relieved" myself. I have a picture of it, but I'll spare you.
You can see the rest of the pictures from the trip here:
It was an amazing trip and I will definitely make time to visit this park again.
There is so much to put down and I have a ton of pictures, so I'll try and keep things short.
Matt, Andrew and I planned a day trip to the Malibu area this past Saturday (March, 17th) to see what kind of trails were out there. We have been getting tired of riding in the Santa Ana's and figured a change would be good. We found two routes to do in the area and the plan was to ride the first one, eat lunch and then finish with the second trail. First ride would be ~22 miles and the second would be ~14 miles.
I showed up to Andrew's at 7AM and we somehow got all three bikes and the three of us into his Honda Fit. For those of you that don't know ... a Honda Fit is even smaller than a Civic. Hahaha.
Pic of the bikes in the Fit:
We grabbed some donuts and took off for the trailhead. Malibu is not close, so it took quite a while to actually get there. I didn't know it at the time, but Andrew had gone to school at Pepperdine, so he knew the area pretty well. Good thing too because I found the entire place pretty confusing.
When we got to the trail we parked on the side of PCH and rode to the start of the ride which was in Point Mugu State Park.
Parked on PCH:
Matt and I both went over and pee'd in the ocean, which helped relieve a lot of pressure and stress. Haha.
To the ride ...
What can I say about this ride? It was an _insanely_ awesome trail. I would ride this loop every day if I could. It started out like a lot of trails with a boring fire road into the park, but pretty quickly turned into a shallow climb up into the hills.
Unfortunately there was a thick fog over the entire park until a little past 11am, but it was still awesome. I think if there had been no fog we would have been able to see the ocean pretty well at the start of the ride. Oh well.
The climbing wasn't tough at all and the pace we set was pretty mellow. We eventually got to the first descent on a trail called "Backbone". There has been some confusion with the trail because apparently there is a trail called "Backbone" that runs for 40+ miles through the Santa Monica Mountains, but we doubted this was part of that trail. Who knows.
Me with a dumb smile before going down "Backbone":
The ride down was all singletrack and really nice. It was hard packed without anything really technical on it. We ran into quite a few guys riding up, but other than that there was no reason to put a foot down. It felt a little like going down Holy Jim, but without the exposure (read: cliffs).
After getting to the bottom, we rode over to the next climb and met some park rangers. I've never seen park rangers on mountain bikes before, but there they were. We talked with the older ranger (must have been in his 60's) for a while and he knew about GeoLadders and even dropped the name "Pacman". Hahaha. He asked us if we were strong riders to which we replied "Yes." Apparently we were headed for "Hell Hill" and needed to be good riders to conquer it.
Hell Hill wasn't that bad. It was long and it had a few steep parts, but I managed to make it up without having to get off and without pushing all that hard. My heart rate never crossed into the danger zone and I felt ok when I finished it. I think making it up Hell Hill made us all feel pretty good because the ranger was trying to talk us out of doing it. Ha.
We then cruised over to another singletrack descent, which had to be my favorite downhill section of the entire day. We all flew down pretty fast and just had a fantastic time.
I ended up eating it at the very end of the down section, but came away ok. I realized that riding really fast means making really fast decisions about which line you want. Left, right, left, left, right ... you need to make up your mind fast. Unfortunately I picked a bad line, rode into a rut and hit the end of the rut with my front wheel. I couldn't slow down in time and I went tumbling off to the side into the bushes. Matt was right behind me and almost ran over me after I fell in front of him. Whew!
Once we finished the singletrack we stopped to eat and some guy came up from behind us and told us we were flying on the down. That made me feel good since I'm better on the climbs than I am on the downs.
Pic of me after the singletrack:
I'm smiling in the picture above because I think we were talking about pooping or something. Hahaha. It's an inside joke.
We then rode to an abandoned ranger station where I realized my front tire was slightly off due to my crash. We stopped to pee and fix our bikes before moving on.
Matt and I:
Matt used the outhouse to pee in. I would have just gone in the bushes. It feels better you know?
We then rode on to another amazing section of the trail. We climbed a singletrack section to get to this awesome open meadow. It was just ... I've already used all the adjectives I can think of to describe it. The best part of this part of the ride was that you couldn't see anything other than nature. No cars, no other people, no antennas ... just gorgeous green trees and a huge open meadow. It was perfect.
On the way back to the car we hit a singletrack called "Two Foxes" after riding through an oak forest. It was pretty fun and all three of us couldn't stop talking about how great the trail was.
Right before getting back to the car I saw Matt go up the side of small climb and do a cool jump. We rode past this part and then decided to go back and take pictures of all us doing the jump. We spent maybe 20-30 minutes taking pictures of all three of us doing it. Haha.
Here are some of the best shots from the jumping (we don't get much air, but it felt cool):
Andrew Jump 1:
Andrew Jump 2:
Matt Jump 1:
Matt Jump 2:
Ryan Jump 1:
Ryan Jump 2:
I have a pretty serious look on my face. I'm going to make two mental notes for the next jump pictures we take ...
1. Smile and relax
2. Realize I have no events coming up and I have medical insurance. GO HIGHER AND BIGGER!
We rode to the car after and had to pack up our stuff, which took forever. Apparently I had a large wet spot on my shorts and it looked like I had "relieved" myself. I have a picture of it, but I'll spare you.
You can see the rest of the pictures from the trip here:
 |
| Malibu |
It was an amazing trip and I will definitely make time to visit this park again.
posted by prevents email spam at
11:00 AM
4 Comments:
that picture actually looks like you crapped yourself.
That was awesome how much mad air we were getting with the jump. I think we had the best day of biking ever.
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