A Christmas Miracle

With all the raining in California over the last few weeks I felt very fortunate to get a bike ride in on Saturday. I was up near Oakland visiting my parents and for the first time I took my bike with me.

I researched the surrounding areas and found a place called Lake Chabot about 20 minutes from my parents place. I had talked to a bike store last year about the local mountain bike scene and the guys at the shop said it sucked. They said there wasn't anything nearby to ride at all. The fact that their shop had only two or three mountain bikes seemed to confirm that the biking around Oakland sucked.

I had very low expectations for Saturday. I hadn't been on the bike for a week and I was hoping the park wasn't closed due to wet conditions.

I was so happy to find that the park was open, free and most important, fun!

It's funny how childish I can be sometimes. Imagine a movie where a cowboy from the 1800's sails to China to help fight in some Chinese war. The cowboy fights alongside the Chinese and they all look at the cowboy in awe. He wraps his whip around the throats of other warriors, rides his horse in an unorthodox way and wears a cowboy hat. Yeah maybe both the Chinese fighters and the cowboy do the same basic thing ... kill people in cool ways ... but the cowboy does it differently.

Anyways, that was the mindset I had riding at Lake Chabot. I wondered if the northern California riders would instantly peg me as a southern California rider. The grotesque farmers tan maybe. Or maybe how awesome I am on the bike compared to them. "That guy can't be from around here. He is doing things I've only DREAMED about!"

As it turns out the only thing that really separated me from northern California riders (at least at Lake Chabot) was the fact that I was _NOT_ asian. That made me different. Oh, and I wasn't dressed like it was -30 degrees outside.

I started riding around the marina near the lake in search for trails. I had no map and no clue where I might find some good riding. Geoladders had a route that was about 17 miles so I figured I'd just hook into the trail network and figure it out from there.

I wandered around for a bit before seeing a group of guys finishing up a ride. One of them had a singlespeed so I guess norcal riders are more legit that I had originally thought. They tried to give me directions to a good loop, but I ended up taking the first wrong turn I could possibly take.

It started out so well too. It was a gorgeous rolling singletrack through a green meadow that lead me into some cool trees. I ended up on a very off cambre muddy singletrack and eventually dead ended. Turned around and hiked to another option.

The second option was fun for a while but quickly turned into a hyper technical downhill similar to Yeager Mesa. I slid down most of it because it was very steep and very muddy.

Suddenly I found myself on a _paved_ path near the lake. Stupid pavement. Right or left? I picked left and rolled around until I came across a group of maybe ten riders going the other way on the path. After riding up a little past them I found a map of the area. Awesome.

After reading the map I picked out a ride that I was hoping would eat up some time. My goal was to spend about 3 hours riding around. If I finished a loop in under 3 hours, I'd back track and keep spinning until I hit 3 hours.

Unfortunately I got lost after the first few miles. I couldn't remember the trail names and opted early in the ride for climbing. If there was a fork in the road I always took the trail that climbed instead of the one that went down or stayed flat.

I ended up riding to a dead end, which was a little bit of a bummer. The trail just ended at a park and the trail marker said "END". Haha. So I turned around and rode back to the first turn I could find and explored.

One good moment came on the way to the dead end ... I was riding along and got to a climb that seemed perfect for an attack. So I stood and started really going for it. There was a family hiking with their dog in the middle of the climb and as I went by the mother said, "Wow you have strong legs!" ... "You bet I do baby" was my mental response.

I tooled around for a few hours in the park exploring various areas and trying to maintain a good pace. I will admit that my endurance is not all that great right now.

I ended up riding down a long trail called Brandon and when I got to the bottom I decided to back track. I saw a few riders on the way down and wondered if I could catch them on the way back up. I caught two of them (women, so it wasn't that great), but the other one got away from me. I wish I could have gone harder, but I was fighting cramps so it was kind of an ugly ascent.

Overall though I had a blast riding around for 3 hours by myself. It's rare that I ever ride for that long alone. I tried to work hard and push and I suppose I'm happy with the result considering the bad shape I'm in right now.

As it turns out there are _TONS_ of great trails in the area near my parents. Next time up I plan on hitting up Mount Diablo. I can't wait.