In August '97 my friend Borgo (aka Michael) from Germany and I really enjoyed some of the coolest mountain biking in California. We both flew into San Diego. The first days we spent at the beach to get accustomed to Southern Californian weather and life style. During this time Borgo also got his bike geared up with a suspension fork, so that we could really hit the rough terrain. It turned out to be a good choice to go to Cycle World - a bike shop in San Diego. The folks in the store were really nice and more importantly active mountain bikers. Dave, one of the technicians, had some great riding recommendations available for us.
After enjoying San Diegan beach life for sevral days we drove our car with bikes up to Santa Barbara, our first major stop. We didn't bother too much about The City of Angles and just made the mandatory stop at Venice Beach. Our warm-up ride for our two and a half weeks lasting road trip was the incredible Camino Cielo Road. Starting at Refugio State Beach (sealevel!!!) we followed the paved road heading towards Refugio Pass. It was a pretty hot day and we were still suffering from our sun burn that we picked up a couple of days earlier at Pacific Beach in San Diego. Borgo was even wearing his long pants to avoid exposing his legs to the sun! We thought that the steep climb would never end and were glad to have taken enough water along. After sevral hours of pure climbing we finally reached Santa Ynez Peak (4299 ft) around 3 pm. We were really looking forward towards the great downhill that was waiting for us, but we didn't expect it to be this good. The dirt road was following the ridge most of the time and we had spectacular views of the pacific coast and the back country as well. Once we hit the shooting range near route 154 we where speeding down towards Goleta on a paved road again. The Old San Marcos road turned out to be a great shortcut. It's a narrow winding road with only minor traffic.
still working on it ...
Little Pine Mountain, Santa Barbara Back Country |
Sunrise on the Camino Cielo above Santa Barbara |
Bristelcone Pine, White Mountains |
Flume Trail, Lake Tahoe (Nevada) |
Sierra Nevada on the ride to White Mountain Peak |
Downhill from White Mountain Peak |
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