Mountain biking is hard...

[Catrin]

Veronica, it sounds like fun! Also amazing that you get to ride during this time of the year with so few clothes

[Veronica]

Another 12 mile ride today, this time we went to a different park. We have been riding at Black Diamond - our nearby regional park. It's like 4 miles away. We do drive to it, but we bought a park pass so we can park inside the gates and support the park. I really don't like riding my mountain bike on the road. Black Diamond Regional Park connects to Mt Diablo State park and you can ride your mountain bike from one to the other. That's an epic ride! I think I'd have to stage a car, since getting back would be tough. It's about 12 miles to the base of Diablo and of course once there, you have to ride up... Someday!

Anyway... today's ride - we went to Briones Regional Park. It's about a 20 mile drive, but Thom wanted to go somewhere different. We hadn't been to Briones in years. It was a good ride. We climbed up to the top of the ridge and then rode rollers for miles. These were some steep suckers though, up and down. Thom forgot his camera, so no pictures today. It was very pretty with views of Suisun Bay and Mt Diablo.

Veronica

[Veronica]

Today we headed off to Mount Diablo with the intent of riding the Oyster Point single track from the Diablo side. We had found it too steep from the Morgan Territory side and not much fun. The Diablo side really isn't any better. Although we did see a group of about ten, twenty-somethings head down it. I hope they like it, because I didn't. The single track was a deep rut, about a foot deep, maybe a foot wide at the top, rocky and rooty, with death to the left. It was downhill with an average grade of over 15%. I rode it until I just couldn't take the stress anymore. Thom went a bit further and said it didn't get better. Since it is an out and back route, we just turned around. We went in about 3 tenths of a mile.


To get to the single track required riding about two and a half miles, mainly downhill, average grade of about ten percent. After a snack we rode a loop that was really beautiful with some awesome views of the park.




The picture is from the loop and you can see the fire road we took in and out in the distance and beyond that is the Diablo summit.



I'm glad we tried the single track. We've now looked at it from both sides and decided it's just not for us. Thom might try it on his own, but it's not what I'm looking for when I ride. I would do the rest of the ride again for sure and look at some of the other fire roads in this area. The views were incredible and the climbing was easier than what we have been riding at Black Diamond.

There are a few other pictures here.

Veronica

[Irulan]

Good old Mt Diablo. I got married up there.