Biking in Whiting Ranch - Bruce.

Some things change and some remain the same...

In the 3 years we lived here between 1995 and 1998, I rode the trails in Whiting Ranch with Rich on an almost weekly basis. I knew all the trails and climbs, which bits were soft and which were rocky. In 2007 a fire went through Whiting and lots of parkland for miles around burning off all the small plants and blackened the trees. Since then there has been quite a lot of water damage in places around the park too. The entrance has changed because so much mud washed down the usually dry creek it was impassable and another early section is now about 50 yards of deep, soft sand. That said, before I got 100 yards into the park things were familiar. The smells of the different plants is different from any other place I've been. The trails seem to follow the same paths and although millions of wheels had smoothed them out they still seemed familiar.

What seemed to have changed most was the length of the trails. At first, they seemed just a bit longer than I remembered but as the ride went on, they became a LOT longer! OK, so I admit that is just me. My level of fitness is no where near what it was when we lived here.

I was riding a borrowed bike. It was a hardtail so I was getting a little more beaten up than I would normally but it was really light and given my lack of fitness I was happy about this for the climbs. I really hope they remember to swap the brake levers back... (In NZ, we ride with the right hand lever controlling the front brake).

I knew I was in some trouble with this ride but I had not expected it to be so hot. Rich's truck said it was 103F outside as we were arriving at the park. I was trying to convert this to Celsius but my brain was not functioning correctly due to fear.. I kept coming up with numbers in the 50s which just made me panic more! (44 is the answer but that isn't a lot of comfort).

The first part of the ride was OK. I got up Mustard Road without too much problem and enjoyed the descent into the Cactus trail which followed. Then we exited the park and had a bit of a road climb to get to the top of a trail called the luge. I rode this many times 12 years back too but my memory had let me down a bit here. The road climb was bigger than I remembered and the start of the Luge was a over a mile further up the hill when I had thought it much nearer. The trail after the road climb was not that steep but I had to do quite a bit of walking as I was just running out of energy...

I sorta had it together again at the top of the Luge and although I had to take it a slower than I would have liked it was a lot of fun.

Riding (and yes, walking) the trail leading up to the Luge I had noted that my shadow was about head height... We didn't have lights so I was not feeling good about getting back into Whiting and riding through the single track in the dark. I asked Rich if there was an out at this point and we chose a shortcut back in to the park which cut some of the trails from the route but was a better option than sticking to the road.

Back in the park I recognized the trails again and we found there was still enough light to get through without lights but by the time we had done the short road ride back to the carpark it was completely dark. I collapsed on the grass for a while before setting off to the supermarket for a roast beef sandwich, a drink and chocolate. (They only had Milk Chocolate Toblerone which I would normally just would turn up my nose at in favor of Dark Chocolate but in this case it was gone in a few minutes...).

A day later, a *think* I've gotten off fairly lightly. When I got up and stretched, mostly, I just felt hungry.

BB.


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