Steve's Mountain Bike Page
Turlock, California

Annadel State Park, Santa Rosa, CA

December 7, 2003

I met Jim (imjps) on the trail at New Melones (GH) a few months ago and we have been trying to get together for a ride ever since. However, since he travels on business a lot and he's one of those responsible adults with a family, we had not been able to get together. After riding with Tim (UncleMTB) at Boggs two weeks ago he seemed like the perfect guy for me to ride with. So I proposed we all ride at Annadel. At the last minute two others from mtbr.com (Moschika and pimbot) joined us. It had been raining for several days and it probably even rained the night before. Although the trails were a bit slick, there were plenty of puddles, and some of the trails were little streams, there was no really thick mud to clog up our tires.

To warm up my knees and to also get the max downhills with the most gradual climbing, we followed most of the route I did on my last ride there. We went up the Warren Richardson fire road, up the South Burma trail and headed out and then down the Lawndale trail, about 3 miles of incredible, narrow, downhill singletrack though a Redwood forest. We then took the paved roads and Schultz trail up to the Marsh trail via the Ridge trail. We then went back down the South Burma and part way down the North Burma. Moschika and pimbot continued on down the North Burma back to the start while Jim, Tim and I headed up the Louis trail to Rough Go, and then down the wild downhill of the Orchard and Cobblestone. The Louis trail is the most technical trail I've encountered so far at Annadel. But most decent riders would have little trouble on it.

My shoes had been falling apart the past week and I ordered new ones, which were "supposed" to arrive before this ride. But they didn't. About half way through the ride the sole separated from the uppers, leaving a large gap at the front of my shoe, which quickly filled up with water and mud. One of the first books I'd read on mountain biking advised wrapping several feet of duct tape around a pencil and then breaking off the excess pencil. I'd been carrying around the same duct tape for years. So one of the stronger guys used tire levers to pry the sole back in and we tightly wrapped duct tape around the whole front of the shoe. However, we wrapped it so tight I couldn't get the shoe back on. One of the other guys also brought duct tape so I put the shoe on and one of them wrapped it up again. The tape held up really well and I'm sure it will last until my new shoes arrive. 

Although all these guys were much stronger and better riders than me, Tim stayed with me the whole time and the others stopped many times and patiently waited for me to catch up. It was one of the most enjoyable rides I've had in a long time. Jim is a lot better than was evident when I met him at New Melones (GH) and when I occasionally got to follow him I learned a good bit about how to tackle some technical spots. Here is the route map. 

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