Steve's Mountain Bike Page
Turlock, California

Annadel State Park, Santa Rosa, CA
December 24, 2005

Today I had a great ride at Annadel with UncleMTB, Kip, 8Trak, Dan'ger, Pimpbot, Crashmaster, Minimae, Baycat, Plim, and GuruAtma. It had rained all week but the skies were blue and the temperature was perhaps 65 degrees. Despite all the rain the trails were in pretty good shape. There were quite a few streams and puddles, but not that much mud. My Stumpjumper is in the shop so this was the first extended ride on my Epic in over seven months. I was a bit apprehensive and even though it is a bit small for me I got used to it after about an hour. I had forgotten how well it climbs. However, while removing it from my truck I discovered a kink in the rear derailleur cable and Kip did his best to straighten it. But for the first 20 miles I only had about half the rear cogs. After that the mud or something rendered the whole rear derailleur useless so I finished the last 11 miles or so as a three speeder, using just the front derailleur.

We started on the usual 25 miler slowpoke ride but on the way back after about 20 miles people began peeling off at various points, allegedly for burritos at Lepe's. 8Track, Plim and UncleMTB finished the 25 miler with me, and then 8Track and Plim accompanied me back up for the six mile bonus loop. Nobody seemed to want to do the stream crossing for the photos below so I went across the stream three times to get them in the mood. 8Track has been playing on that big rock for the past few rides and today he easily rode it three times without any spotters. Dan'ger has become quite the expert at jumping the rail at the bottom of Lawndale. Even though the photo is out of focus I wanted to include it. Sorry I don't have photos of some of the folks but everybody was ahead of me most of the time. Great ride everybody and happy Festivus! More photos are buried in this thread.

Click on an image to enlarge it

Kip, 8Trak  and Plim	The beer bench	Dan'ger bottom of Lawndale	Bottom of Lawndale	8Trak	Pimpbot
Crashmaster	Minimae	Bench, top of Schultz	Pimpbot	Break time	8Trak   and Plim
Pimpbot	Dan'ger UncleMTB	8Trak, Plim Dan'ger	8Trak	8Trak	8Trak   and Plim

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