Steve's Mountain Bike Page
Turlock, California

Although one year closer to the grave, 2006 turned out my best mountain biking year ever. Despite doing many tough epic rides, several of 40 or more miles, and at high elevations, the knees held up fairly well. I got my one big ride in every weekend until mid December when they finally gave out. Despite a very cold and wet winter and late spring, the High Sierras opened in mid June and I managed to ride there every weekend until the end of October. I met a whole lot of cool new people and rode with many old friends. Thanks everyone! Below are a few reminders of my year. 

January: New Melones Lake, where my mountain biking began, had incredibly high water levels.
Click on image for larger view

February: UncleMTB's Palm Springs Birthday ride, the toughest ride I've ever done.
Graciously organized by MTBBill, even though he could not attend!

February: Octane at Palm Springs.

February: I got some pretty good cuts on that Palm Springs ride.

March: cold and wet, Red Hills at about 1,200 ft.

March: got a new 70 - 300 mm lens and tried photographing a DH race.

April: met Dan51, The Law and Nativeson, great people who showed me the good stuff at Ft. Ord. 
Also made my best video of the year on this ride. 

April: BigLarry at Ft. Ord.

April: also got a few photos at Sea Otter.

May: my birthday ride, finally learned the good routes at Auburn.
Also produced my favorite video of the year, nice flow to it.

May: Auburn, Cohenfive had a tough time getting out, but he did the best he could.

June: Sierra riding begins with Plim on the Cannell Plunge.

June: more Cannell Plunge.

July: first of many epic Tahoe rides. 
My skills improve dramatically.

July: Tahoe, the impossible suddenly becomes possible for me.

July: even doing these solo now.

July: first of six Tahoe "Punisher" rides to near 10,000 ft.
8Trak, Dan'ger, Grrrah.

August: 40 mile Tahoe ride, longest ever with:
Mtb_Canuck, TahoeBC, Bigboulder

August: Mtb_Canuck on Tahoe epic.

August: met my old buddy Impy for a Punisher ride.

August: Impy and Headshok_1 near 10,000 ft. on the Punisher ride.

September: got in my annual two days of riding at Mammoth Mt.
This is the toughest part!

September: 29erchico at Mammoth.

September: Skid Marks at Mammoth.
I actually came down this twice (not me in the photo).

October: squeezing one last Tahoe Punisher ride in with Tahoetic.

October: it was cool at Tahoe!

October: seemed like I earned a new bike!

November: Pimpbot and others accompanied me on my longest ride ever.
45+ miles at Annadel.

November: finished that Annadel 45 miler just in time.

December: reunited with Dan51and his crew at Ft. Ord.

December: Ft. Ord, Dan51 sure can climb.

My buddy and Palm Springs birthday boy UncleMTB had a rough year.

Tahoetic, the new guy. He makes gnarly stuff, even Toads, look easy.
See for yourself the first minute of the Oct. 7 video.

[ Home ]