Kidding!
It was good news for me that we had another weekend of slower, steady long miles ahead of us! I was looking forward to getting back up to SART, and also heading out to Cuyamaca, where I've only ridden once before.
Friday night Steph and Dan came up after dinner so we could be up and on the road to Mentone in the morning. Ever since Brian turned us on to climbing up from Loch Leven that is our new starting point for SART. It's a good warm-up climb that takes place on pavement, dirt, fire road, and a bit of singletrack (overgrown fire road).
It was warm when we arrived at the trailhead, but honestly… I don't recall temps ever being all that bad. A lot of the trail is shaded, and while it wasn't a squelcher, it wasn't cool, either. Temps were just right!
Up, up, up
Taking a pic, of Stephanie about to take a pic :)
Train!
Heading out behind the PO
He'll be ridin' all over
About to descend, yay!
Fun singletrack for sure
We hadn't stopped a whole lot, but finally did at Glass Rd for a break. I hadn't taken in many calories, so it was time for one of these to get me up to South Fork!
Yum.
The trail ahead
Snow in the background
Once we got up to South Fork it was time to fuel up for sure. I took in a MASSIVE amount of calories. I just could not stop eating. I figured I'd wind up with a lot of stomach issues on the way back to Angelus Oaks, but I kept eating anyway. Naturally!
Made it back to Glass Rd with no problems, and continued on. My only issue was my right foot. It was giving me a LOT of trouble wearing my old Sidi's. I used to love those shoes, and now they just generate a lot of pain and discomfort. Weird.
Stephanie as we head back down to the creek crossings
We had waited a bit at the trailhead for Luke. I had unfortunately missed his email the night before asking on start time, so I wasn't sure if he was going to show. We took off, and he had actually caught us as we hit Middle Control the first time around, before heading up to Glass Rd. He did a bit of bonus mileage!
Justin approaching the post office near the end of the day
I had been a little sad we were shortening the ride by over an hour, so I did a pretty good effort up Middle Control back to town. We sat around a bit wondering where Luke was at (he had already headed back down to Loch Leven), eating, resting… and eventually made our way down. It was less than 25 minutes to descend, and over an hour to climb! Good one.
We stopped and ate at Cuca's. The chicken burritos are seriously killer!
We got some sleep, but not enough, Saturday night, and were up early to get packed up and head out to Cuyamaca. Warm temps greeted us once again, but we loaded up and got on the trail!
Uber blue skies all day
We visited more than one park
The crew
Steph and Justin
Some fun traversing
Gorgeous views
We did some route finding with the crappy map they sell. Er rather, Dan tried to do some route finding with the crappy map :)
The steed! Watch out, he bucks around horses
Chillin' before another climb
Love the views…
Stephanie
One last big hill ahead… steep pavement
The best
Friends!
Parting shot…
Overall, great weekend. I didn't feel very good the rest of the afternoon. Not sure if it was due to heat or nutrition or whatnot, but I felt pretty bad. Felt great this morning, but then did a gym workout, and now I'm WORKED again :) So much for regen!