Thursday (22nd?) we loaded up the van with 5 bikes (Lily and I had 2 each and Daron brought his new Enduro), a crashpad for bouldering, and a bunch of clothes/food/etc. Then we tried to start it. DOH!! Took 10+ minutes of cranking it over to get it to roar to life. We were just about to move everything over to Daron's truck and have the 3rd smooshed in the back of his pickup. We cruised to Castle Rock, CA for a brief but fun boulder sesh. I hit most of the moderates that Eric had showed me previously. Lily walked a problem that got Daron to sweat a little bit!! We packed back up and rolled on to Santa Cruz where we were going to try to SURF!!! We rented wet suits and long boards~ 9' 6". We cruised across the street and watched good sized waves breaking (point break vs beach break). Funny enough....by the time we got paddled out there and all the waves had diminished and the locals were scattered about in the waves zone. It had to have been a funny scene.....I could barely stay up on the board- sitting or lying on my stomach. NOT even trying to ride a wave!! Didn't get a wave on day one. We went to the Seabright Brewery for dinner. The next day we tried again, but this time went to "The Hook," which was a little more serious. But that's OK since I didn't have a clue as to what I was doing. We paddled out (not quite as far this time), and began to get pummeled by the sets of waves crashing in. It was actually kind of fun, minus the one time I started to get drug by the rip curl out towards a rocky point where I watched the waves crashing into the rocks with a LOT of force. I started paddling with a LOT more seriousness and was able to make it back around the corner to where I belonged. Whew!! I DID catch a wave- even if it was on my stomach!! It was a rush nonetheless. From there we headed to Pacifica, CA and rode some freeride bikes. We climbed up from Higgins road (off Adobe and the 1). It had a lot of nice views of the beaches and mountains. When I thought we were 1/2 way up it was found out that we were on top. The trails were very indistinguishable. The Crack started off pretty techy with some jagged rock rolls with loose rocks thrown in for extra pleasure. It was fast but rutted and loose. The trail was one which begged you to go faster but might slam you without notice. I pushed the front wheel into the ditch a couple of times at various rates of speed and fear. We rode the Crack to the Mile to Boyscout. There were some small-medium jumps down low and a set of bigger jumps followed by some flowy medium sized hips. We sessioned them for a little while, then busted over to Chef Greg's house for a cookout. He cooked tri-tips and roasted veggies. I loved it but Dawg got food poisoning (?) and ended up puking all night- keeping Daron and Natalie up as well. We got up and met Dirtbag Matt and a CREW of dudes at Pacifica for a second ride. There were 17 of us in all. Funny thing.....I was trying to link up w/ Matt (and ready to leave my group if needed to make it happen), but in reality Nika knew them all and everyone was laughing when we found out we were all waiting on each other. We made the same climb up fire road for a while then made a strategic error and hike-a-biked up the gnarliest, steepest trail there called "911." It required stemming and solid footwork while keeping your bike up in front of you. Lily took a tumble DOWN the climb and did not look happy when we met back up. The crew laughed when we emerged from the climb (we beat everyone up somehow?). We kept on climbing up to "The Cave," the newest DH run out there. We had a little safety meeting at the top (they brought Sparks (?!) and beer). We began to shred the DH......ruts and rocks w/ steep fast sections and delicate berms to negotiate. There were a few waterfall moves and it kept me smiling the whole time. I got some good shots of the group on a couple berms, plus some ocean shots. One of the gang took a gnarly digger right in front of me and I watched his bike turn perpendicular to the trail before ejecto-matic-ing him to the ground. I feel bad now (because he chunked up his lip) but I passed him in the heat of the moment (kinda hard to stop). We hit up this moderately techy 4x4 DH section that had some hilarious moments (Mick getting squirrely a number of times to the roars of the crowd only to pull it out then stuff it OTB right in front of the group at the bottom!!). We climbed up again (3300' of climbing by this point on the big bike) to the Crack. There were some more photo op moments as the top had a couple of distinguished crux sections- steep w/ rocks and ruts. After raging the Crack, we hit up the Mile which had another good grunt to get on top. Daron and Will were the only people crazy enough to climb it. We rallied that to Boyscout and sessioned the jumps a bunch of times. The last/newest jump was still really loose (not packed) and required an abrupt berm corner into a double. I kinda cased it first go and had a hilarious (kinda) wreck second go (jumped out to the side once I knew I wasn't going to clear it.....the loose dirt stopped me and tossed me OTB.....only my legs got wrapped up in the frame as I attempted to eject. I ended up on all fours. Just as I was about to lift my head up to get up my bike did a tail whip on the front tire and clocked me in the back of the head HARD. Good thing I had my big helmet on!! We pulled a train all the way to the bottom through the couple remaining jumps/hips/berms to the cars. Mitch's mom (SF Dirtlab) hosted a BBQ just a block away and had great food and drinks much to our delight!! Thanks Mitch and possee!! Back to Chef Greg's for another night of improv stand-up from the man of the house.
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