The last two weeks were a big weeks for me on the mountain biking front.  Let’s see.

  • Danny taught me how to jump doubles
  • Attended the IMBA trail building clinic
  • Rode Tunnel and Knapps trails in Santa Barbara
  • Tommy came to town!

Tommy came to town

Tommy came to town last week.  Very cool indeed!  I mentioned in my last post how Tommy and I were riding buds 13 years ago.  A few months ago he found me on Facebook and got in touch with me.  Tommy was my wingman or I his when it came to mountain biking.  We rode all over the damn place in Florida.  I know, Florida doesn’t have mountains!  But it does have some pretty cool trails.  He shipped his downhill bike out and followed shortly on a plane.  Very stoked to find him again and have my old riding buddy back.

Jumping!!!!

This is something that I am OK at, but not very good.  Especially when it comes to doubles.  For those non riders, a double is a jump that has a gap between the take off and landing.  The gap part is what freaks me out.  If you come up short, it can be very very very very painful.  Danny, being the great guy that he is rode with me at out an undisclosed riding location named after a former baseball star.  I followed him a couple of times up to the approach to get the speed down.  Then I went for it!  And landed it!  It wasn’t graceful by any means.  But, I did it!  And then I did it again!  I’m pretty stoked about that.  I was also able to stick a nice drop on the first try.  Pretty awesome day and I totally appreciate Danny taking the time to show me how to do it right.  And explain how it all works.  I don’t have a problem with drops or table tops, just the ones with a gap.  I still need to master getting the nose down so I land the transition smoothly.

IMBA Trail Care Clinic

A few weeks ago Alison and I attended the IMBA Trail Care Clinic put on by the San Diego Mountain Biking Association.  We had met Inga and Jason the night before at a small dinner get together and then had the pleasure of their instruction on Saturday morning.  Jinga (As they shall be known in this post) work for IMBA sponsored by Subaru as the IMBA Trail Care Crew.  The first half of the day is a classroom session followed by going out to the field and practicing what they taught us.  From what I understand, typically they do a few things, we learn, and then we come back and do the trailwork for real later.  Well, SDMBA has a different idea on that apparently.  We finished .5 miles of trail and cleaned up some additional trail that just needed to be cleaned up.  Very informative and educational experience. (Not to mention dirty)

We got to learn a lot about Jinga and what they are doing.  They are on a two year contract traveling North America teaching people how to build sustainable trails.  The program only takes couples which is very interesting.  Basically you are a team for two years so they want to make sure you can co-exist very well.  I think it sounds like an awesome idea.  I wish I could convince Alison to sign with me :-)   I hope to keep in touch with Jinga and ride/work with them again in the future.  You can find out more about them at www.ihatebikes.net.

Santa Barbara – Tunnel and Knapps Trail

I also got to ride some of my favorite trails up in Santa Barbara.  After doing the Trail Care Clinic I went up the coast to see my parents as well ride with Jason from Jinga.  Great riding!  Great company.

Next installment.  Trip to the Shipyard!!!