RCY RIDE REPORT
TampaLand plus Ybarra & Devil Canyons
Sunday
01-21-07
 
On a cool and windy January morning, 6 manly men arrived for an adventure that would take them through Tampa Land and lands beyond.  Bundled up against the forces that nature would throw at us, John, Matthew, Rod, Jamshyd, GaryM and I dropped down to the park below Rinaldi, pedaling our way north up to Sesnon Street. We then traversed the blustery hillside into Gas Company land, negotiating the road apples (hoping Matthew would later supply us with tree apples) and patches of muddy water beneath our tires, eventually arriving at the open plain before the Olive Grove.
 
Sunny, cool and windy, the Manly Men assemble on the plain with the Brown Mountain towers in the distance:
Matthew, John, Jamshyd, Gary, and Rod
 
Riders arrive at the Olive Grove
 
Before heading down The Luge, we wait for Jamshyd to pee
 
Next was the time to head down The Luge.  It seems that there are always surprises when we head down this deeply-chiseled trail.  This time it was leaves.
 
Matthew "wading" thru the deep cover of leaves
 
Gary tries to assist Robco as he "pedals" thru the deep leaf cover
 
But our challenges were not limited to riding thru leaves.  There were also numerous water crossings, some of which were rideable and others not so. We tried to find a way around the deep water to avoid getting wet....getting wet would make us even colder.
 
Here Jamshyd, Matthew and Rod work on getting over the stream without getting wet
 
But here Gary-the young stud among us-rides the crossing.
  Of course, his feet were already wet from an earlier excellently performed endo into the water.
 
Arriving at the pavement of Browns Canyon Road, we turned right for the steep climb up the asphalt.  We stopped at the entrance to Ybarra Canyon for the Ritual of The Appleman.
 
With Rocky Peak in the background, Matthew provides green apples to Gary and John
 
 
Our pedal down Ybarra Canyon would take us to Devil Canyon.  But before we could get there, we had a slight obstacle to overcome.
 
Bikes were handed over a fence while John shows a sign that seems to thank us for trespassing into the nature preserve
 
There were a lot of fallen trees that we had to hike-a-bike over and a narrow, twisting, unmaintained trail that we had to negotiate as we headed down the canyon.  We finally arrived at the intersection with Devil Canyon and turned left, pedaling the fun singletrack albeit thru wet and sandy terrain.  At the Topanga Canyon Blvd. terminus of Devil Canyon, we decided to continue on with our exploration, seeking a dirt route back to De Soto.  We rode thru a rustic hilly neighborhood north of the 118 freeway, and with directions from residents and other cyclists we made it to Canoga Avenue via pavement and then to De Soto via some dirt trails.  Down De Soto and east on both dirt and pavement, we arrived back at our start point on Rinaldi, 14 tough, dirty miles under our tires.
 
While 4 of the riders had to head for home, Matthew and I enjoyed lunch at the local Baja Fresh before ending another weekend of excellent mountain biking in beautiful southern California.
 
Have a great week,
Robco Baggins

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