The last 2 "official" RCY rides of this year took place Saturday and Sunday. I am going to give a brief report of each ride here....very few pictures though--none taken by me as I did not feel like taking any more photographs this week. I had spent a couple of days with my camera last week documenting the sharpened shopping skills of my 2 granddaughters at a local mall.

Saturday saw 6 people initially arrive at the Top of Reseda. Soon and later, we 6 found a way to break up into 3 separate groups. RogerJ and his friend Milo showed up on their shiny singlespeeds intent on heading down Rogers Road. John showed up with his Mickey Mouse camera ears intent on videoing the flight down Sullivan Canyon. George, Joe and I decided to head down Sullivan with John. So no sooner had we started pedaling than 6 became 4--our first break-up.

With beautiful views of the San Fernando Valley below, the four remaining intrepid pedalers traversed dirt Mulholland, soon arriving at the Sullivan firegate. Then it was down to the entrance to the canyon where John began videoing me as I led the way down. I was so wrapped up in zooming down the trail and being a movie star that I was not thinking that people may be coming up the trail and almost ran into a girl cyclist coming up the steep beginning. Although I shouted an apology as John and I zipped by, George and Joe who followed soon after told us that she lovingly called us "those idiots." Ah, sweet love.

John and I made pretty quick time going down the canyon, my glorious backside hopefully the star of a future feature. At the bottom of the canyon we waited for the arrival of George and Joe. And waited. And waited. Eventually we heard chattering teeth echoing out of the canyon as Joe and George appeared, fingers frozen to their handlebars. They had experienced an extreme blizzard in the canyon while apparently John and I had just missed it. We must have gone fast enough to cut right thru the cold as we never really experienced those icy fingers as did the pair o' docs. And that was the reason for the second RCY break-up. John and I wanted to ride back up the beautifully golden-leaved Sullivan Canyon while Joe and George did not want to chance freezing off any more body parts and so headed for a route that would take them back along the Westridge Fireroad climb.

John and I enjoyed our climb back up Sullivan. After reaching dirt Mulholland we took a slight detour around the always thrilling "red car" singletrack, John videoing from behind. I rode with John as far as Firegate 30. He continued along dirt Mulholland back to his home while I rode back to the singletrack that took me to the Top of Reseda, ending another fine day of December mountainbiking in L.A.

Now Sunday WAS cold. Arriving at the end of Wendy Drive, temperatures were in the upper 30's/lower 40's. And we all knew it would get even colder when we dropped into Sycamore Canyon. Of course, I'm not sure who the "we" was. The "group" had already broken up even before I had arrived for the POSTED 8:00 a.m. start time. As best I could figure the group went something like this.....

Andy, Reuben, Matthew and Jamshyd had apparently arrived around 7:30 and headed down into the canyon to meet Rod and Yoni and BrianD and a friend who were pedaling from the beach side, but Rod, who was originally supposed to meet us climbing the Overlook Trail, changed his plans after talking with Jamshyd that morning but then forgot what he had told Jamshyd because Yoni was complaining so much about the cold and so Jamshyd was upset about Rod's not being where he said he'd be, and so while I think Matthew, Andy and Reuben climbed up the Wood Canyon ViewTrail (at the top of which they eventually met Rod, Yoni, Brian and friend) Jamshyd came back and met DavidR, George, Joe, Dean, Mario and me after we had tired of waiting for The Others who didn't really arrive until almost 8:15 and whom we split apart from even before we really started as they went up Guadalasca and we headed up towards the 2 Foxes Trail and then over to the Wood Canyon View Trail where we finally met up with Rod and Matthew, although Brian, Reuben and Andy along with Yoni had already gone ahead towards the Guadalasca Trail descent which we, after having regrouped, headed towards.....

Anyway, the group I was with ended up heading down Guadalasca Trail, paused to say hello to the group from The Others who were riding UP, then went up Wood Canyon, up to the water tower, down Sage Trail, up a trail whose name escapes me where we then stopped in a field to gaze at a couple of deer before we munched on fruit and nuts provided by The Appleman. Finally it was up The Black Bitch, pausing to chat with a young family resting at George's Bench, before arriving back at the cars. From there it was over to the Side Street Cafe for a mixed group of us who celebrated Andy's 29th or 39th or 49th birthday.

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