Los Robles Trail from Moorpark Road

Mother's Day

05.08.05

Too involved yesterday 'rowing on the slave ship' and so I'm writing this brief report a day late.  We had a nice group of 9 (on a "ride release" program on Mother's Day) show up at Moorpark Road for a variation on the Los Robles Trail.  We headed out for the base of the switchbacks but passed right by, instead deciding to pedal over to and then up the Rosewood Trail.  At the top of the 1.6+ mile climb we stopped at the new "upper" bench which is located on the rise above the usual bench stop.  In the photo above we have, in the top row, videographer John, Jamshyd trying to look tall, and Andy.  On the bottom row is Sam (nurturing a bruise from an earlier crash), 50 year old birthday boy Rod (don't forget his birthday ride to Oxnard next Saturday), English Dayve (good to have him back riding with us after a long absence), a sullen Reuben,  moi Robco, and Mitch.

After much discussion and indecision, the group finally opted to head east on the Los Robles Trail in order to go down the switchbacks.  The trail was in great shape and made for a fun ride down.  We did have one mechanical failure when Jamshyd's rear brake cable snapped on his "new" mechanical disc brakes; he's got to stop using angel hair pasta for cable.

At the bottom of the switchbacks we headed over to climb the trail that was built approximately 2-years ago and then headed back on the fireroad that would normally take us back to the usual starting point at East Coast Bagel.  But we were instead headed to a trail that Reuben recommended we try taking.

Reuben riding thru the overgrown mustard on the fireroad

John riding thru the mustard

(unfortunately he discovered after the ride that his helmet cam malfunctioned,

and so he had no video capture :o( )

It was at this point on the fireroad that we dropped down onto a hoof-rutted horse trail.  The upper part of the trail was pretty badly damaged by horses, but the lower portion was in pretty good shape and provided a rather fun ride.   The trail was longer than I thought it would be and dropped us onto a street where we were able to ride back to Thousand Oaks Boulevard and eventually to our cars on Moorpark Road.   A few of us then went out for a bite at Noah's Bagels.

Hope you all had a Happy Mother's Day.

Robco Baggins