Little did the 6 of us who started today's ride realize that our plans would have an unexpected surprise. We left the parking lot off of Kuehner Road with expectations of the climb up Chumash Trail. But when we reached the base of Chumash, we met a couple of other riders who were bypassing the tough climb up Chumash in order to climb up a fireroad that would take them up to Rocky Peak Fireroad at a point just beyond the Chumash Trail. Because we have been searching for that holy grail of trail that would take us DOWN from near the end of Rocky Peak Fireroad, we thought why not go with someone who knew the way from the bottom UP to the fireroad. And so we followed our guides Jose and Al as we headed west into a Simi neighborhood before heading north and then east towards our goal. The way was all fireroad, sandy and loose in many spots, only getting steep after about 6 miles of pedaling. Miles 7 and 8 were very steep and quite loose in spots.

At the Chumash Trail we said goodbye to Jose and Al who were going to go back the same way we came. The original six of us then headed down Chumash. It's been awhile since I went down Chumash....I forgot how much fun it is. The top of the trail has a few rocky, technical sections that were very challenging but most of it is fast and relatively smooth. Some shots of the riders on the downhill....

At the bottom of Chumash we retraced our original path back to the cars, content in the knowledge that we had discovered a new loop to add to our repertoire. Only Rod and Rob went out to dine on some delicious (that is a spellling word that my 10 year old granddaughter Raquel had in school this week) omelettes at the Walck Inn (formerly the See U Latte Cafe).