First Santa Barbara MTB ride…
This is where I rode today:
From about 3000' feet above our new house, on the Romero Canyon fire road.
A supposedly secret trail - according to two guys I met - that I found just passing by. It may not be very secret, but it is pretty fun.
Both of these pictures were taken with my little palm-size Hero snapshot camera (thanks Scott!), hence the relatively mediocre quality. But hey, I can’t ride with the big camera all the time, and the Hero works awesome for its intended purpose! It also takes video, which I should try out sometime…
After riding the fire road and the “secret” singletrack, I rode a bit of pavement before flying all the way back down to sea level on a creekside trail. I say “flying”, but I really mean “going slowly”, because I’ve heard tell that trail user conflicts here are quite fierce, and there were lots of hikers out, it being a Sunday and all. Although several hikers did respond to my cheerful greetings, almost half the hikers I met studiously ignored me altogether. Sure, guys, I guess that will work – ignore us mountain bikers hard enough and we’ll disappear, right? Not likely.
I suppose I can see why hikers might be a little testy around cyclists here – after all, the signs of downhill shuttle riders are everywhere, and it’s apparent that “mountain bike” in Santa Barbara is to a large degree synonymous with “guys on non-motorized motorcycles ripping multi-use trails like dedicated race courses”. While I do enjoy going downhill fast, I find that I respect myself a lot more if I ride UP the hill I plan on going down. Maybe SB’s shuttle babies just need to both show and earn a little respect. -Joey
