It has been a good week. I don't have to do much on a bike to amaze myself, and this week I have amazed myself. Monday, I got my first tour of the Annadel State Park trails - the USGS maps Topo! uses are so old, Spring Lake apparently does not exist, so it's hard to map my ride there. It was about 12 miles, and probably about 1000 ft of elevation - nice single-track, most of it, with embedded rocks and roots for excitement.

Thursday, I did a very small part of the old standby Bolinas Ridge. Lots of standing water up there right now; we're still getting intermittent rain - more expected this weekend.

Today, I couldn't decide where to go - not familiar enough with Annadel yet, Bolinas Ridge too muddy, MOST places too muddy. I visited pointreyes.net for ideas, and there it was - the Stewart horse trail.

I'm not anywhere near as good at climbing hills as I want to be (nor apparently as any other mountain-biker in the county), so Fir Top alone was enough of a challenge. Someday, maybe, I'll go over to Glen Camp on the coast and face the practically-vertical ascent back to Fir Top. For now, I am proud to make this climb without my usual 10,000 forced gasp-for-air stops - in fact I only stopped for the horse people who passed the other way. And while this is nowhere near the "technical" kind of riding you find at Annadel, the ride back down was four miles of fun.