View from the top of Hall Ranch
After bailing on 8:00.am Sunday morning mountain bike ride (almost a two hour car ride away), Katie and I were eager to sleep in. And by sleep in I mean we made it to 7:00 am.
We woke and turned on the Tour de France to watch Pierrick Fedrigo (Pierrick, if that really is your official website you need to get a new one; contact Katie. Or anyone. Please.) take the win over Franco Pellizotti, who had stopped helping at the 1 km mark. Karma perhaps? Or just that the climber couldn’t sprint…
After breakfast we loaded our mountain bikes, my Trek Fuel EX 8 and Katie’s Specialized Epic into the truck bed and took off for Hall Ranch, via the Antelope Trailhead. The Antelope trail takes you to the same loop as the main Hall Ranch trailhead, minus the rock garden.
I had not been to Hall Ranch in over a year, specifically the ride when I proposed to Katie. Further, I had not had luck at this particular trailhead before; the only other time I tried it my rear derailleur broke about 100 meters into the ride and the aborted trip ended at Oskar Blues. This trip was very successful as I only had a minor seatpost issue. The views were spectacular and there were minimal people on the trail.
Hall Ranch Singletrack
The bikes came down filthy and in need of some tuneups. I have to replace both of my derailleur cables, which were fraying rapidly, and Katie need’s to tune up her brakes. The Specialized Epic came with rim brakes; I happened to have a pair of Magura Marta SL brakes that I won at the Fruita Fat Tire Festival and switched the brakes out. Unfortunately the front brake has always been a bit soft, now to a point that Katie really would like me to fix it. I have never played with hydraulic brakes before but hopefully I can just add more fluid to the hydraulics. Seeing as my seatpost keeps dropping my seat back no matter how hard I tighten it, I probably need to pick another one up as well. In any case, the bikes made it home to the storage closet and eagerly await their maintenance.
After a quick break for a lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Katie and I loaded the truck up with our kayaks (our two ancient whitewater kayaks were purchased for less than $250 total from Craigslist). Our destination, the complete opposite of whitewater at Gross Reservoir. Before we could launch our boats the ranger quickly came to check on us “kids”; he made sure that we had life jackets and gave us whistles. And then he called us “kids” again. We paddled around the reservoir for a bit less than two hours when the skies darkened and we hustled back to port. It was a very scenic paddle and we will surely return.
The shower at the end of the day felt particularly cleansing.
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