For the mid-week ride this week, it ended up being a doozie. The plan was to met up with some folks for a ride through Spring and Oak Canyon at 5pm. I was able to finish off the day’s work early and figured I had enough time to get some mileage before the scheduled ride.
I parked at the trailhead for the Spring and Oak Canyon ride (Bushy Hills at MTRP campground) and did some street riding over to the Mesa singletrack for a climb up Cowles Mountain. It was a beater as usual but love trying to clear the waterbars at their highest points but by the time I got up to the fireroad I was contend to get up the trails. The fireroad up to the top was as always brutal.
At the top of Cowles I was still looking really good on time so I decided to do the out and back to Pyles Peak. Plenty of waterbars here as well which made the down section pretty fun.
I was at the turnaround spot on Pyles Peak before I knew it and it was time for return climb back up to Cowles. I was still feeling pretty good when I got back to the summit and was all smiles on the way down the Big Rock trail. I got back to the campground just a couple of minutes before the first person showed up for the 5 pm ride. I could have been happy with a beer and some dinner at this point, but yeah I already said I was going to do the ride.
Spring and Oak Canyon was a good ride, but I had to dig into the energy reserves pretty deep to stay on pace with the fresh legged crew. I was good and pooped when we finished up and shortly thereafter we made our way over to the MTRP visitor center for the monthly SDMBA advocacy meeting. I slept well that night.