Sunday was a return to the San Juan Trail at the southern end of the Santa Ana Mountains. The weather was in the typical range of So-Cal Awesomeness.
The climb up from the bottom went well. There was a really stiff wind that sometime gusted to what I would guess would be 25-30 mph. On several occasions I had to put a foot down to keep from being blown off the trail. Luckily, the trail weaved around sidehills enough that there was lots of wind breaks.
The views were pretty impressive from up at Cocktail Rock. On this ride I decide to continue on the New San Juan Trail were I enjoyed technical sections and fun swoopy stuff in the trees.
I took a bit of breather near the junction with the Viejo Tie Trail before continuing on to the Old San Juan Trail. I got the oppurtunity earn some Karma points by helping out a guy change a flat how had forgotten his pump and tire irons. After that I enjoyed the descent and cruise down through the meadow along the Old San Juan Trail. The climb back up to Cocktail Rock was just as much of a beater as I remember, but it was nice in that I had not done this segment in some number of years. I ran to a MTB Bud (aka Mushroom Dave) there and we chit-chatted a bit before it was time for the fun 6 mile descent back to the trailhead.
The descent was quite awesome, with one 2 second exception. While I kept looking ahead down the trail other riders on thier way, I got suprised by another rider just past the apex of a blind turn. The loose decomposed granite in the turn and my hard breaking do not mix too well together and the bike slide out from under me. Another thing that did not mix to well was my knee and the decomposed granite which resulted in a minor fleshwound (make sure to use your best Monty Python impressionation while saying it). It cleaned up quite well but pretty ugly at first. Luckily I did not hit the dude or his bike as that could have made things much worse.
A litte bloodshed aside, it was an awesome day to be out on a bike.