Golden Gate Canyon State Park Ride

Thought that I'd let you know about my wonderful ride today... I decided to take a solo adventure in Golden Gate today. I've heard how great the place is but I've not had the chance to explore the trails - so I maxed out my camelbak with water, grabbed a bunch of calories and off I rode.

Started at with the lower section of Mountain Lion and got a little pissy with the loose and steep climbs, but found my rhythm eventually. I rode out towards panorama point via snowshoe hair (pinned the long rocky descent like a rock star) and rode up to the point. I rode down what I thought was a trail heading south for the "long loop" - turns out the cool ass trail I was riding had been shut down for several years. Oops...

Got back up to the point, then headed back to snowshoe hair. The climb back sucked, but I was able to ride most of it. Got back to a descent and rode to the top part of mountain lion. Climb, switchback, climb, switchback - repeat 6 or 7 times. Finally got to the top (legs are a bit worked, but I was riding really strong) and I finally found out what all the hype was about. The descent was long, rocky, loose, and TECH. Seriously - I've raced NMBS DH courses that didn't work me like this.

For the whole techy descent I was killing it - pinning everything, jumping the gardens, passing riders and pedestrians (showing off a bit) - and found some big bike riders that started to follow me (7 inch bikes). We got down to one of the last difficult stream crossing and literally had pedestrians run out in front of us. We had warned them early, told them we were coming, made eye contact, they moved off the trail - and at the last second one of them tried to cross the trail in front of me. I ended up riding off the trail (to avoid the 50 year old lady with huge knockers staring at me) and everyone else stacked up into me to the person next to them. we literally had NOWHERE to go that was safe. The trail was steep and loose, no way we could have stopped. The crash was pretty bad, I didn't have any pads and neither did the guy behind me. The other guys had some padding and full faces... you can tell where this is going. Sharp pointy rocks and two riders stacking up on each other equals some serious pain. long story short - my bike's mangled (brakes are toasted, bars are bent, derailluer's bent, saddle's bent, glasses broke) and I'm pretty beat up. right arm, shoulder, right shin, right thigh, and right hip are all really swollen. The other guy broke his helmet and was pretty mangled... it sucked. we had to limp out the next few miles.

I'm more than a little pissed off - the guy and his wife/girl took off and non of us were in any condition to chase them down.

On the way home, I saw a guy highside his motorcycle, with no helmet and land against a rock wall in a ditch.
Then I almost got hit by a minivan
10 minutes later a truck locked up on 93 and got rear ended by an Avalon and I almost hit the car in front of me.
I ran out of paint for the nursery
My upstairs bathroom drain is leaking on my downstairs bathroom ceiling
I ripped my jeans
my air conditioning doesn't work in my house
I'm out of booze

then I bought my first lotto ticket ever.

today sucked.