Over the summer I’d heard about a new trail system, just south of Cool on Highway 49, called Cronan Ranch. This weekend we finally had a chance to explore the trails there. Fiona and I met my brother and we headed up there this weekend.

The trailhead for Cronan Ranch is almost on highway 49 and the trails drop down to the river from there. Expect mostly fast buffed singletrack through meadows with some light tree cover.  With all the exposure summer riding is bound to be hot plus there is a lot of thistle and foxtail growing in the park so now is a great time to get out there before it gets too hot and dry. Of particular note was the West Ridge trail. It’s a fun fast section of singletrack that follows along a ridgeline.  You can easily put together some 10-15 mile rides at this park with lots of single and doubletrack.  What you won’t find at Cronan ranch is any technical MTB riding.

This park system is slated to be expanded and the plan is to eventually connect these trails up to the Salmon Falls bridge and Sweetwater/ Salmon Falls.  Kevin and I explored some of the trails which will likely connect these two systems and it looks like there will be plenty of great views and good riding along the American River.

Hopefully I’ll get the chance to return there and put together some nice routes. I have some pictures but none came out very well, I might post them a little later on. For now here is a Map of Cronan Ranch from the Coloma Valley Recreation Page for Cronan Ranch.

Posted in Mountain Biking | No Comments »

I finished editing the video footage from our ride last weekend. My lousy editing is complemented well by the cord hanging down in front of the camera during the video and the slightly tilted helmet camera. The mud on the lens was inevitable on a day like this so I take no credit for that. In any case: Medium Quality Quicktime Movie (50MB).

Posted in Mountain Biking, Video | 1 Comment »

This weekend turned into a fairly busy one ride wise for me, I got a solo ride in at Sweetwater on Friday, a trogs ride at Pacheco Pass also known as Dinosaur Point on Saturday, a family ride on Sunday, a commuter ride in on Monday, and a 5:30 AM ride today. Overall about 60 miles in 5 days, not a record setting week but not bad.

While at Dino Point I snapped plenty of pictures and wrote up a small ride report check them out here.

Posted in Mountain Biking | Comments Off

I am finally able to settle down to write the ride report for Saturday’s kick butt ride at Salmon Falls. We started the day with 5, Ogre, Fiona (my wife Char), George, Joseph, and Fred. Weather was overcast and a bit foggy which kept much of the moisture from the previous nights rain on the trail. Overall traction was pretty good though and standing water was only an issue on a few sections of Sweetwater. We did have a few steep spots which were pretty hairy due to slippery conditions though.

Check out the Ride Report and Pictures Here.

Posted in Mountain Biking | Comments Off

Ancient Ogrehut History. Imported as one big post because I’m too lazy to import them individually. Many of the links don’t work and I’m not going to fix them at this point.

Posted in Family, Flying, General, Mountain Biking, Web Development | No Comments »