Santos! and A New Year

Wow, two weeks off is a long time to be away from work. It makes me a little uneasy not having to get up and go somewhere every morning. I miss that routine. That's not to say I didn't enjoy my time off I just think that two weeks is enough for me.

We started out the week cycling at our usual trails then on a beautiful, clear, and cold Christmas eve I rode with the crew on the Grapevine loop which took us from Forest Meadows to Tom Brown and back again. It was one of those perfect winter days and the XM was playing all of my favorite songs on the way to the trail head. Mr. Silk led the ride and we were able to stay off of the busiest road sections plus the pace was easy but still consistent for the 36 miles.

We had Christmas at home then spent some time at my brother's lake house. Of course it snowed and the wind blew at 40 miles an hour so the fishing we had planned to do never happened but we still had a nice visit.

On Wednesday we headed for the Santos trail system near Ocala. It was cold and partly cloudy when we arrived that afternoon but I figured we'd warm up as we rode so none of us packed a jacket, we wore just arm and leg warmers. Steve A. just happened to be in the area so we met him at the start but decided that we would split up since our pace was likely to be slower than his. Did I mention Bunky was with us on this adventure? She's on a 32 pound 26" hard tail and hadn't ridden more than 12 miles at one time in her life plus she hasn't ridden lately due to the cold weather. See where this is going? Steve A. mentioned that they were going to the land bridge and said something about it being about 24 miles round trip. I thought that was a little far for my crew so we rolled out behind them on the most perfect single track.

Santos has 3 trail options; easiest, more difficult, and most difficult. Well there's a fourth option that has black diamonds called expert only and the free ride area which in my opinion is for crazies only but most of the trail falls into the first 3 types. I had imagined the easiest would be like our multi use but fortunately I was wrong. It is winding, flowing, single track which weaves through a scenic forest. Before I knew it we had gone 9 miles and were looking at the parking lot for the land bridge trail head.

Here's where I made my mistake. Rupe and I were amped by the trails and not the least bit tired. I knew we had ridden for 45 minutes and still needed to get back before sundown and that our pace was less than 8 miles an hour however I neglected to take into account that Bunky hadn't been riding that kind of mileage lately but I figured we had an hour and a half to make it to the actual land bridge and still get back before it got dark. So we headed off for another three mile loop to the bridge and back. I started to see the error in my plans as we started dropping Bunky even when we got down below 7 miles an hour. She was getting tired and even though she was still enjoying the ride she was unable to pick up the pace.

Okay so I shouldn't have said something about our lack of progress. But it was getting cold plus I had visions of trying to ride in the dark. After 20.45 miles we got back to the truck, no it wasn't quite dark but it was cold. Needless to say not everybody was happy on the ride back to the hotel. The mood improved after hot showers and pizza and I vowed (again) to take everybody's pace into account when I plan a ride.

Thursday dawned cloudy but warmer. We all went for a SHORT ride and met Steve A. when we circled back to the truck. Rupe, Steve, and I headed out for a little more aggressive riding which we found. The clouds had cleared and the temps were in the 70's when we hit the red trails in the Vortex section. This was by far the hardest most technical stuff I had ever done. Some of it scared me but it didn't seem to bother Steve and Rupe who would call back to me "big down hill, watch out" and "steep climb, just keep pedaling". By the time we were ready to head back I had done things I never thought I could do (even though I never did try the qualifier).

We never touched even half the trail on this place. All of it was well marked and taken care of. The Bunny trail was like riding a street bike on a twisty road, perfect flow, you never even noticed you were getting tired. It was well worth the 3.5 hour drive and to quote Arnold "I'll be back". What a great way to end the year. San Felasco is next weekend, sounds like a good way to start the next.