Kern Canyon Trail, redux

more wildflowers in Kern Canyon, but this time I had my WaltWorks (woohoo)

18 riders showed up for an SSFTA Sunday treat on the Kern Canyon Trail. Other than a little hiking on Easter, and part of the Keyesville course, I had never ridden the trail, and now I’m forced to ask myself why? What a great trail, and it links to a few other trails and 4×4 roads, which can be taken throughout the Keyesville/Rancheria/Alta Sierra area. A perfect area to trash my legs in preparation for the Cascade Creampuff with a minimum driving required.

Climbing through the colors begins immediately…

Too Fast Todd blurs through a field of California poppies

Of the 18, three enlightened riders sampled the tastiness of the KCT on singlespeeds. After imploring me to take the picture before yielding to gravity, Emily demonstrates the all-too-often technique of pushing a singlespeed to the top. This particular hill is mucho STIL, and is located immediately after another hill that was even more mucho STIL..

Nearing the summit of the same hill, Jason’s expression illustrates the pain and determination required to push one gear to the top.

However, Jason was NOT one of the three singlespeeders this day. He was sporting a new Bionicon Frequency hardtail.. I’m sure that it is just a coincidence that Jason was the promoter of the recent Keyesville Classic and Bionicon was the major sponsor…

The call of this particular field was too strong for my steed to resist. It needed a rest..

Back in the parking lot (the return trip was fast, painful, glorious, and picture free) Todd had a flat front tire. Snakebit again, even though he rolls UST tubelless…

But, he has a new twist on snakebite flats. As he was approaching the end of a trail, he came up on a rattlesnake on the trail. So, in order for him to pass, and for the riders behind him to safely pass, he encouraged the rattle to move off the trail, trying to prod it away using his bike. Before leaving, however, the snake struck at his front tires a few times and then slithered into a protective bush where it resumed rattling and rattling and rattling. NBD, Todd hopped back on his bike and led the group towards the finish, and hten discovered that he had a flat front. Seems a rattler strike is strong enough to puncture a UST tire!!!

Unfortunately, further inspection showed that the rattler left one of his fangs and part of the gum (venom sac?) in the tire…

Although, we weren’t particularly close to Kernsville, it didn’t take much armtwisting to adjourn to the Kern River Brewing Company for rehydration and nutritional replenishing..

The Class V Stout tastes smoother than it looks (and it looks damn smooth)

Prez. Jim captured a picture of the elusive blogger and photographer (and occasional rider), apparently trying to bend my H-Bars to the top of a climb..

More pix of the day can be found in my gallery and more on the SSFTA home page.