Well for those of you who normally follow my blog, you know that it’s been quite a few months since my last post. The reason for this is that I’ve been taking care of some things on a personal level. Nothing bad, but it just kept me off my bike.

A couple weeks ago, I helped my friend, Phil locate a Nomad, very similar to the one that I have. Well he was wanting to ride and explore ever since he got this thing, so on Saturday, we decided to head out to Santa Teresa and utilize the travel that in this bike.

Now if you remember, the last time that I rode on this trail, it was right before the race and it was with my other buddy, Fluffee. I had ridden the trail using the Blur, well with the race out of the way, I wanted to make good use of my Nomad as well.

We started out from Stiles Ranch, to give myself a much needed warm up. After the first few minutes, my ass told me that I hadn’t been on a bike in a while. It actually took a little bit to get comfortable in the saddle again. I felt like I was doing okay. I had been hoping that I was able to retain some of my balance, which I had. What I hadn’t retained was my stamina.

There upon I came a technical section where I didn’t want to risk riding and ruining my day, so I decided to get off and hike it. This proved to be an interesting event, because as soon as I stepped off the bike, my heart rate started to slow very rapidly. Pretty much it was pegged at around 190bpm, and slowed down to 58 within about 2 or 3 minutes. To the point where I was feeling like I was going to black out. I sat down to recover and reduce the risk of falling down and cracking my head open, or worst, drop my bike.

The rest of the ride was pretty good. I got back into the grove of things. Thank goodness for the overcast, as the weather helped keep the ride cool.

As we climbed to the top of the ridge, we ascended into some mist, which felt good as the climb itself was still as tough as I remember it.

Coming down Rocky Ridge was still as exciting as the first time, and was still the full body workout. You see as you come down this rock and boulder ridden trail, you must let the bike dance beneath you, no matter how much suspension you have.

All in all it was a great ride.