Aliso Woods Ride Report: Soma Double Cross Off-Road Update
Today Priscilla, Khoa and I hit up Aliso Woods for our Saturday morning adventure. As I was getting things ready in the garage. I stood there for about a good 2 minutes trying to decide on which bike to take to the trail. If you’ve ridden Aliso Woods, then you’ll know that this is can be one tough place to ride. I went back and forth between the KHS XCT 555(All Mountain) and the Soma Double Cross (Cyclocross).
Before deciding on which bike to ride, I visualized the various trails that we’d traverse and imagined how the bike would react to the conditions. I finally made a choice and it was the Soma Double Cross. I knew that this bike may have a harder time on certain sections, but it definitely would add some flavor to my day.
Priscilla and I got in the car and made the 40 minute commute to the trail head. This was also Priscilla’s second time out on her new KHS XC 604 frame so she was looking forward to seeing how it would perform.
Obligitary bike on the shoulder pose.
As we made our way through Woods Canyon, we finally ended up at the start of a tough climb, Cholla. There’s a few guys that I know that could literally climb this trail in less than 5 minutes, in fact Eric “The Animal” Hunner does that climb on his single speed in about 4 minutes. Well for regular folk like me, I can, on a good.rare day, muster up that hill in about 7 minutes. But today was certainly going to be different.
I started the climb strong, but after reaching the first few switchbacks, my legs were toast and was relegated to walking a major portion of the hill. From Cholla, we made our way to Top of the World. This place provides some awesome views of Laguna Beach. What you see below is the Pacific. We’ve had some overcast this whole month of June, but it usually burns off by 10am and once it does, that ocean is spectacular to look at.
After our snack break, we then rode over to Meadows. After we pass a residential area, there’s a big of descent behind some homes then back up again then down one more time. Khoa had warned me to stay to the left, but I ignored his warning and decided to go right. I figured that I had ridden the right side before so what harm could it be? I start doing down on the right side, my front tire goes into a rut, it high sides the rut, next thing you know I’m about to go over.
Funny thing about it, as I was falling, I felt like it was in slow motion and I’m thinking in my head, “Oh man, this is going to be bad…” Fortunately, I was able to clip out of my pedals and bailed out before hitting the ground.
Pointing to the nearest all you can eat buffet.
The best part about mountain biking would be the time I get to spend with Priscilla. I figured God REALLY likes me to have blessed me with a hot bikin’ babe. It’s really been encouraging to see her progress in this sport. I still remember the days when she’d walk everything. Now she’s bombing down the trails with her eyes closed and no brakes! I love that woman!
Here’s a short clip from our ride. I originally wanted to make a uber cool video with great angles and all that, but I got too impatient with having to stop to get a shot and regroup that we decided to just keep riding.
Regarding the update on the Soma Double Cross. The frame and fork are UBER sturdy. Even though the rigid bike was a bit uncomfortable while hitting brake bumps on the switch backs, the bike still performed better than I had expected. I’ve been really happy with the durability with both items and I’ve yet to find anything bad about the frame set.
I’d like to thank Khoa for the pics and a few clips of the video. Priscilla, thanks for taking some of the video as well!