Marlon, Loc, (yes, Loc) & I headed out to the Cleveland National Forest to hit the San Juan Trail in an effort to find some of the less used Chiquito and Viejo Tie trails. Staged a truck at the "Candy Store" and shuttled the bikes in another truck to the top of San Juan.
Once on our bikes and on the San Juan trail we "got our flow on" and, of course, we missed the turn offs and didn't realize it until we were almost down the entire San Juan Trail. The team decided it was best to turn around, ride back up and find the Chiquito trail turn off.
We found another single track, and frankly we don't know what it was, but it "had to go somewhere". It did take us to the Viejo Tie trail. At the top of this trail, it was 5:15pm, the team made another decision to go ahead and take Viejo Tie as it must just quickly drop us down to Chiquito and we'd be at the truck in no time. Well, we completely underestimated how far we were. The trail was truly EPIC but way, way, way longer than expected. Technical downhill single track the entire way, with rock drops, jumps, ledges, and finally ending up in the canyon with flowy single track following a stream.
After a total of 20 miles of single track we finally reached the truck at 8:00pm. Legs dead. Dark. Knowing that phone calls to wives/girlfriends wouldn't be pleasant. Alas, no cell service. Didn't get service until at least 1 hour after dark. Marlon's fiance was so worried she called the Sheriff to come look for us. (Don't think they did). My wife was just worried, but knew her man can get in and out of the woods.
Didn't get video of the Chiquito trail, but you can see some great riders hitting here:
http://www.btrails.com/trails/southern-california-chiquito-trail-cleveland-national-forest#/files/imagecache/342x513/trail_photos/Chiquita_Ryan_Leech_Alan_Davis.jpg
(click the link then scroll down to find video)
Pics from our ride and video at the bottom:
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