Soquel Demonstration Forest
I got my car yesterday, so naturally the first job was to find some people to go riding with. I found a shop called Trail Head Cyclery. Looks like I made a good choice, these guys ride all the time. Lars, the manager invited me out for a ride in Soquel Demo Forest the next day at the stupidly early time of 8am (thank god for jetlag!). Needless to say the riding was awesome -- probably the best singletrack I've ever ridden. The typical pattern here is a about an hour of fairly easy road/fireroad climbing followed by about 20 minutes of buffed singletrack descent. Its fast, smooth, rough, technical, rocky and there are little berms where there should be.... generally great! Theres even wooden 'stunts' off to the side of the trail, some of which are seriously big. Lars was riding most of them on his Stumpy FSR, but then again he is incredibly smooth on a bike. 5 foot launch off a log to flattish ground? No problem for this guy... I've definitely never ridden XC trails that are this fun before. The 'Demo' forest has reached notereity recently after Spesh named their Demo 9 after the place.