Zipped out of the studio for my lunch hour yesterday and sidetracked up onto the China Camp State Park trails. Had the Hilsen and Jack Brown tires. The hills have transitioned to golden brown, and the trails are definitely dry. Though the late Bay Area Rains have helped a bit, trails are more like mid-July right now. Hard with dust starting to settle in the "valleys" where the winter rains sluiced through. The only serious powder-haze section is behind the campgrounds, where they recently worked on the trails and created the late August/September puff-powder - basically after two bikes go through, the third one will have trouble seeing clearly. It runs for 50 yards or so and definitely an artifact of the work they did (widening and filling of topographical bits).
Overall, the JB's were usable though not recommended. I would say that by next month, you'll want a little more grip than smooth, as the hard surface will start to break down and get dustier and slidier. Poison Oak is not as bad as last year, but if you don't know what it looks like, you should learn. It's close to the trail in a few places, where it's easy to set a foot into the middle of some if you are stopping for hikers or other users. Still seeing and hearing lots of turkeys, and deer are common. Have yet to see a fox this spring, but they are always very careful around people. Herping has been minor this spring - saw one little black snake which was probably a common garter. https://www.flickr.com/photos/cyclofiend/14358948435/ See ya before too long! Jim / cyclofiend.com -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
