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A friend lured me into agreeing to do the Cruisin' the Conejo century ride with her today. Unfortunately, she's sick, and had to bail, which left me wide awake and having breakfast at 5:40am, and wondering: what am I going to do with my day? I thought about doing the century anyway, but the notion of doing 7+ hours on a road bike alone just didn't appeal. So let my breakfast digest, relaxed for a little while, and headed for the trailhead around 7:45. By 8:30 I was headed over to Lang Ranch from the Long Ranch trailhead, with a mind to just kind of wander up Alberson and around the Las Vergines Canyon/Cheeseboro/China Flat area just riding whatever sounded like fun.

(Map: "Alberson - Las Vergines Cyn - Cheeseboro - Simi Peak")

My legs stood up beautifully. They complained mightily heading up to Simi Peak (I had to walk the last piece of singletrack to get there), but they lasted thorough more than 5 hours of pretty tough riding.

Two oddities marked the ride. First, the bees in the area have taken to building hives in the dirt, right in the middle of the trail. (See the pictures.) They burrow perfectly round holes into the soil, and build coral-like tubes sticking up. In the cool of the morning they were very quiet, but once the sun came out, there were thick clouds of beez over each one I passed.

The second oddity: someone managed to completely uproot the pole to which the gate between Alberson Fire Rd. and the north end of the Edison road through Las Vergines Cyn. The base is a huge chunk of concrete that must weigh 400 lbs, and it was sunk solidly into the ground, but some knucklehead managed to pull it. Did a clean job, too: I didn't see any damage to the gate itself. And, oddly, I didn't see any evidence of a torn-up trail either. Four-wheeling poachers usually leave a trail or field in shreds, but I couldn't see any evidence that anyone at all had been there. Not in a truck, anyway.

So, the eventual route: Alberson past China Flat to the Edison road down into Las Vergines Cyn. From there it was up again, and down again to the eastern end of the Sheep Corral trail where I picked up the Cheeseboro Ridge trail. I followed that south to Cheeseboro Cyn, then hung a right onto the Sulpher Springs trail. Took that out to Shepherd's flat where I turn left up the Sheep Corral trail and headed west to Palo Comado, to China Flat, and up to Simi Peak. From there it was (nearly) all downhill: singletrail down through China Flat to the Alberson Fire Rd, and down to the Lang Ranch trailhead. I wound through the neighborhood there to the Westlake-side Long Canyon trailhead, and from there it was pretty smooth sailing home again.

I was really tempted to include the Dead Cow trail in my wanderings, but by the time I was at the Dead Cow/Palo Comado/Sheep Corral junction, I could feel that my legs were getting close to cooked, and I didn't want the climb back up Palo Comado to be a complete sufferfest. That left just enough gas in the tank to jump up to Simi Peak before heading for home.