I’m in SoCal this weekend getting ready for a 4 day internship/ mentorship program at Alwyn Cosgrove’s facility in Santa Clarita. I’m pretty stoked about it and I’ll have a lot of great training info to share next week as I learn some new stuff.

In the meantime, though, I was lucky enough to hook up with Scott Hart, editor for Decline Magazine, and a client of mine Carlos Gonzales for a ride. I cut my mountain biking teeth in SoCal so I was pretty excited to get some trail time in around here.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Decline has a small wharehouse full of bikes and gear and I got outfitted with a sweet yellow Santa Cruz Nomad. It was my first time on a Nomad and I was excited to see how it rode.

We went for a ride on some trail I forgot the name of in a town I forgot as well. We had a light rain going the whole time – just enough to make it an adventure but not enough to make it too cold and wet. The trail was a great climb up with some technical switchbacks and I saw more people on that trail in 1 hour than I have seen in 3 years in Fruita!

The descent was a fun, twisty singletrack rip through the trees complete with a couple of flats including Carlos’s tubeless front tire rolling off! I thought we were getting shot at but it was just white goo going everywhere as the tire rolled off.

We made our way down with only one wreck (me!) and some huge smiles. Dirty, wet and hungry we headed back to Decline HQ and Scott and I went for a burrito.

The Nomad rode great although my Avid Juicy Ultimate rear brake kept getting squishy on me which was pretty unnerving on a new trail with blind corners and steep pitches off the trail. I was definitely impressed and can see what all the hype is about with that bike.

Keep an eye out for my updates next week as I go through my internship…

-James Wilson-