Last Wednesday, we were supposed to leave for Belize.  Scheduled months ago – we were looking forward to diving, warm water, lying on the beach and rum drinking.

Then I got the call: “We weren’t sure if you were aware that a tropical storm is headed our way…”

Waaaaa???

Tropical stormed turned into Hurricane Earl and the beach vacation has been rescheduled. So, with days off and an itch to leave town… where to go?

Santa Cruz.

Seven hours later in the car, we found ourselves in a nice boutique hotel and Santa Cruz demo bikes scheduled for Thursday and Friday.  (We could be sitting in a villa waiting out a hurricane.)

OK, so it IS much colder up here than San Diego or Belize…  and I forgot to bring layers.  But the nice guys at Santa Cruz bikes put me on some fabulously (expensive) nice bikes that helped me pedal away the chill.

Both days, I rode the Juliana Joplin.  First on the 27.5+, then on the 29.  I loved both days.    EJ had the High Tower the first day and the Tall Boy the 2nd.  Yeah, he’s in love too.  The full carbon bikes rode really well.

We have a lot of bikes to try out before we settle on our bikes for BCBR…

It was really nice to change up our riding environment.  A far cry from the sand in San Deigo and the pumice in Mammoth – the little bit of riding we did here was a little bit of everything.  Our routes were an easy 2hr+ – and just technical enough to push the demo bikes.

I personally, really enjoyed being amongst the trees again.  I loved how the trail felt and was just a little wigged out by some of the root drops.  I think I’m going to make it a point to try and find more trees in my weekend riding… 🙂