Step 1: Rent truck
Step 2: Rent bikes
Step 3: Head to Mario’s favorite areas in Southern California
Step 4: Introduce NextGen to Mountain Biking on wider, less aggressive trails
More than 30 years ago I took Mario around Palos Verdes’ Portuguese Fire Trails, which can be seen in far right of panoramic shot below. That time I was the one gasping for air, as ñañito – then 14 – could thrash hills better than I could, though I’d been practically LIVING on two wheels for a decade longer than him.
Upon my last Pre-Covid traverse through the Continental 48, the tables were slightly switched as Mario was the one out of breath. However, this time, we’d ventured 35 miles north to trek on Topanga State Park’s easier trails as a reward for Mario’s son’s, Noah’s, improved grades.
This would be his virgin introduction, Mountain Biking in another of Southern California’s most scenic venues. As if completing a generational cycle, Noah was 14, just like his Papito had been decades earlier.
From atop the 2,060-feet summit of Eagle Rock one gets this 360-degree views surveying the canyon, Downtown LA (directly behind Noah in Pano shot below), all the way to Palos Verdes (under the clouds on the far right), where I’d taken teen Mario on a couple of break-neck treks, back in the early 1990s.
Back then, Palos Verdes was untamed and single tracks in places. Nothing like the extremely Family-Friendly dirt roads I’d introduced my other nephew, Jordan, to just a week or two after this Eagle Rock in-and-out trail. Having also been Jordan’s first “off-road” biking, introducing NextGen to another cheaper Nature getaway has been my pleasure. Perhaps not the same, in 1991 and 1992 as Mario pushed me to my limits of FEAR and literally TO THE EDGE! as he’d wanted to PUSH the limits with that youth’s abandon and I, the “adult”, didn’t want to hold him back while also not wanting to encourage harmful stunts.♧
https://www.hikespeak.com/trails/eagle-rock-topanga-state-park-trippet-ranch/
While there was perhaps another half in the loop, Garapito Canyon Trail, it was reported as Advanced – single tracks and potentially hikers only, so I’d made the Executive Decision to have our Psycho Flight DOWN sooner rather than perhaps another hour later. It’s always great when you can return children in tact. Remind me to recall the time nephew Kiyo fell biking down Haleakala Mountain [Maui] when he was 10, circa 1999.
More Biking Adventures from Portugal, Turkey, Rhode Island, Maryland and Southeast Asia…
@doepicshiiiiit4138
Shawn L. Carson
Do Epic Shit 