Rather than ride off into the sunset, we figured it might be best to start this one pretending like we were riding toward you, OUT OF the sunset. Not to be confused with out of the sunset district, in San Francisco, where the sun never actually sets so much as dies quietly somewhere above the fog bank...

Things got awful silent around this here blog over the last week or so. We (the wonder twins Abby and Ariel, Engineer Joe, and myself) took a trip south, to break in the new demo trailer (the van is still getting all purtied up) and show off some soon to be released bikes to the magazine folks in SoCal. Figuring that the riding would suck and guessing wrongly that there’d be tons of hotel room thumb twiddling, we had high hopes of plenty of time to post up pictures of taco stands and sign wavers. As it was, we were pinned.

First stop was at my old Alma Mater, BIKE magazine, where we brainwashed the troops and their brand new editor, then snuck out for a late ride on San Juan trail, where the above sunset photo was snapped. Nothing like taking the brand new editor, slapping him on a brand new bike nobody has ever ridden, making him climb a trail he’s never ridden until it began to get dark, then come blasting back down into growing blackness on a set of Small Block 8 tires. So, what’d ya think of that bike, huh, Joe? Hopefully we didn’t taint things too much. The trailer, meanwhile, rested itself in the parking lot looking kinda smug.

It was a damn sight darker than this by the time we got back down the hill...

From there, we booked north to the environs of Tragic Mountain, home to the plush, well lit offices of Mountain Bike Action magazine. Richard Cunningham and Ryan Cleek then took us on a genuine kneecapper of a ride near Simi Valley. While we didn’t get to see anyone filming porn outdoors, we did nab some of the most awesome weather and conditions that anyone could ever hope for riding in the belly of the beast:

Ariel is riding so fast that his bike is actually turning invisible beneath him... that's how good the traction was.

It was such a nice day, even the hills next to the freeway were smiling...

Naturally, any good uphill suffering/downhill reward session has to be followed with a bout of eating until physical discomfort sets in. For this, The Hat cannot be outdone. After eating a pastrami dip choked with about a solid pound of pastrami, following that with a heap of gravy smothered fries, and washing it down with a shake, balance was restored. I felt like some sort of hose to rinse the grease off afterward would have been a nice touch, however:

Following our Mister Creosote moment at The Hat, we bid farewell to RC and RC, and headed over to Ventura, where we met up with Mark Jordan from Decline. He took us on up to Ojai and served us a hillclimb to go meet God. Just the ticket for sneak previewing some long travel trail bikes to the media. At least we got to rip back down the hill once Skippy Jordan had finished breaking our legs off:

Then it was time to load up the trailer, jank ourselves full of caffeine and hit the road. Joe loaded some Doctor Demento into the music box and somewhere north of King City I had the epiphany that “Pencil Neck Geek” might just be the best really wrong song ever.

Safe to say nobody who ripped our legs off last week, nor any of my traveling companions, could ever be considered Pencil Neck Geeks. I’m still recovering.

Meanwhile, the van may not be done yet, but the demo tour is good to go. They even have a calendar up, checkitout! First demo will be in a couple weeks, back in the Belly of The Beast, Santa Monica, in conjunction with Helen’s Cycles. Keep an eye on the calendar, since it is being constantly built and updated. They’re mapped out through the end of May now, and will be on the road all the way until Interbike. And, if you caught the sidemouse reference earlier in this post, they will have some mighty interesting new stuff to show off this summer in addition to all the regularly scheduled goodness.