First let's hear it for the drivers who made this all possible. Nadine got us all corralled at Little John's place and dropped us off at Upper Oso camp with perfect timing to tackle the 3000 ft. climb up to Little Pine in daylight. The weather cooperated with mellow conditions. Nevertheless, the change from the capacious leather seated air-conditioned deBruin battlewagon to the narrow leather seated mountain bike is still, shall we say, brutally abrupt! After checking out a snake lizard Yin-Yang contest on the trail, we fairly soon settle out into our biking order, dictated mostly, I would say, by our loads and our legs: Little John and Hammer................space.......... Mark and Bob........The Older Man......Ballast Boy........the Cargo Bat and Bald Eagle.

     A short break at the Camuesa turn off, and the climb relents to a rather shaky descent where Ballast Boy promptly falls off, complaining about "Tail Heavy" He uncramps his young legs, and he and I start on the great white cliff face. Luckily, I am behind him as his shifter spits it's pawls, and he is stuck in top gear! We search frantically for the correct Allen key, and, with a joint effort, at least get him welded in bottom gear instead. Thousands of cranks later we all assemble on the water tower, except, where is the Bald Eagle? Finally he struggles up, and Mark convinces us, against our hazy memories, that Happy Hollow camp is only a quarter mile up the road. Some quarter mile! Mr. (from now on) Quarter Mile gets us there in the end. We set up camp and start to eat. Now we see why the Bald Eagle has been dragging a bit. Out comes a truly royal camping array, including not one, but TWO gas stoves, a frying pan, a large piece of chicken, raw potatoes (at 4000 feet water boils at what?) We are agog! And the pillow to rest his weary head and the blue tarp ( cover for a large automobile!) Wow! we have never seen the like, but suddenly a familiar voice yells "Anyone for a cold beer?" My God! Its EJ the Steel Driven Man whooshing into camp with a Twelve Pack of beer in a backpack filled with ice. He has ridden up the single-track face of Little Pine in about 90 minutes. Awesome Legendary! I'm lost for adjectives, but Mark brings us down to earth. "Did you bring me a Coke?" He asks. However he gets to pay penance for that remark. He's our light weight. Sleeping bag? No.... Food? Well how about a stick of salami, no butter, and ten hard looking buns. Oh Yes, Annegret has taken pity on him for once, and thrown in a bag of pickled artichokes. One small bag of dates, that's it! No wonder he can almost keep up with John and Hammer.

     We make our gorilla beds, except, of course, Bald Eagle, out of fallen pine needles, and Bob actually has a two ounce silver space blanket which gleams and rustles in the twilight. The bears leave us alone, but they would have loved to see Hammer and the Cargo Bat do a neat diving board trick off the end of the picnic table as they try to hang their food in the trees. In the morning the beer ice is still intact, and Bob is telling us what we know already, that at about 4 a.m. it was so darned cold that he had to take all the pine needles he was lying on and put them all on top of his space blanket instead. Oh the misery, but he's still hangin tough. What a guy!

     The morning is gorgeous, with a touch of high cloudiness, the temperature perfect, the views sublime, the gradients moderate. We pass gardens of wild flowers, and all make Bluff Camp by about 11.a.m. Bluff Camp is in the middle of nowhere, at the foot of Big Pine Mt. It's a dark cabin deep in mature oaks and surrounded by extra heavy duty carpenter bees, but you lose some hard earned altitude getting down to it. There is a massive set of bear claw marks on the south side, and a lovely river chuckles nearby. Sweat is washed away and we snack before attempting the big one. The climb out of there to the summit at 6300 feet is not for the faint-hearted. Where are all those Paraglider boys now? I guess you have to carry a utility pole in a bag to qualify for this one. About the second switchback Bob and I agree that, if we were Bald Eagle, we would happily make a tax-free donation of one stove and one frying pan right then and there to the great outdoors. After that we do not speak! We are the ones getting cooked. It's past noon and we feel like ants in a solar panel. Luckily the river intersects the trail at two well spaced intervals. We all like that, and soak our hats and bandanas and refill our water bottles. Blimey! EJ has already made it to the top, and comes winging down. "Not far now" he says cheerily to each of us. But his scale of miles is different to ours. He is on his way back to Santa Barbara, which seems now in a different country to us. We labor on and on and on and eventually achieve the reward of hearing voices ahead enjoying shade under pine trees and eating sandwiches and laughing............ Not too bad! It's still only about 2:30 p.m. and the general consensus is, that we would be better served by camping beyond Bear Camp, which is some way down the north side of Big Pine. So we saddle up and enjoy a long cruise and coast down the well-graded road on the shady north side with it's views out over the wildernesses. Alas, there is another substantial climb out of Bear Camp, but mutiny hasn't set in yet, and with a struggle, everyone tops out, and then it really is a long downhill to Choke Cherry springs. Downhill through the mature Live Oak covered trail is very very agreeable, and I try to stay well clear of Bald Eagle. Gravity is his friend right now, and all his pots and pans sound like a trash truck emptying at the town dump!

     Our leaders press us on, but there really isn't a definite goal and the camp grounds on the map are way too far. There are mutinous rumblings and an English ex-pat complains about missing tea time! The Cargo Bat is definitely on LO-BAT, and we don't know what the Bald Eagle is thinking as one roll in the terrain is supplanted by another. Finally at the 29.9 mile mark, there is a general strike, and much persuasion is required to get everyone to even survey the "promised land just around the next corner". At 30 miles and two major climbs, it's the bend in the road, and that's it, we are camping right here. Bob looks around hopefully for leaf litter, but this is cow patty tundra, open rolling grassland with Morman Tea bushes, and a salt lick in a gully. The others make grassy depressions. The Cargo Bat expires, Bald Eagle spreads his hang-glider-competition-start-tarp, guaranteed visible from 15000 feet, and Bob and I try out the bushes for size. In default of pine needles Bob reckons that dried cow pies might have the same R-value as brown Styrofoam and piles his space blanket with them hoping to somehow wriggle underneath. We try to persuade Little John, that fetching wood is just not what we want to do right now, and that all India cooks it's meals on holy cow pies. He is not convinced, and, with Ballast Boy, they scale the nearby ridges and descend with straggly looking bits of wood, while we already have a good cowpie fire going. Bob sees the light, forsakes his bush, and spends the entire night lying on the bare ground keeping the cowpie fire going and alternately toasting his front and rear. Fortunately a little cloud cover obscures the glorious stars by early morning, and the temperature, even at 5100 feet, is more or less reasonable. Bob survives again, in a good temper, eats his salami ration, and makes an early start on the road.

     This is the best days riding yet, with easy gradients and spectacular views of the Cuyama valley over to Caliente Mt. and that hint of the distant Sierra. But it is not without events! As we coast down a somewhat ungraded road there is our Bob, with blood drying on his face and the indestructible hat (that should have been a helmet) looking like coroner's evidence. His new yellow bicycle is lying askew, and the front wheel has assumed the shape of a potato chip. We are still miles from any help, so the engineers have to use all their muscle and a fortunate spoke key to get his wheel to turn again, while others examine the telltale marks of his short 10 foot flight in the dust. After about an hour we have him up and going again, albeit with only a back brake and a headache, but the riding's easy and the landscape is transformed into a heavenly green valley covered in wild flowers and sporting huge interesting rock formations. We even find a puddle on the road to pump our water bottles full again. The last fill up was the day before at Coke Cherry springs, and we are getting thirsty. We lunch at a charming draw where the Chumash have painted a cave, and the swallows are so unused to human contact, that they have plastered the rocks with their mud pocket nests a mere three feet off the ground.

     Now it's time for the "rim of the world" ride as we make our way along the connecting saddles to McPherson Peak. The views are worth all the knotted muscles, "sore clutches" and nights in the bushes. At one spot you can even glimpse the Pacific way to the northwest. The horizon is outlined by peaks we have flown over, and land we have ridden. This is why we are here. The marvels of the cell phone have alerted Nadine to our early arrival, but our leaders have a navigation problem. It seems the Lost Padres are confused over tracks 27W02 and 27W01. Ballast Boy produces a squid jerky that tastes like something from a desert island, Bald Eagle walks down a bit of the trail wondering, I suppose, if it's even do-able with four panniers and a backpack. Little John and Hammer are secretly racing to the top of McPherson. They would like us to ride clear down to Plowshare and on to 166, but there's a flaw in that proposal.......No Hamburger to look forward to..... Finally all are convinced this is the trail, and Hammer cautions us about "single track" riding. The slope has to be about 70 degrees, and the route is in places just a mark on the hillside less than 9 inches wide, as it zigs and zags across through the scrub oak and yucca. The first two crossings aren't too bad. We lesser mortals are trying not to look down or lock our wheels in the shale. I am right behind "OneBrake" when his back tire bumps over a stone, he loses his balance, and does a slow motion roll DOWNSLOPE right into two huge fresh young yucca pincushions. I grab his rear wheel to stop the bike from joining him as he unplugs himself from their spines. He's tough this guy. He told us later that his second trip into a yucca was even worse as he had put his open palm right into the center. Ouch! It's a long way down, tall thistles reach out at us, and only at the very bottom does the gradient relent and we see the salvation jeep trail. It's Hog Pen Springs and the team rejoices naked in the slimy green water trough.

     It's a mere doddle through the stream washouts down the jeep trail to Aliso Park where faithful Lew is waiting with cold beer, but Bob has one more penance to pay. I don't know if the flat was front or rear, because by that time we had scorned Lew's beer and were riding hell for leather for the Buckhorn and the promised buffalo burger. After bucking the wind all the way to the road, Bald Eagle gave up the downwind leg in favor of riding with his lovely wife, who was waiting at the appointed spot. We all sailed into Cuyama, 71 miles, 10,000 feet of elevation change and two nights in the bushes from the start of an unforgettable memory.