Bike
Richie Schley and Darren Berrecloth discover Southern California’s mountains, oceans and more.
There are few places in the world that you can experience coastal riding and surfing in the morning and then be riding trails down mountains with alpine terrain in the afternoon – Southern California is one of them.
My good friend Darren "Bearclaw" Berrecloth was staying at my house in Laguna Beach for a couple of months – recovering from filming a freeride movie segment and another back surgery – and we committed to do some riding together.
The team
Documenting all the action and good times would be our good buddy, Italian Ale “Snoop” Di Lullo while Darren's girlfriend, Brie Neumann, was also with us to help cook some amazing meals and keep our team fuelled. The goals, as always, was to have as much fun, ride and do as many cool things as we could, in the time we were all together.
I was determined to show Darren the goods in my hood, but he was determined to find some new undiscovered riding zones. After a few arguments, we nailed a split-agenda: My goods and his new zones.
From sea
We started the trip by heading to the beach. First stop: Sanonofre State Beach, or Old Mans, which seemed appropriate. I have recently become addicted to SUP surfing and wanted to share the experience with Darren, as I know he is a shredder at anything he tries. The waves were small, but we had a lot of fun.
Next, we headed back to Laguna to get our trail bikes and ride some of my favourite steep trails. Every year I find a different one of the sick trails in the area to be my new favourite. This year, it was Iras', which is filled with crux moves and large penalties for falling. It hadn’t rained in SoCal for ages, making all of the riding much more challenging then the average winter.
Back to Sea
We milked the last light of the day and headed back to the beach in the Claw’s truck. The next morning we packed up the truck and headed back to a new trail zone, where Alan Kinum and mountain bike action photo legend, John Kerr, met us. First we wanted to ride a line we had scoped from the car, the day before.
We hiked up this ridiculously steep hillside to access the trail, that we could not find the end of, trying to avoid patches of poison oak, rattle snakes and cactus. We made our way to the top of the sketchy exposed trail, turned around and sketched our way down it, surprisingly, without an incident. We were both ready for some flow and airtime after the trail we had just ridden, so we took a trip to Alan’s zone.
We dropped into the shark fin hip, to a hip the other way, to step up, to set of doubles, through a sick berm and finish with a boner log – one of Darren’s contributions to mountain bike obstacles. Super fun and flowy on Enduro bikes.
The last feature was a reasonably-sized road gap that was perfectly built. Darren took a few looks at it and sent it on his 29er, flawlessly and stylish like the Claw does
After wondering whether I should try the same road gap on my bigger G1 DH bike and egged on by Darren, I sent it on my Rotwild E1, and it went perfect. Darren was pretty entertained by my nervousness on whether to do the jump.
And back to sky again
Inland in America at lunch time means off to the nearest strip mall, where we were pleasantly surprised to find a fresh squeezed juice bar – Darren, Ale and I health food geeked-out while the others found a burger joint.
After lunch, we headed to a different kind of big mountain spot that I had only scratched the surface of a few years ago with Wade Simmons. I fancy myself a pretty seasoned steep rider, so I was curious what Claw could do at this location, as he is a bit of a bad ass.
Always Steep
The terrain is very steep and very hard sand stone – with patches of sketchy sand on top, which I discovered on the longest, scariest line we rode.
This kind of riding is a calculation that is a bit different than riding a trail. You have to guess if you can control your speed, before you drop in – and if not? Well, you just have to deal with it – run it out, ditch it or otherwise. In most cases this is easier said than done.
I hit an unexpected sand patch, got a little sideways and half laid it down, trying to self arrest myself with my pedal, handle bar and hand. It somehow worked and I stopped before I was in any real danger.
As I suspected, steep is relative – the limit of what’s rideable varies by situation, but being on the edge and exposed to a potential fall is understandable for any rider that's pushed their limits.
Back to sea
Darren being the fisherman he is wanted to get some diversity in and get out on the water for some lobster fishing, I had no issue with that, knowing that I would be enjoying the fruits of his labour, so off he and Bri went.
Ale and I decided to go scout a jump that I found. The area I live in doesn’t really have many jumps, so it is a real treat when you actually get off the ground.
This particular jump was built by kids, so the size was miniature and need to be man size before I showed it to Bearclaw. After some discussions with Ale, we decided to change the direction of the jump, to suit the photo he wanted to take, but I wasn’t convinced it would work.
We worked on it for a couple of hours and got it three-quarters completed, when we decided to wait for the master builder to come have a look.
The next morning we had about seven lobsters and a jump that didn’t work. Darren quickly sprung into action and together we had it dialled and ready to go in under an hour – a new and improved jump tucked away just for us to enjoy, with a majestic ocean back drop.
That was the end of our time together. Darren and I had gone from the Sea to the Sky and back again, It was one of the most diverse riding weeks I have ever had.
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