SophiaTravel

On June 21, 2025, by the invitation from my son’s school teacher, I am honored to join Girl’s Rock mountain bike event in Santa Cruz.

It was the first time I try to ride mountain bike. But I have rich experience on road bike for 30+ years.

Girls Rock Mountain Bike Group

There are total 40-50 women joining the event that day and I believe there are more members in the group. Age ranges from teenagers to 60+/70+. So no limitation for mountain bike fun. It is a very friendly group and I believe after staying a long time there, you can make a lot of fantastic friends.

Mountain bike rent

The registration for the event is free. And if you do not have mountain bike, you can always pay ~$120 to get the demo bike from the shop. The only data you need to provide to the bike shop is weight and height, and they will adjust the pedal / bike handle height for you when you pick up the bike.

Below is the bike I rented, according to the shop, the sale price is about $9,000. The bike is very light. By riding this bike, I have to say the grip of the tire is awesome, even for me as a new rider, I did not fall due to the tire slip on the rock or root.

The rack to put the mountain bike. My mountain bike does not have a stand.

Mountain Biking

As a new rider, I was pretty ambitious to join the beginner group.

It turned out it was a totally mistake. I only finished 20% of the riding, that means 2 miles ride uphills and downhills. I believe most of people are better than me on this given I do not even know how to adjust the bike scales, seat height, etc.

The challenge of mountain biking is different from road biking. The trail has quite a few rocks, roots, and it is easy to get stuck there. The important thing for uphill is to give momentum when pedal. And when we anticipate for the coming root / rock, we need to put ourselves in the level position (see below pic) to avoid pedal hit and stuck in the root or rock. As a green hand, I hit root and rocks multiple times, but luckily it was a fast recovery. And I have to say it needs practice and courage to put ourselves in level position for uneven trail given we need to almost stand on the bike.

Roots on the trail

Downhill is much fun compared to uphill due to the high speed. I use the app to track downhill and my downhill speed reaches 35MPH.

Santa Cruz bike trail

Santa Cruz is famous for its bike trails. During the riding, I did not see anyone hiking on the trail, all mountain biking. Typically small group — such as 5-6 people per group. But I have to say it was a heavy traffic on mountain bike trail and I have to stop frequently to let people pass, maybe because I am quite slow compared to experienced bikers.

For mountain bike, I would like to say if you like ski, you would like downhill mountain bike and I still explore uphill mountain bike fun.

I will add more contents after I have more experience on mountain biking.