Joel says:

This portion of the trail sticks out for me mostly because of a crash I had during spring 2005. It was a night ride, I was alone and on my 5th lap of the trail. It had just finished raining and everything was slick and muddy. I remember being in a pretty good groove, really feeling the flow of the trail, and as Nate can attest, this section can be particularly fast with its slight switchbacks and the way the singletrack floats gently between the guava trees.

However this night things would be different. I remember entering the section at high speed, boosting through the first couple corners and then setting up for the next corner when I completely lost traction and my front wheel folder over sideways. I flew over the bars and into the edge of the woods. I was wearing my arm pads so I had no scrapes, just quite a surprise. However when I picked up my bike I saw that my front wheel was toast, I busted the right Shimano XT shifter pod, and tore the housing out as well. Surprisingly, my ipod never skipped a beat. I even remember what album I was listening too: "Live: The Distance to Here". Well, I sifted through the woods looking for shifter parts, but gave up on the pursuit and ended up taking the bike to the shop the next day. The wheel re-build and shifter ended up costing over 200 dollars. Ugh!

Nate Says:

This is one of those section of the trail that took a while to find the perfect line through the entire thing. Either way that you go, this part is fast and has a whole lot of roots in the way. The way to ride it is to go on the very edge of the trail closest to the outside. You will miss all of the roots, but come very close to sliding outside into the bushes. Also when on the outside, the handlebars can catch on hanging vines and jerk you over to the edge.