All our snow up here in Potato Land finally melted off and we got some hero dirt today

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'the notorious North County Sancho'

last few days have been absolute shite up here
lotsa rain, then snow last night, and to top it off; the damn sun came out today.

we all know the 3rd rule of fight club; sun's out, bike's out
so the kid and I hit up the local mnt to see just how muddy we could get our tanga briefs

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'the notorious North County Sancho'

just a little FYI; dont try to ride in wet snow. it dont work.
at first i thought my ride was totally screwed, but after 3 hrs of pain, the trails cleared up nicely

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'the notorious North County Sancho'

A buddy and I went to check out the West side of my backyard today.
Took Penstemon Path (newly finished trail thanks to MAMBA) up to Love Connection, then up Jacks Route.
We started off in cloudy/rainy weather, then got blasted with decent sized hail halfway up, but once we got to the upper part of Jack's, the snow line kicked in real quick and we were treaded to magical quarter sized snowflakes gracefully coming down ever so slowly on us.
I had quite a bit weighing down on my mind (work, life , etc) when we got tot the trail head, but once the cranks started spinning, all of it just vamoosed and we were in another world.
The entire route (out and back) is nothing but switchback after switchback, after switchback after SWITCHBACK!!!! And they are tight ones too!
Coming down the mountain is floooooooowy, but thats only earned if you survive the grueling hour plus climb. It reminded me of Switchbacks on La Costa Mountain back home....just hyped up on 30 cans of that crappy Monster Energy drink.
The trees are really tight up here, and my 800mm bars are starting to make me wonder if they need to loose some weight.
I really wish Cali had a place like this, simply endless miles of singletrack on public and private land for the public to enjoy; regardless if they are hikers or bikers.

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'the notorious North County Sancho'

“I had quite a bit weighing down on my mind (work, life , etc) when we got to the trail head, but once the cranks started spinning, all of it just vamoosed and we were in another world.“

And that, no matter where we live, is why we mountain bike.

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Thus, if we are to understand the world, we should live somewhere between judgement and amazement — Alfredo Lopez Austin

Guess you've never been to Big Bear, San Gabriels, Kernville, Sierras, Tahoe, Downieville?

The zone from Auburn and Nevada City in the west all the way to Downieville up north and Reno/Tahoe in the east is already one giant trail network. And they're expanding it north to Susanville to connect a whole bunch of communities together. https://sierratrails.org/connected-communities/

besides Bear, no I have not been to any of the areas you mention.
I guess I should also rephrase/change my comment to 'SoCal'.
I still dont get why 'SoCal' has such a hard time making more progress on multi-use (i.e. bike rideable) trails.

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'the notorious North County Sancho'

That's an easy answer. $40 million+ rats in the Cage.....you you can't have endless anything with a crowd like that.
Plus you gotta have more rules and regs, too...to keep those rats from eating each other.

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Scum on a Bike

And don't forget the lawyers and environmental groups, who happen to heavily overlap. Public agencies don't like getting sued which is a big reason why approval processes are so drawn out. San Diego in particular has the largest number of endangered species of all US counties. Combine that with rampant housing development and you end up with a big fight over whatever is left.

All you have to do is look at Montana to see what effect population growth has on getting new trails. In fact they have lost access to hundreds and hundreds of miles of trails as enviros sue to keep bikes out of places like wilderness study areas. Much of the push for that comes from newly arrived out of state money.