Chumash Kicks My Ass

So for this father's day weekend, I went home to the San Fernando Valley to grab dinner with my family. I always use opportunities like this to go riding with my brother. So the day begins with the car ride to the trail head. Conversation goes something like this:

Brother: You'll like Chumash. I've been riding it for the last few weeks, even during the week day.
Me: Oh yeah? It's not too intense, is it?
Brother: It's 3 miles.
Me: and?
Brother: 1,000 feet of climbing.
Me: Doesn't seem like I can do it.
Brother: It's very flowy, and very doable.
Me: ... (expecting some pain)

So the trail has been split up into three one-mile segments.

Mile 1 (Climb)
The first mile is not so technical, and requires a decent amount of climbing. I dismounted once, but it was a lapse in concentration on a short, but steep, uphill. The last part of the mile consisted of a single/double track climb my brother calls "breathless agony."

Mile 2 (Climb)
The second mile had more of an uphill/flat flow to it. I was told to keep in granny and use the flats to recover. Good advice. The trail did get a bit more technical, and there was one uphill that I sessioned 5+ times with no success.

Mile 3 (Climb)
Holy crap. Lots of rocks, very technical climbing. I walked probably 75% of this.

Mile 4 (Mile 3 descent)
I had a few dismounting moments on the downhill. They typically came on rock switchbacks with the cliff side in my view. I get scared of the cliff and the unknown, and I'm terrible at switchbacks (uphill or downhill).

Mile 5 (Mile 2 descent)
This was a lot of fun, until I rounded a switchback too tight, hit a big rock, endo'd for a split second, stared down the side of a cliff on my front wheel, and then supermanned to the mountain for safety. I banged up my palms and my legs a bit, but no skin bleeding and hopefully no bones cracked.

Mile 6 (Mile 1 descent)
With my confidence shaken, I didn't attack the downhills. Probably a good idea since I was totally unfamiliar with the trail. This is when my brother lost control of his bike and ended up wiping out into the bushes. He had some skin scrapes on his forearms and smacked his shoulder up pretty good. We ended up finishing the ride in good order, but not without some battle injuries.