Santa Barbara: Greatest Hits, Episode Two - Video

There are few places quite like Santa Barbara; nestled between the rugged Santa Ynez Mountains and the vast Pacific Ocean. Going into the last few months of our four years of school at UCSB, my buddies and I decided we wanted to showcase some of our favorites among the wide variety of riding options that we enjoyed.


In this episode, Nelson Monge rides some front country classics and flows the community pumptrack that we built, and then all three of us involved in this series get out for one final beachside shred together before graduation.

Our first day shooting for this project, Nelson and I lucked out with some epic conditions at Elings Park.



Left: That's UCSB out on the point if anyone is looking for an ugly place to go to school.



Front country trails feature plenty of rock, but there's definitely flow, fun, and some surprises to be found if you go out and explore.


Left: Nelson getting his GQ on (this may or may not have been a spy shot on my part). Right: Flowing the Isla Vista Pumptrack.



In the final section of the video, Nelson, Jimmy, and I cruised from our apartment to Elwood Mesa, some open space next to IV that has some fun little sections of trail in an amazing setting.




Elwood offers some pretty spectacular trail access right from campus.



Going out and shooting all together was a pretty darn fun way to spend one of our last nights at school together. I have to give a huge shout out to these guys (and the rest of the UCSB MTB crew) for being a big part of making my experience in Santa Barbara as awesome as it was.


The classroom education was meaningful and greatly appreciated as we look towards the future, but mountain biking gave us the friendships and memories that will last a lifetime. Thank you for reading, and to everyone in Santa Barbara that made it such a killer time.

Words, photos, and video by Satchel Cronk.

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