oh boy you are in for a treat. santa cruz has great riding. as far as shops go, another bike shop is the hottest mountain bike shop in town. sprockets and spokesman are good too. if youre into the do-it-yourself kinda thing, there is the bike church downtown, and the bike co-op on campus (http://bikecoop.ucsc.edu/) of which i am a core member.

as far as trails go, you wont be dissapointed. wilder ranch is very fun, no doubt, but dont forget about the soqeul demo forest (home of the annual soqeul demo) and the upper campus of ucsc. upper campus connects to wilder and you can find a lot of north shore stuff that my buddies and i are working on.

there is a lot of other cool stuff too! paul sadoff has his shop down on swift street, so just give him a call during the week and he will show you his shop. also, if youre lucky, you can see keith bontrager riding the trails with you. he still resides in santa cruz.

so have fun! come by the bike co-op if you have any questions or trail suggestions