Touring * Fitness * Slalom * Artistic *

From State Highway 118, the Simi Valley-San Fernando Valley Freeway, take the Madera Road South exit, also marked as the Ronald Reagan Library exit. Follow Madera 1.5 miles to Country Club Drive. Turn left on Country Club Drive and follow it to Wood Ranch Parkway. Turn left and then left again at Lake Park Drive to deposit your car at Rancho Madera Community Park, hopefully in the shade. The sidewalks bordering Wood Ranch Parkway are your trail. Map: Bikeways Map, A Guide to Biking in Ventura County, published by the Ventura County Transportation Commission; (805) 642-1591.

Experienced hill skaters will relish the delicious descent on beautiful Wood Ranch Parkway's superwide sidewalks, located in a country-club development no more than half a mile south of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. The nearby divided four-lane street services a series of expensive housing developments that line the cleft of Sycamore Canyon. Both sides of the road are bordered with prime-condition, landscaped concrete, in some places at least 12 feet across. If you want to make even wider slalom turns, the dual lanes on upper Wood Ranch Parkway itself are virtually empty during working hours and weekends. What comes down, of course, must first go up. Wood Ranch Parkway makes a gradual climb, curving through the wide canyon, and past homes set far enough back enough from the street that you can enjoy their view of the surrounding hills. As you climb, you'll pass an intersection for Morrison Drive on the right; that route curves even more steeply up the side of the canyon, tempting those who brought their ski poles to skate its steep, black-diamond pitches. Continue up Wood Ranch beyond the last driveway to a pair of grand gates where the road ends in a cul-de-sac at the base of a high, grassy hill. Beware of the big longitudinal crack bisecting the last few slabs of sidewalk near the top; it's a real wheel-trap. As you catch your breath from the almost-two-mile climb, turn around and enjoy the view that's accrued behind you. From this height, the northern panorama of the Santa Susana Mountains is deeply satisfying to the nature-loving soul. And now the real fun begins!