So this weekend the family spent a couple of days in Big Bear at my brother-in-law’s cabin.   I brought along the bikes just in case we could carve some time out for some fun in the dirt. 

Turns out we did grab some time one morning so the boys and I headed for the lazy boy chairs at Snow Summit for lift to the top of the mountain.

This was my first time doing the lift assisted riding on the mountain as well.  I have done stuff in the area and on the back side of the mountain but had never taken any of the stuff into town.  From the top of the lift we took 2N10 west along the ridgeline for a few miles and then took the short singletrack out to the Grand Viewpoint.

While I think the views from here are pretty cool (been here once before), the boys were like, “Yeah Yeah Yeah, is it time to go downhill yet?”

Lucky for them it was time to point the bikes down the hill.  After a quick bit of backtracking to 2N10, we took the Pine Knot Trail (1E01) down the hill.   We had discussed doing the traditional Grandview Point Loop that used the fireroad 2N08 to go down the mountain and the Towne Trail to cut back over to the Snow Summit parking lot.  Taking the Pine Knot trail would have us needing to ride an additional three miles back through town.   In a rare moment of sibling concurrence the boys asked “who would want to go down a fireroad?  Let’s take the singletrack!”   (Ahhhh, I was so proud, some of my parenting has been getting through. )   After this point we did not see much of Will except for regroups.  We wanted to blaze ahead and I wanted to keep Jake within earshot.

Jake is gettting quite a bit faster.  On a couple of occasions when I zipped ahead  to get setup for a shot of him coming by I was surprised how quickly he caught up.   I was also surprised at how long it took me to catch back up to him after I put the camera away and got back on the bike.  He is working that hardtail really well.

Once down at the bottom at the Glen Aspen Picnic area we worked our way down on the streets to Highway 18 and cruised back through town.   To add a little more trail to the return leg, after going through the village, we hung a right on Knickerbocker Street and after a short bit we hung a left onto 2N08 and back onto the dirt.  There was some steep fireroad climbing to be done for a bit and it wiped the smiles of the boys’ face.   It was good for them.  I don’t want them to get used to the whole chair-lift lizard thing.    All was better once we got up to where the Town Trail comes off of 2N08 and contours it way back to the Snow Summit parking lot.    The boys had a good time and I was glad to get some quality time out on the dirt with them.   We celebrated we some post-ride sodas.

So man, long time no post for me. Truth be told, I have been enjoying other pursuits as of late. After spending plenty of time traveling and riding over the summer I have found life at home in the “slow” lane really freaking fun. I have been on the bike a bit, but first a little catchup.

The family (and a couple of friends) played hookie one day and enjoyed some mid-week fun at Knoxberry Farm. No lines was pretty freaking awesome.

Over Thanksgiving, we kicked up some dust in my Brother-In-Law’s yard with the go-carts.

Then there has been the weekly hockey practices and games. If it is not Jake on the ice at the Escondido Iceoplex,

It is Will at Tricity Inline rink. Always good times.

Early this week, a few friends and I did a little riding east of the Laguna Mountains. This is an area that I have not done much riding in so it was cool to check out some new stuff. Kitchen Creek, Fred Canyon, and Thing Valley were all on the menu.

It was not too long into our uphill exploration that some of the white stuff made an appearance. While just in the shadows at first, by the time we got up into the Lagunas proper there was more snow that not on the trails.

It is always a treat to get snow on your tires here in Southen California. Today’s dosage was just right, while enough to be a bit burdensome in spots it was for the most part  fun to hear the crunch under your wheels.

After bit of play up top we worked our way back down to lower elevations and a welcomed bit of warmth.  There looks to be some good scenic loops that can be put together out here. I have to go back a time or two to get everything figured out. One thing is for certain, I had a pretty cool time out there on the bike.

I got back from Japan a couple of weeks ago and have been taking it easy for the most.  Enjoying the “normal” things in my life like the kid’s hockey games, practice, honey-dos, etc…. Oh, and I managed to break my FN left big toe just strolling through the house.    So not much in the way of blogging about mountain biking.  But I been squeaking in some ride here here and there.

Before the toe breakage, I met up with one of the usual suspects at one of the usual suspect spots for some playtime on the rocks.   After not riding here for over six months, the rocks and all the moves looked bigger.   I’m going to have to repolish my game in this area.

Just a couple of days ago, I tested out the toe on ride through Calvera with my youngest son, Jake.  While the toe was mildly a pain, it is okay to ride with.

What I was really stoked about was how well Jake was hanging.   I rode at around 90% of my normal pass and he was right there the whole time.  We did not do a whole lot of stopping either, just riding.  

Kids never seem to amaze me at the rate at which they progress.   We had a really good time out there and we got in around 12-14 miles all together.  It was a good day to be a Dad and on a bike.

The last half of the family vacation were hella fun.  On Wednesday, the boys and I went up the mountain for some more trail fun.   We got off at the McCoy station about took “Trail Home” back down the Adventure Center.  From there we took the gondola back up to the McCoy station and took “Brake Through”.  The boys were riding quite well and was quite surprised at how quickly they have been progressing over this week.

 Jake on “Brake Trough”

The boys were itching to try some more difficult stuff so we decided to check out the lower portion of “Flow” and then onto “Shotgun”.   They really dug the more difficult terrain and some of the features like the wall ride.  

Will getting some good height on the Shotgun wall ride

Jake getting a little wall action.  Even with just getting barely on the wall he giggled and thought that was the best thing ever.

Will decided to tackle a log ride further down the trail.  I was a little apprehensive about it but was pretty stoked when after several attempts he nailed it.

We finished off the day at Lake Mary by renting some pedal boat to fart around on the lake and do a little fishing.     There was a lot more of pedalling around than fishing and Casey and Jake proved that pedal boats are not swamp proof.   It was the best boat rental ever as got way more than our money’s worth of laughs out of them.

On Thursday, while the family slept in, I we got in some runs on a few of the double black diamond trails.   They have some pretty gnarly trails up there that lett me humbled and stokes at the same time.   I did a couple of runs down Techno-Rock before hitting up Chain Smoke to Twilight Zone.   I was shotting some video and did not get any photos.    I can see a bigger bike in my future if I wanted to ride terrain like that on a regular basis.   For the final run, I went back up and did Bullet to Follow Me.    I was back at the room by lunch.

In the afternoon, the boys and I went checked out the old Mammoth Consolidated Mine.   The remenants of the buildings and equipment all over the site that are pretty cool to poke around.   

There is even a mine shaft that you can check out.  It is plugged some 30-40 down the tunnel but is really cool as you can still see the rails for the ore carts.  When I say cool, literally applies because as soon as you step into the the tunnel it feels like the tempurture is in the 60 degrees range. 

After finishing up at the mine we spent the rest of the afternoon feeding the fish at Twin Lake one baited hook at a time.    The following morning it would already be time to pack up and head home.  Man does time fly when you are having fun.  This was a great vacation and one I sure we will remember fondly for many years to come.

What a fun day in Mammoth we had yesterday.   After leisurely getting up and around, the boys and I went off to do some fishing at some of the local lakes.    Fishing is a good way to help teach the value of patience and we should have been doing this more often.  With my kid’s daily life of video games, hockey, skateboarding, bikes and all the other things that keep them buzzing with activity it was good to put things in the slow lane for a change.  We were all reminded that is called fishing and not catching.   

On several occasions we watched trout swim right below the rock were were perched on.   One even came up to the surface and gulped down a bug that just landed on the water. 

I was really stoked when my boys not only got to see a Bald Eagle but also watched it swoop down and pluck a trout right out of the water.  The eagle then landed on an dead tree nearby and proceeded to scarf down the trout.

While all Bald Eagles are big birds this was not a huge eagle like the one I saw in Anacortes, Washington earlier this year.   One thing is for certain I was so stoked that my boys got to have such an awesome nature experience without having to turn to the Discovery channel.

My mid-afternoon we decided to cut the fish some slack and headed back to the condo.   Looking at the clock we realized we had enough time to catch a gondola ride up the mountain.  Jake and Casey had some shopping on thier to-do list so Will and I suited up and headed out for a run down the mountain.  Will has been bucking to do some of the more difficult trails on the mountain.   I was also looking forward to some of the more technical and feature/stunt oriented trails as well but at the same time the Dad in me has been apprehensive about putting Will in over his head.  

After talking with some folks I decided to test Will out on the black diamond upper section of “Skid Marks”  that starts off right off the top of the mountain.    Will did quite well through the rocky bits and switchbacks, but did take a minor “soil sample”.   He did have all of the protective gear on so he did not even get a scratch.   I did find that following my son through the technical and semi-exposed sections made my riding more difficult as my brain kept switching back and forth between mountain-biker and dad mode.      

Once I realized that Will’s bike handling skills have been improving significantly I found that I was able to spend more time riding with him as a fellow mountain biker and and less as a protective father.  After Skid Marks we took the more intermediate trails of Paper Route and Juniper down the mountain and enjoyed some great swooping and flowing singletrack goodness down the mountain.  

The late afternoon light was really nice and colors of the mountains were starting to go off.   We stopped a couple of times just to take in the views.  Will has always enjoyed the thrill of riding but I think something may have clicked this afternoon about intrinsic value of experiencing the scenery and of the overall outdoor experience beyond simply the enjoyment of riding the bike.

I took the family up to Mammoth Lakes for the week to get in some vacation time. The plan is to relax, ride some trails, do some fishing and whatever else strikes as interesting.   Yesterday we hit up the mountain for a bit of lift-assisted mountain biking.   It was pretty nice to spend no energy to get up 11,053 feet and then ride trails back down to the condo at 8,200 feet and many miles away.  

Will and Jake clowning in the gondola

The Boys at “Top of Sierra”.  The views from here are pretty freaking impressive.  

We did the Off The Top trail from the peak.  It was pretty interesting riding above the tree line.  Will led out like shot off like a bat out of hell.  I was happy to see that he followed some directions on waiting at every trail intersection.   He actually did better than that.  He would rip for a ways and then wait to see Jake and I to come into view.   Jake was a little intimdated at first with the expansiveness of the mountain side up top but after a couple of switchbacks he got the hang of it as was zipping along quite nicely. 

After “Off The Top” we hooked up with “Beach Cruiser”  that took up back down to the bottom of the gondola we took up.  From there we picked up “Downtown”.   Downtown was a heck of a lot of fun that I’m guessing is around 5 miles or so long.    

Here are the boys taking breather on Downtown.   Yes they are looking at little pooped at this point.   I’m guessing we did about 13.5 miles of trail riding in the morning.   The downtown trail is really fun and it literally comes out of the woods across the street from the condo we are renting.   Over lunch the boys got some energy back.  A few hours later we were all headed back up the mountain for another run down the mountain.  The boys were certainly good and tired after the second run.  We spent the rest of the evening enjoying a hearty meal and relaxing before the boys zonked out.

Yesterday afternoon, Jake and I went to Encintas to checkout the showing of “Klunkers”.  It is a film that explores the early days of Mountain Biking.   Waiting to get in was just as much of an event for me as the film itself.

I saw quite a few people I had not seen in quite sometime.  I also did not recognize a couple of my friends that I have never seen without thier bike gear own.   

Of course there were sightings of the Usual Suspects.

It was a really cool film and it was crazy to see some of these guys screaming down Mount Tam without helmets on.  Freaking Crazy!.    Jake really thought it was cool as well and I liked the fact he learned a little about the history of mountain biking in the process.   It was also pretty cool that and Gary Fisher and Charlie Kelly were there and did some Q&A after the showing.

Here is the website on Klunkers.

FORWARD:  This is repost of an online post I made in September of 2007 after my boys and I spent a weekend camping in the Laguna Mountains.   I am in the process of updating my page and maps on the area.  While doing this I noticed I did not have this story anywhere on my site.  This post here is designed to “capture” the story within my site.

Me and my boys are in between thier youth hockey seasons right now so we took advantage of one of the free weekends to get in a little camping and riding in the Laguna Mountains. While the biking was not the primary goal for the weekend we had a lot of fun and I am quickly starting to get a couple little dirt addicts on my hands. We got to the Laguna campground late in the afternoon Friday and just did get setup before dark. Saturday morning we took a spin around the Big Laguna Trail.

The BLT is a great place to take kids that are looking for a “big” ride. My youngest Jake was getting a bit bounced around on the uphills with rocks so we stopped and did some sessioning on how to unload the front wheel when going over the stuff. He picked it up really quick and owned the stuff the rest of the morning.

We stopped and messed around with the cows

Hmmm……..cranberry sauce, gravy…..

By 1PM we were out on nearby Lake Cuyamaca fishing. The keyword is Fishing NOT catching.

So it was Chicken for dinner that night. The rest of the evening we spent screwing around with the fire, smores, and flaming balls of marshmellow goo.

The next morning we decided to do the BLT in the other direction this time.

Stopping to check out the Indian Motareos(sp?) (In case your wondering my oldest boy Will gets that from his Mother

Jake’s handiwork with the camera.

And Will messing with the camera around camp.

After the ride, we took our time breaking down camp and where rolling towards home by 1:30pm. It was a great weekend with the boys and if you are ever looking for a good place to take your kids beyond the local parks this place is pretty good in my book.

 So the plan for today was to hit up some Santa Ana Mountains Fireroad Up Singletack down action. One phone call from a total stranger yeseterday afternoon changed those plans. The stranger in question was the manager of a gas station a few miles from house. My oldest son, Will, had gone skating with some of his friends and something had gone wrong. The paramedics had already been called and all the guy would say that he had really hurt his right hand.

When I arrived the local fire department paramedics were already on the scene and had loosely wrapped up his thumb in what had already become a blood soaked cloth.  They advised me that they could save me a lot of money if I drove him to the ER myself, but his hand needed to be looked at right away.

So before long we were at the ER.  At this point I had not seen the wound yet but I was worried as Will said it was sorta numb. When the assessing nurse took of the dressing to get a look it as we were dealing with it was all I could do not to openingly freak out. Parents are meant to see their childrens’ bones. But there it was, back to the first knuckle was flayed open with the nail off to the side and the skin and muscle off to the other side with the bone showing. Our time spent in the waiting room was exactly zero seconds as we were whisked off to X-Ray and then Orthopedtics.  Will was a popular guy as many folks came by for a look. It did not take long for the doctors to make the call to bring in a hand-surgeon. There was going to be a delay in the specialist arriving so in addition to the normal pre-surgery stuff, “Dr. Feelgood” made a visit and gave Will some Morphine. Will was giggly happy for quite sometime before doozing off.

So the hand-surgeon arrives and within an hour Will is in the operating room to have his thumb “repaired”. That term seemed odd to hear as I expected something like sutured or set.  Repaired just seem so serious.

After a long couple of hours, he was out of surgery and off to the recovery room. The surgeon seems to think that it should heal up just fine.  He was kept overnight and released this morning.  He will be back to the the doc again in a few days to see how the healing is going and to see where to go from there.  Geez, you only wish for the best for your kids and it hurts to seem them hurt. Will will be taking a break from Hockey, Biking, Skating Boarding and the Electric Guitar for a bit. School work should be a little interesting as well since he is right-handed.

Of course like father like son there was a video camera on the scene. My bet is that his buddies will soon have it YouTubed.

Man, the things we do for our kids.   I got up at around 7AM and loaded up all my gear in the truck while Will was still sound asleep in the tent.   All of Will’s biking gear had been staged in the tent last night.    I drove down to the bottom of the mountain at 6,400 feet and started a 6.5 mile pavement climb back up to the campsite at 8,200 feet.  Will certainly has it in him to do this climb as he had tackled Palomar Mountain earlier in the year which encompassed 4,700-foot climb over 11.1 miles.  I wanted this ride to be more about fun than fitness today so I cut out most of the climbing for him.  The climb back to camp was not a steep one and I found it pretty easy to keep a pretty descent pace even with 2.6 Stick-E rubber tires.   I thought about taking the McGill trail up but I wanted both Will and I to experience a “new” trail together.  When I got back to camp, Will was already up and making himself some breakfast.

I had left a few things back at camp so I would not have to climb with them, mainly my camera.  While I was getting that stuff in my camelbak, Will (who had already gotten geared up) commenced to start talking a little smack about Dad being a fiddle-fart.  So, I set him up.  I snippedly told him to “Go on ahead, you know I’m just going to catch you, even though I already climbed over six miles this morning”.   Well that was all it took, Will took the bait.  He casually said, “See you up the road” and pedaled off at a normal pace.  I yelled at him as he rode off, “Don’t start off too fast or you’ll be sorry!”  The hook was set.  Just when he thought he was out of view (but not quite), I saw him drop the hammer.   Nothing left to do now but reel him in a few minutes after the pace, grade and the thin air above 8,200 feet get done with him.

I finished up what I was doing and got rolling.   After a couple of turns in the road and Will still being out of site, I was impressed.   One turn later and I saw him, hunched over his handlebars on the side of the road.   The voice of Phil Lidgett came through my head, “Oh my, the young rider has cracked! There will be no hopes for a mountain top win for him today.”    Will got to rolling when I neared, but his pace was mighty slow and he complained of not feeling good.   We took an extended break for him to recover and I could not help but get a devilish grin on my face, when I told him to come on and stop fiddle-farting.  I wish I had my camera out to catch the look on his face when it dawned on him that he had fallen for a parental version of a Jedi Mindtrick.

After he recovered, we soon left the pavement to continue climbing on a fireroad up to the Mt Pinos summit at 8,830 feet.   It was a fairly mellow climb and the views were pretty nice even with a bit of lingering haze from the NorCal wildfires.

From here it was a mostly downhill affair back to the top of the pavement where we hooked up with some pretty nice and mostly buff singletracks that included the Harvest and Southridge trails.  These bits of goodness took us back by our camp and down to the McGill campground.

From the McGill campgroud, we picked up the amply named McGill trail which was an absolute heavenly bit of singletrack that worked its way down the mountain.  The grade was never steep and it was virtually buff the entire distance.   I rolled through hundreds of Kodiak moments and only captured a few.

This picture provides very little justice to the view.

Will had one of those moments of inattention that caused him to take a soil sample on a switchback.   After the initial uggh following the thump, he chuckled and dusted himself.   He then went back up the trail and nailed it the second time around.

The blissful descent was over far too quickly and we were soon back up at camp and packing up.   Will has not learned much about repairing flats and other mechanicals yet so a solo descent down the McGill trail was not on the table.  I did let him ride the road down.  He thoroughly enjoyed the speed-fest coming down the mountain on the pavement.  We spent the rest of the day getting home and chatting about what a cool week we just had.   Once home it took all of about 15 minutes before Will was out the door to skate and hang with his friends and basically get back into his busy routine.   I’m sure as the teenage years roll in and along the competition for his time will get tougher so I am really thankful to have the time with him now.  ¦lt;/p>