Last week was really busy.     While work was plenty busy, I did have enough time to get out and about on some trails.     After starting the week out by finding out with my bike being stolen, I was able to get my hands on a rental hardtail on Tuesday.    Wednesday after work I hit up Banner Forest.   I had hiked a small slice of this area in December of 2008 but this was the first time on the bike.   This places is a lot of fun.  Lots of the twists and turns and quick up and downs on nearly all singletrack.   Quite the fun XC playground.

Wednesday was supposed to be a quick afternoon ride at Green Mountain near Bremerton.     The trail was billed as well marked out-up and back-down.    Just a few miles into the climb I spied and sweet looking narrow singletrack heading off to the west and someone had made a wooden arrow on the ground pointing to it.   For those that know me, know what happened next.   Yes I took the sweet looking singletrack that was not on my map.   This was indeed a really awesome singletrack saw much less traffic the the one I started on.  This trail lead to another and another and the next thing I know I was much futher out than I had planned on being.   I had to dust off  some orienteering skills that I had not had to use so thoroughly in quite sometime.  When all said an done my 12-14 miles afternoon spin ended being a stout 21 miler that ended in the waning moments of the day.

 Saturday it was raining the Seattle-Tacoma area so I headed inland to the east of Mt Rainer to ride the Ranger Creek and Palisades trail.   The 20 miles of pure singletrack did not disappoint.   I am going to get back here when the sun is out.

Sunday I headed out to the Olympic Pennisula for a ride that is considered a Washington Classic/Epic.   The Lower Dungeness to Gold Creek Trail loop. For much of the ride I was in the clouds which made the fantastic singletracks take on a primordial rainforest feel. The cloud ride in thick old growth woods was sometimes spooky and I often found myself whistling so as not to surpise any critters further up the foodchain.

I’ll get some proper ride reports put together when I get some downtime, but for now it will just be the samplers.

Tripe (noun)

1. Lining of the stomach of a ruminant (especially a bovine) used as food.
2. A slang term synonymous with rubbish, in the sense of something of little value, or nonsense. 
3.  (see also San Elijo Trails)

Definition #2 particularlythe “something of little value” is the theme of this rant.

So for the last week or so I have been investigating some of trails not to far from my hood.  The San Elijo Hills area.   I was not expecting much and I was quite underwhelmed.  More than just underwhelmed, I was pissed at what the developer was allowed to get away with calling trails.

The Gardens View Tripe – Are you f$%^ing kidding me!  When two trucks can pass one another on it, it is not a trail.   It is a dirt road.

I laughed out loud at this sign.  “Give Life A Chance”.     What the sign from the San Elijo Hills Development Company should say is “YOU need to give life a chance, because WE have already bulldozed all the habitat in this area”

Take a look at the crap they have on their website.  18 miles of trails.   There is less than one mile of trail in this development.   There are over 17 miles of Dirt Sidewalk Pathway Tripe throughout this development.   Try a little truth in advertising.

The Double Peak Tripe.    The “trail” is the dirt sidewalk on the side of the pavement and then starts up the hill.     Where is the natural outdoor experience here?  You have either pavement or a cement gutter on one side and a wooden rail fence to keep from even contacting nature on the other.   Most of this climb is compacted and absolutely smooth decomposed granite.  It is a nearly sterile outdoor experience where you never escape development.   I have been on treadmills that were only slightly less interesting.   If you can drive a Ferrari or a Prius on it, it is not a trail, it is TRIPE!   

Do I even need to say it, “It is not a F$%^ing Trail!    TRIPE, TRIPE, TRIPE!  This is part of the 18 miles that San Elijo is selling as an attraction.

The Lake San Marcos Tripe.     PAVED!   I will not buy any blabage about American Disabilites Act Access with this “trail”.   What this picture does not show is how stupidly steep this thing is.  There is no Rascal, Humaround or any other battery powered mobility chair that is going to get up this thing.   The city has a formula for how many miles of trail the community should have for its size and population.   The mileage of this tripe counts towards meeting that trail requirement.  What does that mean?  It could mean less funding for real trails in the future because the city already has its mileage.

This is  part of the “Make A Wish Trail”.    I sure did make a wish.  I wish there were more trails like this in the area.   This IS a trail.  Part of it looks to be pre-developement but portions of it are obviously newer.

This is  the “Secret Trail”  aka Trail 90.    While it is fairly short this is good stuff that not only offers a high quality outdoor experience it is substainually less impacting on existing habitat.  This is the best legal and sanctioned trail out here.   It is also a legacy trail from before the develeopment started.  

Okay so maybe I’m being rash and a trail snob but this is some of the worst stuff I have seen in an urban area interfacing  to open space in San Diego County yet.   The dirt pathways have their place down between the homes, but running this crap all the way up into the open space is just dumb.   It does not meet the needs of the users who would venture up that far and it needlessly destroyed even more habitat by making the “trails”  three to five times wider than they need to be.   Arrrrrrrgh, What a nearly complete failure on the part of those charged with the oversight of this development.   I’m not sure if this failure is due to incompetence, ignorance, or just a simple lack of caring but it certainly did occur.  

You can download a map of all this Tripe  here and go see for yourself.   While it is a good workout it is not a high quality outdoor experience.   If you disagree, you need to start looking for some new places to ride as you are missing out on the good stuff elsewhere in the county.

For the mid-week ride this week, it ended up being a doozie.   The plan was to met up with some folks for a ride through Spring and Oak Canyon at 5pm.  I was able to finish off the day’s work early and figured I had enough time to get some mileage before the scheduled ride.

I parked at the trailhead for the Spring and Oak Canyon ride (Bushy Hills at MTRP campground) and did some street riding over to the Mesa singletrack for a climb up Cowles Mountain.    It was a beater as usual but love trying to clear the waterbars at their highest points but by the time I got up to the fireroad I was contend to get up the trails.     The fireroad up to the top was as always brutal.

At the top of Cowles I was still looking really good on time so I decided to do the out and back to Pyles Peak.   Plenty of waterbars here as well which made the down section pretty fun.

I was at the turnaround spot on Pyles Peak before I knew it and it was time for return climb back up to Cowles.   I was still feeling pretty good when I got back to the summit and was all smiles on the way down the Big Rock trail.    I got back to the campground just a couple of minutes before the first person showed up for the 5 pm ride.   I could have been happy with a beer and some dinner at this point, but yeah I already said I was going to do the ride.  

Spring and Oak Canyon was a good ride, but I had to dig into the energy reserves pretty deep to stay on pace with the fresh legged crew.    I was good and pooped when we finished up and shortly thereafter we made our way over to the MTRP visitor center for the monthly SDMBA advocacy meeting.   I slept well that night.

Riding from the Cuyamaca to the Laguna Mountains and back is a really awesome ride that can range from 31 miles upwards  towards 40 to 65 miles and beyond according to what you add on at the ends.    The most I have done is around 40 miles.   I have made a couple of videos of this ride in the past but I thought it was about time that I put together a page with maps and pictures of the ride.   As I working on the map I came across a map file with a similiar name as the one I was starting.   When I opened it up I was surprised to see it was the route I was working on.   I started digging around through my local copy of my website and found a page I had orginally done up in 2003 and updated in 2007.  Somehow, when I did my big website makeover in 2008 I failed to include this page in the menu directory for the trails.

East Mesa in Spring 2007   

More East Mesa Spring Goodness

Wildflowers in Big Laguna Meadow

While part of me is a little bummed that I missed this page in the first place, it is sort of cool that it shown up now.  It is like finding treasure I buried myself and forgot about.  

Check out the Cuyamaca to Noble Loop

Okay, so we San Diego folk are self-admitted “weather weenies”, particularly us coastal types.   You get us out of our typical weather of 65-75 and sunny for more than a few days we start whining like a jet turbine.   There was a lot of noise happening this week.

Wednesday, I met Steve for an after work MTB stoke at Anderson Truck Trail.   I knew it was going to be warm as this was our first really hot day of the year.    I was ready with extra fluids and electrolytes.    When I pulled into the trailhead the temp gauge in my truck read 100 degrees.    My first thought was that can not be right.   Within seconds of stepping out of the truck, I knew my truck was not lying to me.   Really rough but manageable was my overall assessment for the upcoming ride.    As I’m pulling out all my gear, I realized I had left my cycling short, shirt and socks at home.   I normally keep an emergency stash of  cycling clothes stashed for just such an occasion.   Opening up the under seat compartment revealed that I had not resupplied my stash after the last time I forgot my digs.    Crap, I was in my work clothes which would not do at all and my after ride clothes consisted of a heavy black cotton Tee-shirt and a thick pair of cotton shorts.   I did find a dirty cycling socks that I missed taking out of truck after the last ride so they were called back into service.     The cotton shorts and T-shirt would be the apparel for the day.

This was the only smile Aqua would make on this climb.

It was readily apparent that these clothes were not going to help me out much at all.  These was zero cooling happening with this outfit and it was blistering already.   The heat of this climb makes you suffer pretty good on its own but the my stifling apparel took it to a whole new level.   I thought about just not wearing a shirt at all, but even high SPF sunblock would not be able to help my glowing white-boy torso out whatsoever.  I would have been fried in no time so the shirt stayed on.   I have to take lots of breaks and had to spin in the granny ring for the overwhelming majority of the climb.   Even with lots of breaks, by the time I reached the top I could feel I was close to some heat stress coming on.      Amazing what the right apparel can do for you – More importantly what the wrong apparel can do to you as well.  

After cooling down as much as to be expected  I felt better and we set off on the descent.   Steve was doing just fine, but I soon realized that I was off-game.  My reaction time was off just a little bit and on this terrain that can cause problems.    I made a point to stay well within my normal limits.   

Brian soon joined us,  he started later in the day,  so he did not get as cooked as we did, but it was still freaking hot.      By the time we finished up the ride, it had cooled off to a “balmy” 90 degrees which felt pretty descent after what we had already suffered through.    I was pretty much a wreck and completely drained.

The following day was the San Diego Mountain Biking Associations annual Beer and Burrito ride.   I was still feeling a pretty beat from the heat the day before, but I had volunteered to help with pictures so I could not back out.  This was a work for your supper event where you do a ride and then got to kick back with a tasty burrito from Chipotle and some tasty brews from Lagunitas.  

Over the course of the day leading up to the event the temps start to drop and a monsoon storm started to peculate.  It was  cloudy with ominous rumblings in the sky in the distance.    This event was capped at 70 RSVPs and it looked like everyone of them made it out.   There were lots of new faces and lots of folks I had not seen in a really long time.  It was good times before we even started rolling.

At a regroup spot

In the middle of the ride, we actually got rained for awhile.    It nice to get the trail patted down right in front of us.  The rain did not last long but it was certainly enough to register as “rain” for San Diego.

Before long we had all did enough to qualify for dinner and the with rain gone, it was time for some kicking back and socializing for a couple of hours.   It was a mighty fine event.   A good chunk of the photos from the event are on SDMBA’s facebook page.

Friday and Saturday were back to the summer toastiness, so Mark and I planned on beating the heat with a crack of dawn ride and the San Clemente Singletracks (aka weekpatch).      Sunrise was at 5:52 so we met at 5:45 and were rolling at 6:00AM.   The morning temps were cool and the  marine layer held off the sun long enough that it was just starting to think about punching through as we finished up the ride.

It felt pretty wierd being done with my ride so early in the day.   I’ll finish of the weekend with a little bit of honey-dos and a lot of lounging (in the shade).

I had an exceptional week on the bike.  There was plenty of work, family and riding which did not leave much time for the keyboard.  So here are a few pics from the week.   For the mid-week stoke, I met Steve, Eric and Todd for some fun in the Laguna Mountains on the Big Laguna Trail and surrounding area.  I forgot my camera at  home so these pictures are courtesy of my fellow riders.

Some log riding on the Los Gatos Trail

Some playing was done on the rocks.

Not your average dry and dusty SoCal trail.    We had an exceptionally good ride and clocked in around 17-18 miles of good alpine meadow goodness.  

Friday, I got in a lunch time quickie at La Costa which is always a good place to get in some short but quality mileage.   No Pics

Sunday, I finally got around to doing a ride that I had been curious about for a number of years.  The Highpoint Truck Trail that goes up the north side of Palomar Mountain.   My bud Clayton, with whom I first rode with in Japan in 2004, just moved back to San Diego so he was up for a ride.   I was surprised to see him show you for this ride with his singlespeed.    While I be putting up a page on the site in the coming weeks, the quick numbers on this ride are it is a 12 miles long climb that gains 4,400 feet up to the Highpoint Lookout Tower. Needless to say, Clayton earned major climbage points today as a one-geared wonder. 

Grunt, Grunt, Groan, Groan

Killer Views from the top.

I see the observatory rather often from the various SoCal highpoints I ride to as a small white dot, This time it was a wee-bit closer.

The Highpoint Lookout Tower,  elevation 6,118 feet.   I’m sure there are worse ways to spend a workday.

When it was time to turn the wheels around we enjoyed cashing out the gravity points we had earned.    Some people hate fireroads, but 12 miles of downhill with some sketchy turns is pretty freaking fun.  It was a good way to finish off the weekend, Bring on Monday!

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.

I got an afternoon ride in the Laguna Mountains area on Wednesday and went back on Friday to some more exploring.   We rode some of the classic routes as well as some stuff that gets basically no action at all.  I’m gonna have to do some further research to see if some of the stuff is fit for public deseminaton but it was pretty awesome to point the bike in a new direction see where things would take us.   For now here are some pictures.

Sunday I ventured up to the Big Bear area with Bill O’Neil for a bit of back country goodness.    The person who first turned me onto this route asked that I not give out the names so I’m honoring that.   Other than having to spend some quality time with the topographic maps there is no reason why you can’t go out and discover this ride for yourself.

We would ride/hike a series of trails over several peaks with some fantastic views.   I had worn my SIDI biking shoes which was not the best choice for the adventure today.   I have a couple sets of MTB shoes that have more rubber in the sole which would be much more hike-a-bike friendly than todays selection.

The terrain in this area is fairly energy sapping.   Squared off rocks that slip and slide underneath your wheels makes for interesting descents where finesse of the controls and the nerve to let the bike make it’s own small line adjustments are a must to keep the rubber side down.   This stuff also puts a little extra calf burn on you in the hike-a-bike sections.  We did plenty of  this in the higher elevations.  Along one of these section I was surprised to see both a solo rider as well as two other riders (Actually at that time they were hike-a-bikers) later on.  It was the first time in 3 years that I have seen anyone other than some hikers and the a couple of mounted forest service rangers.   

For me the long stretches of hike-a-bike were well worth it for the views and the techy descents.

Of course what goes up must come down.   We eventually did a bit of road interconnect  before hopping onto a classic Southern California trail. 

We took a break at a campground near the final trailhead to refill our Camelbaks and to grab some snacks.   The campground was closed for maintenance but the water was still on so we chilled at one of the campsite benches.  Within minutes of our arrival the little guy who runs campsite #1 came over, introduced himself and attempted to persuade us to kick him a little something for looking after the place.

Now, I know your not supposed to feed these guys but he was certainly a veteran of the campground gig.  Not to mention he was so damn cute!

The final trail was in pretty good shape and it was a blast as always.  The creeks were flowing well and the one pictured above got me pretty good.  I picked a bad line through the creek and found the deepest part of the crossing and a sizable rock.  Combined with my less that stellar effort I executed an endo to a perfect 5-point landing in the creek.    That was Brisk Baby!   There were no other unplanned dismounts for the rest of the ride and by the end of the day we had put in about 28 miles and a lot of smiles.

The thermometer in my truck read 89 degrees when I pulled into the Anderson Truck Trail parking area yesterday afternoon.  It was my first return to Anderson Truck Trail in a long time  (October of last year).  I should have known better.   I forget how many times I have been out here in the heat and just gotten pummeled by it.   As least I would not be alone.  Almost everytime I have done something idiotic out here it has been with Steve.  Steve has a way of bringing out people’s inner idiot.  (For some, it’s not so inner)   Steve is an Idiotic Whisperer if you will.

 We both knew it was going to be a brain boil on the climb as we had both done the climb in even hotter weather.   What we both needed was “I’m with Stupid”  jerseys.  Steve further added some beatdown potential to his ride by bringing out his custom Wolfhound singlespeed.  This bike is a thing of beauty build to Steve’s exacting specs.    The climb was indeed a brain boil as expected.  There are a couple segments of the climb that are known to have “Dead Air”  where the afternoon sun hits you from the left while heat is radiated from the rocks on your right and there is no breeze to move the air around.   It is like you are in a brick oven and your head is the pizza.   That was not a surprise as we knew it was coming.  What was surprising was how the lines had changed over winter.    In the past I knew all the turns and bumps like the back of my hand and basically had the descent wired.   That was not the case now as the lines changed enough that I would have to recourt this mistress on the descent.  I tried to make as many mental notes as possible of the new conditions.

I came into the day thinking about hitting a jump I had not pulled the trigger on before, the Halloween Drop.  Throughout the climb I was visualizing my takeoff and landing.   Short of any last minute mental flatters, it was going to happen today.  Despite the heat, we climbed fairly well.  It was not my fastest climb by a longshot but I have lagged much more in the past.    I was mentally prepared for the Halloween Drop by the time we took a break at the top.  Before long it was time to turn the bike’s downhill.  Some new lines had sprung up since my last visit that I was up for trying. 

A little bit of rock wall ride.

Steve navigating the Wolfhound onto the rocks

Part II of the new section was a gnarly bit of rocks.  Steeper than it looks and a bit tricky even on the full suspension rig.

Steve did some good rock surgery on the Wolfhound

 
Steve on “The Diving Board” letting the dog fly

I had not even thought about doing the Diving Board.  I have done this a bunch of times in the past.   My thoughts had been on the Halloween Drop.   I passed on the jump but later while grabbing the shot of Steve doing the jump, he went into went Idiot Whisperer mode and the next thing I know I’m doing the jump.   I did not stick the landing.  I was way too overconfident and as far as I can tell I had my weight too far back on the landing which allowed the front wheel to slip out on the off-camber landing and I did a nice little thump and slide on the hardpacked decomposed granite.  Ouch!   I had managed to exfolilate a nice patch of skin my left thigh and whack the meaty part of my right palm.   I always find it interesting how you can take the top layer of skin off of your body and the clothes between you and the ground remains intact.    These were pretty minor in the scheme of things but it was still somewhat painful.  (Glad I had protection on my other bits.)    Anderson can be a finicky bitch who does not take kindly to you staying away too long and courting too many other ladies.   She gave me a nice little bitch slapping.

So my little spill messed with my mental game enough that I decided to keep the tires on the ground.  Anderson has plenty of on-the-ground technical goodness so I was still not getting off easy and I hit all the rest of my usual stuff.      

The Flying Dog – aka Wolfhound

I was not the only one who had been visualizing a Halloween Drop launch, Steve had been mentally stewing over this with the Wolfhound.   Steve said this was not going to be a multiple run in thing.   One run in only, the trigger was going to be pulled or the anchor was going to be thrown out.    Steve pulled the trigger, landed like a cat and yelled and giggled for the next five minutes.   We are pretty sure this is the first time someone has hit this on a hardtail. 

A different angle of the 911 roll.  I was digging the moon rising.

On our way over to the final descent, to add insult to injury, some kind of flying insect went into my mouth and as I was spitting it out the thing bit/stung me on my lip.   It was not as full on painful as a regular bee sting but my lip immediately was tingling and I felt some puffing up starting.     Yes Anderson can be a finicky bitch that does not take kindly to being ignored for months and then thinking  you can just show  back up and make lots of heat in the sheets.

For the final descent I had learned my lesson, court the lady, stoke her through curves and let her tell me how fast you can go.  It was a blissful descent with lots of newness from all the changed lines.   The tradional post-ride burritos followed.   I’m sure I will have some interesting technicolor body artwork develop off the next few days but it was not a bad Wednesday at all.