Mountain Bike Bill, The Dirt on the Dirt

Category: Trails

Trails in General

A tale of Mistakes and Epicness

“I forgot my camelbak.”  That is how this tale of forgetfulness, epic trails, conditions and people starts.  My buddy Bill O’neil had never ridden Noble Canyon out in East County San Diego.  Noble Canyon is designationed a National Recreation Trail and is one of the IMBA Epic Trails.    If you live in Southern California is basically considered a must do.  So Bill was on his way down to my house from LA on Saturday.  The plan was to hang out on Saturday and then ride on Sunday.   Bill called me when he was halfway to my house when he realized that he had forgotten his camelbak.  This was no big deal as I had spare smaller 70oz camelbak that would work.  

So Bill gets down to my house and as he is always good for, he brought some might tasty beverages and spirits along with him.  We ended spending the evening enjoying them while tinkering with bikes.  Bill is also a pretty accomplished quitar player so there was also a bit of jamming  going on with my boys as both of them have recently picked up the quitar.   It did not take long for my boys to be give Bill the Wayne’s World “Were not worthy” salute.   It was a bunch of fun.   When the lights finally went out in the house, I had no problems falling asleep.

The next morning came pretty quickly and I found myself just a little “foggy”.   We were not doing the full “Tour de Noble” today.  We were doing a point-to-point that included Noble, the Big Laguna Trail (BLT) and the  Laguna Mountains.   So this meant two trucks.    As I packed all the stuff into the truck I ran through the mental checklist:  Bike, Shoes, Clothes, Helmet, Gloves, Glasses — CHECK!   Off we went.

The weather had made a dramatic turn over night as a storm had moved in and there were had been some intermittent rain overnight and the skys look somewhat menacing but with hope of blue on the horizon.   The Lagunas are a long way from North County San Diego so the thinking was that the weather might be different at the trailhead.   On the drive out, I had resigned to the fact that we would most likely get rained on at some point during the day, but we had a good chance for some incredible conditions.

Once at the bottom of Noble we started making the final preps to leave a truck at the bottom.   Then I noticed it.  My Camelbak was no where to be scene.  CRAP!   How the F$%k did this happen?  I did the checklist: Bike, Shoes, Clothes, Helmet, Gloves, Glasses,,,,,,,DAMN IT!    Checklists suck if you leave stuff off of them.   Okay lets figure things out.   Bill still had the small Camelbak I let him borrow.    However, the only other things in that Camelbak were snacks and a multi-tool.   No pump, tubes or patches.   This is where some of the real coolness of the day first came into play.   There were three other riders at the trailhead getting ready to head out.  They were gratious enough to let us bum a tool and tube from them.   I was able to find a patch kit stashed in my truck so we were covered in that area.   On our way to the top we stopped at the Pine Valley Market and picked up three 1-liter bottles of water to stuff in my jerseys.   (My camera was also in my camelbak so all of the pictures here are from other trips on these trails) 

Once at the upper trailhead at the RedtailRoost Volunteer Center off of Sunrise Highway it was pretty cold at 39 degrees and and breezy.  My trusty windbreaker was (you guessed it) in my Camelbak.    My garb for the days was shorts, knee warmers, long sleeve jersey with a short sleeve jersey on top and a pair of wind-proof winter gloves.   Being in the clouds of a brewing storm was pretty interesting as you had what looked like fog but you also had the whipping breeze that had a primordial type of feeling as forest just sort of disappeared into a gray but shifting nothingness as the different densities of the clouds would pass by.

The opening section of trail was really cool as the moisture from the night before (or maybe even minutes before we arrived) had patted down the trail enough to make for perfect traction.   It was fast rolling and gripped in the corners at near velcro strength.    After a good bit of ridge riding that was mostly downhill we connected up with the Aqua Dulce fireroad and climbed up to the top of Los Gatos Ravine for one of my favorite singletrack descent into Big Laguna Meadow.    It has wonderful flow and enough grade to keep you ripping along with little in the way of pedal action if you just want to cruise.


(This is Indian Creek Trail, but this was the fogginess of most of the ride)

Once we got out onto the meadow, we were smacked with the full force of the wind and for some period of time it was just hunker down and keep mashing the pedals to keep moving forward,  Since the wind was mostly blowing from the south, once we got on the south side of the meadow we gained a little shelter from the breeze.   At this point we were both pretty stoked not to have gotten rained on yet.  We were making pretty good time as moving meant generating warmth and rest meant loosing warmth.


Big Laguna Meadow during sunnier times

We soon made our way to the far end of the meadow and onto the connector to upper Noble Canyon trailhead.  While grabbing a quick snack at the top of Noble we encountered our first bit of snow.  It was just a few flakes here and there but it was indeed snow.  We were soon on our way down the Noble Canyon trail.   We were not on the trail more than five minutes when the wind got to howling pretty hard and I thought I was getting sand blown into my eyes.  The problem was that there was no sand nearby.  After a minute or so I figured out the stuff pelting me was not sand my but very small bits of sleet.   Besides the slight stinging that the sleet gave when hitting you at speed, it was not bad as it mostly bounced off so my clothes were not getting soaked.    The sleet only lasted for a few sessions of a minute or two at a time.  Once we dropped a little elevation we got down below the clouds that were producing all the wind and things became pretty calm in comparision. 


(Above Big Laguna Trail in April of 2007)

Noble Canyon was freaking great as always and the overnight moisture made for a ripping good time.   I was throughly enjoying showing off some of my home turf.  I ran into one of my local riding friends who was riding up Noble while we descended.   He had forgotten his trail grub and was planning on cutting the ride short.  We hooked him up with enough snacks to keep him going.  We both thought that after all of the generosity our three buds at the bottom had show us it was the least we could do.   It was shortly before the “Stairway to Hell” that the help of the buds at the bottom became pretty important as Bill got a flat.  Luckily we had that pump and tube to get us going again.  While changing the tube it started to rain.  While it was cold and biting we were both pretty stoked at this point as we had fully expected to be rained on hours ago.   


Stairway to Hell at the 2005 SSSSS (Spring SoCal Single Speed Summit)

Once we got rolling again it was time for the “Stairway to Hell”.  It is a technical challenge of jumbled rocks without a line per se, more like a general direction to go, and it was wet.   On the first attempt, the tires were somewhat doing thier own thing on the wet rocks and it gave me the hebegeebees enough that I lost my momentum.  The second time was a charm as I trusted the bike and tires to make thier own “adjustments” properly if I kept the speed up.   By the time we got to the longest and last climb of Noble Canyon a somewhat steady but very light rain had settled in.  The good news was that we were climbing so it was easy to keep warm by burning calories.   As luck would have it the rain let up when we reached the top of the climb.   The last technical bit down to the lower trailhead (known as extra credit) has always been one of my favorites and it did not disappoint.  

Down at the bottom, we were ready to make quick work of getting the bikes in the back of the truck and get the heater going on the way to retrieve the other truck.   This was when Bill discovers that he left his truck keys in my truck AT THE TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN!  Holy Crap!   What to do, what to do?  This is were the coolness of Mountain Bikers came into play once again.  A couple of guys hooked me up with a ride to the top the mountain.  They were a ready life saver and I can’t thank them enough.  As we neared the top of the of the mountain there was snow coming down pretty hard and it was obivous it had been coming down for a while.   There was about 3/4ths of an inch of snow on my truck at the top and the temperture was 31 degrees.   Enough of the snow managed to survive the drive back down the mountain that I was able to craft a sizable snowball that turned out to be just perfect for pelting Bill. 🙂

Over mexician food in Alpine with some fellow MTBers coming in from another ride, we recounted the day’s adventure.    The trail was only a portion of what made the story an epic.  The trail conditions certainly played a major portion of the story, but I say it was the awesomeness of my fellow MTB junkies that made the day great.   Without the help of five strangers, this would have been a pretty miserable day.  I hope many days of good Karma  come to these five guys.  Instead this day being a disaster, is destined to be recounted numerous times over fine whiskey or tasty microbrews.

Isn’t that what started this whole mess in the first place? 🙂

Election Day Doubleshot

So while 80% percent of the country was out doing the election day thing, I (thanks to the CA mail-in ballot program) had time to get in an afternoon ride (or two).

The day started off with a couple hours of light rain which we really needed here in SoCal. Most places around San Diego are not real rain-friendly as our soils typically do not handle traffic well when wet. Elfin Forest usually handles rain well so I opted to give it a try. I always enjoy the beat down “The Way Up” trail puts on me. Ouch, Ouch, Ouch, You Fat Freaking Slug, were common sounds rolling out of my melon on this climb. What was really cool, was that the parking lot was empty when I started and I was the only tracks (be it foot, tire, or hoof) on the trail for the day.

The rain had knocked down all the dust and the trail had perfect traction. After finally getting to top of The Way Up trail, I hit the Equine Incline Loop. Oh My what fun all this traction was in the turns. As anybody who has done this loop before will tell you, no matter which way you do the loop it is fun, but you have to climb back out. There was more grunting an growning on my part. I hit the rest of the singletracks out there like Tike’s Hike, Quail and the Hodges Overlook. On my way out to the Hodges Overlook I had an interesting view of the reservoir and the Pacific Ocean in the distance where the two seemed to be nearly joined.

Elfin - Pacific View

The view from the Hodges Overlook was particularly nice today as thier were lots of puffy clouds around to make for an interesting sky.

Hodges Overlook

On my way back from the Overlook I passed another rider. Shortly thereafter I was heading down The Way Up trail. Now there was only two sets of tracks on the trail mine and the other riders. The moisture on the trail make the tracksl easy to see and it was interesting to see the different riding styles. The other guy was on a very light looking hardtail with skinny tires while I was on my all-mountain rig with fat 2.6s. I could see where he was picking the most elegant cleanest part of the climb, I on the other hand was taking a more “Bull in a China Shop” type approach. Over course I saw a few of my own foot prints while nothing from the other guy. 🙂 So now I am thinking this guy is going to be looking at my tracks on the way down. I certainly did not do anything impressive on the climb so I thought I better make up for it on the way down. I made a point to take the hardest line doable on the descent and boy was it fun. There was at least a couple of spots where I thought, okay Mr Fancy Pants climber follow THAT one.

So before you know it I was back in the parking lot and headed home, there was a descent amount of daylight left so on a whim, I swung by La Costa to squeak in a loop. I parked and within 2 minutes, I was rolling. Up Vista Del Mar and down Switchbacks was the plan. I typically like going down NASCAR, but I had not enjoyed the cruiser style descent that Switchbacks provides in quite sometime. I made it to the kiosk at the top just in time to watch the sun set on the Pacific.

Sunset at La Costa

The Switchbacks descent was really fun and the traction once again was good, but La Costa did not seem to benefit as much from the light rain as Elfin. It was a great way to finish off and afternoon of riding.

As far as the rest of the night went, I will refrain on commenting on either the (depending on your political afflilation):
– The historic event and the mandate for change that the Nation has given Washington, or
– The power of stupid people in large numbers.

Chicken Soup for the MTB Soul

During this past week, I took a “personal day” from work and headed out to the Laguna Mountains for a day on the bike.   I have ridden the Big Laguna Trail (aka “BLT”) lots of times but never really all the stuff at once.  The BLT has always been inconjuction with something else like a camping trip with the boys, the Single Speed Summit, or part of the “Tour De Noble”.   Either way I have done the various part but not all of it at once.  Today I was going to put all the pieces together.  

I left mighty early from home at my usual heading off to work time.   Right off the bat it felt great to make that first left when I usually go right.    The drive was great.   I felt like an enlighted lemmin heading towards a hills, while the rest of the world marched towards the 9-to-5 cliff in their shiny metal boxes. (Yes, I am a Police Fan).   I watched to the sun break over my destination in the distance.  I was enjoying a cup of coffee like I always do in the mornings.   This cup used the same grounds, water and machine as yesterday, but it just seemed to taste better when facing east and away from the city.

When I arrived at the trailhead at the Meadows Information Kiosk east of Big Laguna Meadow, it was a glorious morning with a slight crispness to the air with the smell sound of autumn as a slight breeze rustled through the trees that still head most of thier leaves.   Heading out on the trail it was obvious that I have been slacking on the bike as of late.   I really did not care at this point as I had the whole day  and I was out myself.  This was not to be a training ride, this was about “Just Riding”.  

All throughout the day, I took all the forks in the trails that I normally don’t take.   I went up trails I know are best done the other direction, but hey, I wanted to see what was at the top.    I focused on the all the upper trails to the east- northeast of the meadow to start with before venturing down to the meadow.   I would end making a couple trips down to the meadows just to catch the next spur trail that heads uphill and away from the meadow.

 

I would only see a couple of bikers and a hiker over the course of the day and it was just perfect.   I felt so alive and revived during this ride.   It is funny how therapuetic the sound leaves crackling under your tires and a cool breeze on you face can be.  This ride was an MTB version of a Day Spa and it was just what the doctor ordered.

Harwood Mills Park

The last couple of days I have been hitting up Harwood Mills Parks in Newport News.   This is another fun area with a little over six miles of single track that flows really well and makes the most use of the natural terrain.  

trail

This place is pretty much flat, with the picture above being pretty much the most elevation change you will see at one time.

 trail

 This is the toughest obstacle in the trail system.  On the other side of this ramp there are two chunks of this log used as steps.

 

So while the trail is not tough at all, it was of little concern to me as it was just fun to get out and go on this trail.  The trails really scream at you to see how fast you can go.  The three loops out here are all one-way trails with the novice trail being closest to the trailhead and the expert the furthest away from the trailhead.   I have to say that the grading criteria for the “advanced” and “expert” are not what I am accustomed to seeing.   I’m guessing that the rating system is based how much skill it takes to maintain a fast pace on the trail.   The expert trail has much tighter turns than the novice trail.   None of the trails has much in the way technical drops, really large roots or challenges beyond the log roll pictured above.   Going fast seems to be the primary challenge.   I’m pretty sure a novice can get through all of these trails if they take thier time.

creek

When not trying to rip through this place, it is a cool woods just to take a look see around.  These woods here are good deer habitat and I saw about 20-25 deer over the course of two rides here.   I even got to see about half a dozen fawns will thier spots still.   It was a real treat, just like this trail system for a post-workday quick escape into the woods.

More Ipswich Fun

I managed to catch some more late afternoon riding fun out at Indian River Park AKA “Ipswich” late last week.   I managed to find a few more trails that I had missed in the other excursions out here.  

Through the trees 

I also ran into some fellow Mountain Bikers (Dave, Kevin and Doug) and chased them around the trail network.  It is amazing how by this point I had ridden pretty much all the trails here, but by following someone else the same trails take on a different feel.   There are lots of permutations to the way you stitch the trails together.  Once again this place may be small but you get more fun out of it than the mileage states.

A frame in the trees
Scoping things out

Doug
Doug showing how it is done.

Kevin
Kevin giving it a roll as well.

It is pretty darn cool to have this trail so close to my hotel.   Even with just an hour or so of daylight left I can zip over here and get in a bit of dirt time.   Last time time here, I used pretty much all of the daylight and I was glad there were plenty of streetlights on my way back to the hotel.

Indian River Park – Chesapeake VA

I was not expecting much of Indian River Park AKA “Ipswich”.  That name comes form the home development that boards about half of the park.  It is a rather small plot of land and the topography is pretty much flat.  Okay I must say that I was surprised with what was out here.  The trail builders have made some exceptional good use of what they have.   Just about every small contour is used and the place has been spiced up with some bridges and stunts to keep thing interesting.    Once again I am digging the greenery of the east coast trees.   All together there is a somewhere in the neighborhood of 4-5 miles of singletrack here.   

Ipswich       

This trail system is just a 2 mile street ride from my hotel so I have been here two days this week after work and riding right from the hotel.  The first time out here was getting to know the place by sticking to the  main trails.    It did not take long to feel like I could be hamster-wheeling out here.  This was a wrong assessment, because there is a maze of secondary trails that can be combined for quite a bit of fun.   I found myself trying to see just how fast I could get around this place.   The more forks you take the more you find and before long I found pretty technical to downright insane type stuff.

log ramp
A nice over a log feature 

Stunt 

This monster is crazy.  The raised platform is about seven or so feet off the ground.   The teeter-tooter is also pretty short so you will have to wait for the drop.  Props to the folks who built this thing as it is rock-solid.  

Ditch crossing

I’ll be hitting this place up at least a couple time a week after work when I don’t have time to explore some of the other trails further away.  Including the mileage to and from the hotel I can get in about 11-14 miles out here but doing a couple of loops through various maze options.¦lt;/p>

San Clemente Singletracks

Well after a really long time in the works I finally published the San Clemente Singletracks Page.   It is not my best trail review, but I have found it so difficult to describe a route well that it has languished in the draft stage for nearly a year.  So I basically gave up on my normal style and just went with a general description of the area as well as a few of the major trails.  After that just go ride, get blissfully disoriented and have one heck of a time out there.   I have to give a special thanks to John Early who provided me with a few GPX routes (to share with you) that were continuous from start to finish.    Every time I have every been to this trail system, I’m always exploring and do stuff like doubling back, go the wrong way just cause and basically make a mess of my GPS track.   I will probably clean up the trail review here in the coming months but I got tired of holding on to this one.  So enjoy and maybe go for a ride!

Wallstreet �

Good Mountain, Good Beer, Good Meeting

Yesterday I planned on attending the San Diego Mountain Bike Associations advocacy meeting at it’s usual location at the Mission Trails Regional Park’s Visitors Center.  The meeting was not until 7pm.  Just enough time to get in an after work ride, get a bit to eat and get to the meeting.   I had not been up on Cowles Mountain in a long time so I was excited about hitting it.   I started from Mesa Road and caught the Mesa Trail.  The chaparral had been growing nicely since my last visit and in many spots you are in a vegetation tunnel.   This was really nice as it was quite toasty when I started so shade and a bit of a breeze kept the bake factor down a little.

Waterbars, Waterbars, Waterbars…There were just as many as I remembered.   I like them as it is the uphill ledge action is a good skillset to hone.  Since my last visit there has been a lot more go-arounds and widening created.   Plenty of evidence of both shoes and tires as the culprit.   Once up on the fireroad the state of my “slackerness” became apparent of the climb up to the top.   No cleaning this mountain today as twice I had a total cardio redlining followed by a meltdown. 

View from Cowles

While it was not as clear as I have seen it in the past it was still a great viewpoint.  The out-and-back to Pyles Peak was great.  I basically owned that entire section of trail as I was the only one on it.   The “in-town” solitude you can usually find on this trail combined with more waterbar action is one of the reasons I like it so much.  The returns trip back up to Cowles had plenty of technical climbing challenges.  The worst of them come when you are nearly back to the top which means most people (including myself) are nearly spent.  There is one set of waterbar switchbacks that I have still yet to clean.

Cowles from Pyles

 The ride back down the Big Rock trail was a cool as ever.  Condition-wise the trail could use some work, but at the same time I like it as morning challenging with the ruts and such.

Post-ride, I cleanup and head while heading to a nearby store to grab some Gatorade, I spied a treasure that I could not let slip away.   A bomber of the Stone’s 12 Aniversary Ale, A Bitter Chocolate Oatmeal Stout.   To say it was yummy would be a grand understatement.   Did I desire so a beer after just a rather small mid-week ride?  Well no I did not.   I owe the beer and bike gods an epic ride at a later date.  

Yummy Stone Brew

 The SDMBA meeting was a good one, lots of stuff discussed  There were some fresh new faces that are energetic and already taking action to further legal mountain biking access in the county.  There were plenty of words like jumps, downhill and freeride talked about.    Lots of things in the works and you can expect there will be plenty of oppurtunities for people to help.    The meeting went long and I was pretty darn pooped by the time I hit the sack.  Another good day to be a mountain biker.

iTards on the Trail

I’m generally okay if folks want to rock out on the trail with an iPod.  It is when they do both ears and have the tunes up high enough that they can not hear the world around them.    There is a whole list of mini-rants that I could go into about missing turns on group rides and not being able to interact with other trail users and coming across as jerks.    Blah Blah Blah….

 Here is a case from a ride a couple of days ago that involved a hiking “iTard”.   I’m riding along and spot a rattlesnake on the side of the trail.  I stop and check him out.   He is a good sized snake but has not reacted to me yet.   I like to get this critters away from the trail as some boneheads will kill them if they encounter them.  After getting a couple of shots I’m about to get the snake’s attention so it will go away when I hear a couple of hikers coming.    The snake and I are near a curve, with the snake being between me and the approaching hiker.    From the sound, I could tell they were trail runners.   I yell for them to hold up.   Nothing.    The first runner in all of his iTardness rounds the corner in all of his white-corded bud wearing glory.   I yeah “snake” really loud now and his girlfriend (just rounding the corner) stops and joins in the yelling fest.   The dude is on a collision course with this snake.  I wave my arms frantically and yell one more time and iDumbAss finally stops and looks at me with a bewildered look like “What”?   I simply pointed at the snake that was about two strides away from being in striking distance.    iTard freaks out at bit in full reverse.   After that I snake gets a little concerned and makes some noise and goes away.   

 Rattler

Shortly after the hikers pass me, I hear iTard’s girlfriend running him through the ringer about not being able to hear what is going on.  I snickered as I got rolling again to complete some North County trail goodness. 

Trail Goodies