Trail Wanderlust
Trails in General
I got my first ride in today on the new 6.6 rig and while I’m still working a extensive review, the bike really felt great.
Here are a few shots from the day on a trail system attached to Los Penasquitos Canyon.
This is a big as air as I ever expect to get and the shock and fork were pretty close to dialed for it.
Greg getting a little air in the trees.
Brian in the air.
Stay tuned for a full review.�
I am in the process of putting together my video of the Poison Spider Mesa and The Portal Trail. For those of you who read my review you should have noticed the unusual amount of attention I paid to how dangerous this trail is in the exposed sections. Standing on the edge there knowing that three mountain bikers have fallen to their deaths is quite an experience. I thought we were quite cautious in what we rode and what we walked on that infamous and precarious trail. While reviewing the footage I had a couple of OMFG moments when I saw a couple of spots that we did ride. While these couple of sections were flat and tame with some ground buffer between us and the edge I’m pretty sure I would not ride them again. Too much of the hebegebes put in my head now. For me there has only been a few trails that have gotten into my head like the Portal Trail. If you have ever had one of those dreams where you are falling forever, this could be that place. I’m not sure how this thought process with effect the final video, I’ll just have to see where it takes me.
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Springtime riding around Idyllwild is some of my favorite stuff around SoCal. Unfortunately due to some ill-timed (like there is ever good-timed) injuries and a horrible bout of poison oak, I missed the spring riding in the area. Even though I knew it was going to be hot I met one of my regular riding buds who was in the area for a wedding this weekend. Considering that he was going to be up late with the reception and all, we opted for a 9AM start time from the Herkey Creek Campground area. We knew it would be even toastier with that start time. Hot it was but a fairly consistent breeze kept it just hot vice blistering. We brought plenty of extra water and electrolytes and kept to a “heat management” pace on all the significant uphills.
The trails can get pretty loose here during the summer. I was quite impressed with how well the trails are holding up and I am pretty sure it is due to the care that most of the locals take when riding this system. You can not rail this stuff like you can during the spring and moist times and it is impertive that you hold the lines and skillfully use the brakes. The trails simply can not hold up to skidiots and turnblowers. There was plenty of evidence to show that some of the people who do blow a turn took the time to stop, go back and make an effort to repair their damage, or at least brush out their off-trail tracks. I hate to say it, but you just don’t see that generalized level of trail ownership by the routine-users in the more urbanized areas like Orange County and San Diego. We should all take a lesson from the Idyllwild folks.
In addition to enjoying the flowy twisty singletrack goodness that this place is known for, we played around and a few rocks.
Here is one of the twister rocks bits that is nearly a maze. Hats off to the builders of this.
This was a great finish to a good week of riding, which included some of my local stuff, and the Santa Margarita River Trail (aka SMaRT). I was slacking with my camera for those rides, but here is a ride report on the SMaRT ride on SocalTrailRiders.org.
-Bill
I should have known better. One of those days when I was too stubborn to follow my own advice, and I paid for it with some suffering on the bike. I decided to ride Iron Mountaintoday. It was nice and cool with a thick marine layer at my home and Vista so I thought what it will probably be okay out in the Ramona/Poway area where the trails is at. I got out to the Ellie Lane trailhead around 9AM and it was already warm. I took Ellie Lane over to the Wild Horse trail and then cutover to the Iron Mountain trail. I was not even up to the T-intersection with the other end of the Ellie Lane trail and Iron Mountain and the heat was already getting up there. I had forgotten how the rocky terrain here just radiates the heat back at you. At the saddle here, I contemplated that 100 ounces of water may not be enough to do both the Ellie Lane and Iron Mountain trails today. I thought about just hanging a left here and doing just the Ellie Lane loop. (This was the smart side of brain thinking). Instead I decided that I’ll push the decision to later and make my way up Iron Mountain.
From this spot it is only 1.45 miles to the peak. But it is a beater even on a cool day and today was not a cool day. Until you get fairly close to the peak you spend most of your time on the east side of the mountain. The key thing here is that the onshore breeze is blocked resulted in the bake factor being even higher. This climb is a pick your battle kind of ride, and I hiked a handful of sections. The heat was sweltering and sapping my energy.
The views at the top were nice as usual and the onshore breeze was taking the edge off of the heat. I had also slogged up my pads and full-face helmet up the mountain on my pack in preparition the return trip. (I had worn my normal helmet on the climb) This was my first ride with the new full-face helmet so I was interested to see how it would feel. A couple of quick thought: Good field of view, when you are moving there is plenty of airflow and it is a little harder to hear the outside world while you can hear your on breathing very well.
The descent off of the peak went really well as I cleaned plenty of stuff I had not before. It was not the chunk that was giving me the troubles, it was switchbacks. Often times clearing the chunk leaving with little to nothing to work with for getting through the switchbacks. I sessioned some sections, finally getting some while having to let a couple wait for another day.
Back down at the T-intersection I once again had to think about my options. The smart choice would have been to skip the Ellie Lane trail as it was freaking hot right now. I decided to be a big dummy and take the Ellie Lane trail. I felt good about my decision early on as I got a bit of descending before the trail turned back uphill. At this point I was once again blocked from the onshore breeze and the temps jumped up. I was also reminded who bike unfriendly and poorly laid out the numerous waterbars on this trail are. At nearly ever switchback there is a treated log waterbar that is placed right through the apex of the switchback. This is no big deal if you are a hiker or an equestrian but these things have the biker approaching them in a nearly parallel direction forcing near-trials like moves to get past them. Skills I don’t so there as plenty of hiking up to the Ramona Overlook and the saddle.
Yes this is the trail
I was pretty much roasted back the time I got the saddle above the Ramona Overlook. After slapping back on the protective gear, I had a good run down off the saddle. Once again really tricky stuff, but I did not session much stuff as I was feeling the need keep moving towards the trailhead. After this descent there was some more suffering to be had to get up to the tablerock area. I moved into fully blow survival mode as my water was terribly low the terrain was basically a large rock bowl. I felt like I was in a brick oven. I hiked most of the climb up to the tablerock to avoid overheating which I could tell I was close to doing. I started to be a bit more generous with my water rationing at this point as I was close to peaking out on the last significant climb. I had the early stage of a headache brewing, not good. At the saddle there was a little relief from the breeze, but it was not much help at this point. The full-face helmet would stay in the pack for this section as I felt heat stress was a bigger risk than a header into a rock.
I got down off the saddle fine, but I could tell my technical skills were not crisp due to my fatigue. The rest of the ride out was okay and I drained the last bit of my water about a 1/4 mile from the trailhead. I was beaten down, and hella-fatigued for the rest of the day. The mileage count was only 11 miles, but I felt like I had done 40. I think the riding season at the Iron Mountain/Ellie Lane combo is rapidly coming to a close as summer rolls in.
Today was National Trails Day and the City of Carlsbad put together some events that included a hike and a bike ride. The San Diego Mountain Bike Association asked for mountain bikers to support and what a great showing of support the Mountain Biking community did today. My rough estimates, Mountain Bikers were over 2/3rds of the participants present. With some city officials present, it was apparent that we got their attention.
SDMBA’s Coastal North County Liason, Erik Trogden give a quick brief.
There was a quick round of briefings and waiver signings that have to occur for these types of events and then we were off for a quick ride.
Most of the Intermediate Group
There were two ride groups, an intermediate and a beginner ride. I was going to led a third kid-friendly ride. As it turned out all of the kidless adults went for the intermediate ride, so the beginner ride became the grommet ride.
This gadget is cool. This connect the seatpost of th big bike to the head tube of the little bike. It lifts the little bikes front wheel off the ground so Dad can steer a little easier. Both ends have quick disconnects so that either bike could be used as normal within a minute or two.
The kids were riding well ,so the loop ended up being just a bit bigger than planned.
The Junior League
It was really great that so many people took the time out to represent Mountain Bikers to the City of Carlsbad. I know that Saturdays for many is often the only chance during the week they have to get in a big ride. So THANK YOU to all who gave up the “big ride” to help further our interests here in North County.
So yesterday I was all primed to head to Alpine to hit up one of my favorite technical/stunt trails. I had a brand spanking new full face helmet and was ready to go. I had not ridden with my buddy Steve in months so it was going to be cool to catch up on things with him while out on the trail. I show up to the trailhead early and get all my stuff together. Steve shows up a little early as well and as I’m making final preps I realized that I left my pads at home! Freaking Bummer! Now it did not make much sense to be to wear a full-face helmet and no pads so I threw on the my regular helmet for the ride and went “naked” protection-wise. I always throw on pads at the top of Anderson because, well, this place has a tendency to have you leaking at the end of the ride if you don’t. But for this day, I decided to skip a few of the trechreous spots and generally take it easier.
What a great ride I ended up having today. It was one of those days when things just all seem to click and you have to tell people about. Not because you want to brag, but because days like this don’t always happen. They are kind of special and today was one of those days. My gear snaffu aside, I rode well and it was just a great day to be out on a bike. The stuff I did hit, just seemed to flow and feel much more effortless than in the past. I was jazzed. Steve and I always play around on stuff up there and today was no different. I was also having a great day with the camera. Angles just seem to be coming into view better and I was getting my envisioned shots on the first take. It was cool to be in a camera zone as well.
A different angle on the “Stair Step”
This is called the Halloween Drop. I’m not sure why, maybe it is because it will be a trick or treat. Not much room in between.
This little rock drop had been messing with my head since forever out here. I had launched bigger stuff than this but I would always roll it, even with pads on. I think it was the rock onto a rock that was tweaking my melon. After riding a few days in Moab, where this stuff is everywhere, I hit this without hesitation. I had to stop afterwards, look around and go “What the hell was I fretting about?”
Further down the trail, the camera zone continued as I got a different angle on the 911 roll. I was jazzed with getting some scenery in the background on this shot.
On our way back down I had an “interesting moment” on the wall ride. I came into the wall mighty hot and went up a lot higher than I had planned. I also had enough speed that I basically blew through the wall forcing me to come down off the wall in a much steeper section while turning the wheel sharper than normal. About halfway down the wall I was still leaned over and my fork was way out to my left. Because of the steepness of the wall past the “normal” area the fork came off the wall and somehow I managed to pull the frontend back underneath me and straighten it out just before the wheel touched down at the bottom. It all happened really fast, but there was still that bit of the mental slow motion thing happening. I stopped afterwards and had to let out a big yell. I had the post-adrenaline rush shakes and my stoke meter was officially pegged!
The rest of the run was a cruiser and we finished off the day off with some yummy burritos. Another great day to be a mountain biker.
-Bill
I’m starting to get the Utah – Colorado Road trip report put together. I’m going to roll it out as I get each of the days done vice waiting until I get all eight days completed. Here is the main page that wil link to each day of the trip. I hope to get a new day of the trip up every other day or so.
-Bill
Well I’m back from wandering through Utah and Colorado. What an incredible trip. We rode each day of the trip including our travel days. Shoot, we rode twice a couple of days for a total of 10 rides in 8 days. I met some cool people, touched bases with old friends, rode great trails and managed to get that monkey off my back the Goat Camp Crash. It was truly the kind of stuff that you remember for the rest of your life. I’m swamped with pictures and random streams on thought that will take some time to get all together.
Here a few more teaser pictures for now:
Kevin on the Gunny Loop in Grand Junction (Rode from his front door)
Cruising on the Zion Curtain
Someplaces are really “Moore Fun”
Church Rocks
World Class trails with World Class Brews!
Life is good! My buddy Bill and I have been running amuck through Utah. Yesterday we finished up our sixth ride in five days. We spent a day near St. George doing some mesa riding before heading over to Moab. We hit up a few of the marquee trails as well as some of the not-so marquee trails. Big Country – Awesome rides. Last night we pulled up chocks and rolled into Grand Junction, Colorado to hang with some friends for a couple of days and hit up a few trails here.
Here a few sample pictures from the trip so far.
Little Creek Mesa
Porcupine Rim
Poison Spider Mesa
Bartlett Wash
Slickrock a plenty.
The wanderlust continues, gotta go for a ride…
Over the last couple of weeks I have incorporated some night riding back into my schedule. Will has hockey practice at the Escondido Sports Complex on Wednesday nights from 7-9PM. The facility is only about half a mile from the north side of Lake Hodges so I have been hitting up Hodges while he is practicing. The first go around was a run up to the top of Bernardo Peak and back and the second time was a speed run to Hernandez Hideaway and back. After the first ride, one thing is for certain, my night time skills needed some brushing off. It did not help that I had not been on Bernardo Peak since the October 2007 fires. Sunset was approaching while I was climbing so I got a good look at the damage. The vegetation tunnel towards the bottom of the climb has been completely rerouted. This was a good call by the rangers. That section was just one big rut with the cool feature being the tunnel. Since the vegetation tunnel is gone, it was a good time to reroute the trail in a more sustainable manner. I enjoyed the watching it get dark from the top before coming back down. That is when I realized there were a bunch more loose rocks on the trail that I had remembered from the climb. The shadows from the lights can make things seem a bit more interesting and I’m sure my hiatus from night riding had something to do with it. The lack of vegetation on the hillside could have caused more rocks to erode into the trail as well. One other slight annoyance was that I my current handlebar mounts don’t work well the oversize bars so the best I could was to have the flood been slightly angled to the left. Either way, I had a downright gingerly descent off the peak. I’m leaning more toward the “I’ve become a night riding weenie” explanation that those other technical things.
The second ride the following week went better but I did keep it near the lake. I had not been on a speed run ride in a while so it was fun just to try and hammer around the lake and back. With both rides I was back about 30 minutes before Will was done, so I will have to add some more trail the routine. My goal is to get back with only about 10 minutes before Will is done. Gotta get in the miles when I can.