The 14th edition of the Archipelago Ride is in the books. My has this ride grown since the first one I was a part of when it was very much an exploration ride. With a capped field of 750 riders this year this is a major fund raiser for the San Diego Mountain Biking Association that helps keeps projects going year round. There was a gaggle of volunteers and supports who made this awesome event happen. If you get a chance you should give it a go at least one.
East Mesa – Champagne Pass
I had a mighty fine time futzing around in the Cuyamaca Mountains that included a ramble up to Champagne Pass. I started out heading south on the Eastside singletrack and then up East Mesa Fireroad.
East Mesa was quite pretty, but I could tell it was a little past the prime of spring color.
On my way eastward on the Deer Park trail I came up a couple of the folks doing the Stagecoach 400 bikepacking event/race. So impressive the kind of mileage this folks are knocking one of the fellows (Mateo Paez) ended up finishing 3rd.
The climb up to Champagne Pass on the Indian Creek trail was a bit of work. From there I took the Pine Mountain trail over to Sunrise Highway at the Pioneer Mail trailhead. From there I made my way over to the Lucky 5 trail. From there I was on one of my favorite routes that included the Upper La Cima, CRHT, Cold Spring, Cold Stream and the Westside trails to close out the loop.
The day turned out to be around 32 miles long with around 4,600′ of climbing.
Palm Canyon Epic
I recently got back out on the Palm Canyon Epic after a couple year hiatus. I have took the RV out to Palm Desert and setup basecamp for the weekend. My wife took us up to the top and it was quite nice to not a “commute” to do after the ride. It was a great day out of the bike.
Black Mountain and Lusardi
I am doing the Archipelago Ride in a few weeks and I need to continue toughening up the “leather” in strategic locations. I did a Black Mountain loop that I do on a regular basic and then added on the Santa Luz/Lusardi Loop.
For my Black Mountain Loop I started from Black Mountain Park and work my way up to the peak via the main fireroad. I then dropped Black Widow and then took the fireroad back up and cut over to the east ridge trails that included Manzanita, Little Black Loop and Nighthawk trails.
Lusardi 
Lusardi 
Lusardi 
The trail ahead
I then connector over to Miner’s Ridge Loop, then Lilac and Ahwee back to Black Mountain Park. I was feeling pretty good when I rolled out for the Lusardi Loop but main was I dragging on the final climb to finish that loop off. I did 23 miles and 3,600 feet for day. Beer:30
Elfin Forest Videos
I have put together a couple of videos of Elfin Forest. One is of going down the “The Way Up” trail and the other is the rest of the trails.
After futzing with the footage a while I decided that “The Way Up” trail would be best shown as a single top to bottom video. I still don’t think it showcases the chunk as well as it good but I did not take the time to do some non-POV shots.
The other video showcases the rest of the trails as well as the trail off the back side down to the Los Cielos Preserve. It is know as “Collarbone” and “The Way Down” trail.
Iron Mountain Video
Some fresh video content from Iron Mountain. I also got the related page on my site cut over to the mobile friendly format. That new format project is taking on a life of its own. I have not be doing too much blog posting as of late other than the video updates. I will probably catch that up at some point but hey, ride bikes or slap code on key board?
But for now, enjoy the video. It was a good ride even if I did roll out of there with slight case of PTSD from from the chunk!
Turning 20!
How time flys! MountainBikeBill.com turns 20 today. When this thing started it were no smartphones, high speed data, GoPros and YouTube. Even a hand-held mapping GPS was a tough thing to come by in those days.
Thank you all for the motivation to share my love for the outdoors and mountain biking over the last 20 years!
The site came about as more of a progression of information vice a thought out plan. While I do consider my time in the 80’s riding my 10 speed on old logging roads and game trails of North Carolina mountain biking (Or should dare to say Gravel Biking), I got into I got into modern MTBing in the late 90s here in San Diego.
I love the exploring aspect of the sport and it was much more exploratory in nature back then. Bringing along a guidebook on a ride was very much a thing. Before long I was checking out places “not in the books” and friends would want me to lead rides or explain to them how they could get there. This lead to hand written directions and maps that got photo copied and passed around. Then came scans and me putting hosting on my cox.net personal account. Somewhere along the line I picked up the nickname Mountain Bike Bill. On Feburary 6th, 2002, MountainBikeBill.com became a thing.
If you want a historical chuckle you can check out these historical nuggest of the site that I’m probably going to leave as is and make a whole next page.
- GPS and TOPOS! https://mountainbikebill.com/GPSandTOPOs.htm
- Best Viewing Methods HAHAHA https://mountainbikebill.com/BestViewing.htm
- The FAQ section is horribly outdated https://mountainbikebill.com/FAQ.htm
The site has gone through four major revisions over the years, and while I should have moved to some type of content management system long ago, I will probably keep the old school html thing going. I latest bit of work involves migrating all the pages to a mobile friendly format and tweaking the GPS files to work better with more simplistic mobile applications. Moving videos to my YouTube channel is also another thing to do when I am not doing life stuff like you know, riding a bike and loving on wife and dogs. Then there is that whole pesky work thing.
So thank you all for the motivation to share over the years. While social media in its various forms calls into question the relevance of websites and blogs these days, I plan on keeping this thing going for the foreseeable future. So if you like bad grammar, misspelled words sprinkled with some MTB blabbage stick around.
Thomas Mountain Video
I had been sitting on this footage for quite some time and finally put it together. It was a good climb followed by a good downhill. I did find the Ramona trail has been tamed down since the last time I had ridden since 2006. This kind of stuff happens and I feel that the trail has lots a little of its sumpin sumpin. It is still a good ride but it is not the same.
Sweetwater Bike Park
The Sweetwater Bike Park has been around for a few years now but I had yet to make my way down there to check it out. I was interested hitting up some the trails in area so this was a good fit.
I have say this Park is quite a bit of fun. There are a couple of jump lines, a couple of flow lines, a couple of walls and some other assorted MTB skills development bits. It is quite a nice asset for the community.
After getting my fill of the place and chatting up some of the locals I headed out to the Sweetwater trails.
I primarily worked my way up to the top of Rockhouse from the backside. (The front side trail was eat up with hikers). After the
From the summit I dropped down into main trails area and a few loops before making my way back to the park where I had started.
I had forgotten that this area (outside of the trails up to rockhouse) have a lot more climbing to them than the layout would lead you to believe. I did about 14 miles with 2,200ft of climbing. It was a mighty fun day on the bike.
Daley Ranch Video
Daley Ranch sometimes get flak for having a lot fire roads and a lot of climbing. While it does it also has some pretty sweet bits of singletrack if you are willing to put the effort to link them together. Here are some of my favorite legal trails on the Ranch.