Mountain Bike Bill, The Dirt on the Dirt

Category: Trails

Trails in General

The Return of Alpine Action

So after a summer hiatus from the Wednesday stoke rides in Alpine, it time to play in the rocks again.    It still is amazing how after spending sometime away from this place,  the rocks and moves look much bigger and intimidating than the I last time I rode them.    It was good and hot but I have certainly ridden in must nastier heat so overall it was not bad.

On the climb up we took a break and help Steve figure out some of the features on his new camera, a pretty trick little Canon S95 (I think).

 Steve, was out on his latest Clown Bike.    Steve thought it would be cool to climb a good portion of the trail we normally only come down on.  While it was interesting it was large Cup of Pain.

 This Jones rig has a massive 3.8 tire up front mounted to a  mega-wide 26″ rim.   Paired in the rear is a 29er wheel with what looks like a “punnie” 2.6 tire.   The normal tired 29er with the clown tire 26er makes for pretty much equal ground to axle heights front and rear.

We swapped bikes a couple time during the ride and you can’t help but laugh out loud within 10 seconds pedaling this thing.   Surprisingly this is a good riding bike, and  you feel like you are steering a monster truck around when you look down at the massive front end.    Steve was airing the thing which he made look easy and giving me a good chance to find some new perspective to some of the features with my still pretty new ultra wide angle lens.

Jeff Jones has recommended to land nose first with this bike and Steve proved that to be sound.    I never got a landing shot but that tire has something like 10psi in the front and you can see and hear the tire squishing on the landing. 

More Steve Air Time.   After the ride it was time for some Mananas grub and a Cervaza

 

Rare shot of of Aqua sans helmet.  On the way back from Alpine an old high school buddy that I had not seen in over 20 years was in town for the night so we hooked up for a couple brews and some long overdue catching up.  It was good day both on and off the bike.

A Little Land of the Rising Sun Action

After spending a few days in Seattle finishing up some work, I headed out to Japan to spend a week scoping out a project for next year.   As always I was hoping to squeak in a ride if time permitted.   I rented a mountain bike for the duration of my visit to serve as my primary means of daily transportation and potentially some recreation as well.   The weather was  forecast to be pretty much icky for the week with Wednesday being partly sunny.    Wednesday came around and partly sunny was indeed the case with a full serving  of windy and brisk to boot.   I was able to open my afternoon enough to get in some “Off-Site Strategic Planning”  accomplished on the bike.   While I still have some places to explore in this area on my list from previous visits, I would not have time for that with the shorter days October.   I had a handful of miles to ride on the streets to get to Zushi City where I would pick up the first part of the afternoon’s dirt adventure.   I had nearly forgotten just how culturally interesting in can be riding on the streets over here.   Narrow sidewalks, mom and pop businesses, scooters whizzing by, Japanese School Girl Uniforms, lots of people out walking and peddling, etc…  It is just an intersting scene.  

On one section of road with a bit of a climb in it I came across a new sign that was not there in June of last year.  I can’t read this sign but I know what it means.  And I like it.  The Japanese have a knack for iconing things so that just about anybody can figure things out.  Rider Up!

Once I made it over the Sengen Trails which is commonly referred to by us Engrish folk as Duck Pond since the trail starts at a small pond that typically has ducks in it. What a bunch creative Gaijins we are .  The trail starts with a heiniouly steep hike-a-bike up to a ridge that typcially requires you to shoulder the bike.   With the rain the day before I knew this was going to be a fun section with plenty of slick clay.   It was about this time I thought about the fact I had never taken the trail around this little pond.  So I decided to delay my hike-a-bike fun and go around the pond.  I was fairly stoked to find that at the end the pond was a little boardwalk that was quite fun on the bike.  It was just tight enough to be interesting and combined with the really brisk air and the thought of falling into the shallow mucky end of this pond made this section downright fun.  I had to do it a couple of times in both directions.   This was a pretty cool 5 minute detour and added some newness the ride right out of the gate.   The Hike-A-Bike up to the ridge was every bit of clay treachery I expected, but I was soon rolling along the ridgetops. 

After climbing along the trails I made it up to the top of Sengen Hill (or Peak – can’t remember ) there was some nice views of the mountains in the Hakone National Park in the distance, but it tooks some effort to see as mother nature is reclaiming the clearing in a hurry.  As is often the case, Mt Fuji was hiding behind distant clouds.  From here it was time to head down and I took one of my favorite routes down through the Tennin trail system before popping out on another street.  

After a short bit of road interconnecting I got onto a series of trails that headed westward towards Kamakura.   There are some really good trails that are quite popular with hikers.  Many of the trails are hundreds of years old with some of the more direct routes between the temples being over a thousand years old.   

There are several sections along the route where the trail cuts through the top of the ridge via a slot or notch.  Sometimes the notches are 20-30 feet deep.  I orginally thought that this was a result of the trail being “cut” by some machinery or tools sometime in the past.   The slots in the ridge were actually created from the countless footsteps of people who have walked these trails for hundreds of years.   Feet, time and errosion have cut through the ridge tops.  After riding and climbing along these ridges the exit was like most of the trails in the mountains around here, Hike-A-Bike up and White Knucklers on the way down.   The wet conditions earlier in the week made the descent quite challenging to ride and not much easier to walk.    There was a least a couple of clay samples taken.

Once I dropped off the ridgelines down into Kamakura I worked my way along the streets back to Yokosuka and my hotel.  Later on that evening I met some old friends for dinner to catch up on thngs and to fawn over their new baby girl.   It was good times on pretty much all facets of the day.

Good Opening Day in Seattle

Today was the start of nine day trip that will include a few days in the Seattle area.   While the weather sucked in San Diego it was downright awesome in Seattle.  My orginal plan was to rent a bike today and potentially get in a ride tomorrow.   With sunny skies and low 60s for temps, I made some tweaks to my plans and made a dash straight to the place I rented a bike from last time I was here.   I was stoked to see that had a new fleet of rentals and I would get to be the first person to break in a nicely built 29er hardtail.    I had a few hours of daylight left so there would be no exploring today.    I was soon at the Green Mountain trailhead.  I have ridden here a few time so I would pretty cool to just enjoy a ride without any route figuring.

 

After scrambbling around through my luggage to get the bike stuff altogether I was headed off up the trail.

 

While there some loops and options you can do at Green Mountain I opted to basic out-and-back on the Wildcat Trail up to the top of Green Mountain.

Wildcat is a multi-use trail that also includes motorcycles.   While this tends to make the trail a little wider, it also means there are lots of bermed turns that are simply a blast on the return leg coming back down the mountain.   And a blast I did have.    It was a great day to nearly finish up the day.   After the ride,  I took my dirty funky self to the hotel where I got some odd looks from some other the folks in the lobby checking in.   I’m pretty sure I had a better day than they did.

Lake Calvera with Jake

With all of the competing interests pulling at my boys’ time such as friends, hockey practice, hockey games, etc…It was really cool that Jake wanted to join me on a ride at Lake Calvera this morning.

I took him on a different group of trails than what I have typically done in the past.  Some of it was due to some of the trails being closed by the City of Carlsbad as they have started actively managing thier slice of the Calvera “Area”.  Another reason for the trail change up is tha Jake has gotten strong and better on the bike so I thought it was time to take him on some of the more technical bits.

Jake did quite well on the technical bits.   I was surprised that the squeeze type rock moves gave him more troubles than having to go up and over rocks.

Which he seemed to find easy to just pop up onto and roll off of.  Makes me wish I had started riding a mountain bike when I was a little grommet. 

This trail feature should have a sign “You can be no taller than this to got on this ride”.  It would have been a face smasher if I would have tried it.  All together we did about 12 miles or so.

On our pedal back to the house we started thinking about tasty brown cold beverages for post ride refreshments.

Ahh, Coke Slurpees!

Oahu’s Manana Trail

I’m back from my quick work trip to Hawaii, but before I finished up there, I was able to squeeze in a second ride.  The Manana trail was less than 15 minutes from where I was working so it fit the bill for a post-work ride.  It was pretty short trail mileage-wise but mileage can be deceptive sometimes, particularly if the terrain is interesting. 

Such was the case with this trail.  There were plenty of roots to contend with on the first half of this ride.   I was glad today was a dry day as these things can turn your bike into an ejection seat rather easily when wet.   With the roots dry they were manageable and allowed for some serious brushing up on the technical “monkey motion” skills.  There were two unscheduled nose-wheelies that I still have no idea how I managed to keep from going over the bars.

Somewhere around the 1.5 mile mark the trail comes out of the thick foliage and starts following a somewhat open ridgeline.   In the picture above you should be able to make out the cut of the trail.  The trail was actually easier for a while along this ridge as the roots were much more sparce.  The views of the Ko’olau Mountains to the east continued to be intriguing as I climbed but the peaks were mostly shroud by the tradewinds clouds spilling over from the windward side of the island.

The views of the Waianae mountain range on the west side of island opened up behind me as I climbed.   I imagine that a morning time ride would be the best time to take in this view.

The trail follows up the ridge for a while and then started a bit more roller coasteering with things getting steeper.  It was easy to tell that I was moving beyond where most hikers where opting to turn around and head back as the trail transitioned from a dirt tread to a short grassy tread.  There were also plenty of strawberry guava plants along the trail which gave me great excuses to stop and sample the goods.  Snacking on tasty native edibles seemed downright decadent.

As the ridgeline undulations became larger and steeper, the hike-a-bike sections became more frequent and longer.   The trail started giving me glimpses of what a tropical version of the Los Pinos Trail in Orange County would look like.  Hike-a-Biking rarely bothers me as some of the best riding I have ever done has involved some quality time with your feet on the ground.  The Manana trail goes up to the Ko’olau summit over the course of six miles so this could be up to a 12-mile ride.  I did maybe six to eight miles total opting to turn around at a point where I thought the daylight buffer and expected return time equation seemed to balance out.   The actual return time was much quicker than expected and I wish I would have pressed onward a little further.   Maybe next time.

Aloha from the Hau’ula and Ma’akua Trails

So I am in Hawaii this week for a bit of work but I have managed to carve out a little time to grab a rental bike and get it dirty.  The destination for this excursion was the north-east shore of Oahu to ride the Ma’akua Ridge Loop and the Hau’ula Loop Trails. 

I have always wanted to be able to give these trail directions, “Just past the trail sign, turn left at the engine block”.

Got Chunk?   There is a creek crossing in Papali Gulch that will put most people on their feet.

The trade winds were bringing lots of puffy clouds across the windward side of the island so there were lots of transitions from bright sunny conditions to threatening patches of rain clouds.  The terrain was often tricky in spots with bits of roots and rocks.

After climbing up along a ridgeline for quite some time I came to this exception section of trail where the ridge had eroded down to a 3 foot wide knife-edge section about  50 yards long with vegetation covered cliffs to either side.   The flora hid most of the exposure but was certainly there.   The photo does little justice.

Before long the trail reached the highpoint of the loop and the trail turned back towards the ocean and a run down the Ma’akua Ridge proper.  It was quite a blast and I only stopped for a couple of pictures.

Once I reached the bottom of the loop and connected up with the Hau’ula Loop Trail which goes up a series of ridgelines to the north of the Ma’akua Ridge I was just on.

There was some significant difference in the flora along this trail as there were stands of pine trees on these ridges.  While I’m not sure of the exact species of the pine it was something along the line of a Douglas fir.   While I had been sprinkled on a little earlier in the ride, and really nice storm cloud blew through and gave the ground a good and steady pelting for about 10 minutes while blowing through.   I waited it out under thick foliage tree and stayed basically dry.

One thing that was pretty awesome along this trail was the wild tropical fruit growing along the trail.  Snacking on Guava and Lilikoi (Hawaiin Passionfruit) right along the trail truly gave the impression of being in a tropical paradise.

What was not paradise was the numerous roots that had now become wet which turned the normally challenging trail features into full on treachery.

The last half of this loop was mostly downhill and the descent through pines was pretty freaking cool and not what I expected in Hawaii.  The trail pops out about half a mile from the ocean and my waiting car at the Hau’ula Beach Park.   Before driving back to Waikiki I scrubbed off all the mud and muck from the ride with a nice swim in the Pacific.  Life is good on a bike.

Washington Riding

Man do I have a lot of catching up to do.    My six weeks in Washington went by really fast and I was really busy with work.   I did get in quite a bit of riding but much of my other work trips in the past, it is often tough to find time to work, ride and blog about.   I’m sure you can guess which one I set to the side.   I am going to get the story and pictures of   the cool rides I get in up on my site once my schedule drops back down to “normal” but here are a few pictures of these to come.

The furtherest trail away from my basecamp on the west side of Puget Sound was the Devil’s Gulch trail in the northern central area of the state.  It is often touted as one of the best XC trails in the state.  While I would have to ride all the singletracks in the state to be for sure, this is one really awesome trail.   I did about 14+ miles of mellow forest road climbing to get to the top of this trail and was rewarded with 12 miles of singletrack awesomeness.

Since I was in thea area I strung Devils Gulch and the Red Devil Trail together.   The Red Devil trail has a devil of some climbs to it and it fully polished off my leg after the Devils Gulch loop.   The grand total for the day was 36 miles,  4,500 feet of climbing and enough joygasm smiles to make my face hurt.

I made a total of two trips out to the “410 Area” east of Mt Rainier to ride the Palisades, Ranger and Noble Knob trails.  There is some stout climbing to be done but trail and the view are well worth it.

Got Wilderness?   The Noble Knob trail takes you right up to the edge some impressive looking wilderness.

Got Sunlight?   I could have used some at the end of this ride.

Google Duthie Hills, it is Seattle newest Mountain Bike Park.  It is a 120 acre park dedicated to mountain.  It offers something for everyone from tame,

to insane.  This place is a city park that is 100% legal.   Bottom line Washington gets it while SoCal is still in the stone-age.

Not everthing was an adventure to get to.  There were a handful of places that filled out the weekday ride schedule.  Like Port Gamble.

Green Mountain (Where is Waldo’s Shadow?) as well as other spots.

Like I said, I’ll get them up before long, but first I have quick work project to take care elsewhere.  I might get in some riding there too 🙂

The Opening Week in Washington

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.

San Marcos – Its not a F$%)ing Trail!

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.