Carrizo Christmas

The famous goat trestle, a San Diego landmark rarely seen by San Diegans.

Tracks cut into the cliff side just after the goat trestle:

 

Mad Dogs and Englishmen

Sometimes impatience has its price. I wanted to get a good long ride in this weekend, and was bummed to see that the weather was expected to be in the mid to high 90s after the previous weeks of unseasonably cool temps. While I considered just going out for a quick two-hour mtb ride, impatience got the better of me and I decided to try something a bit longer. Since I hadn’t ridden my monster cross bike in a number of weeks, I decided to make a long multi-surface loop of the day, about half dirt, half pavement. I’ve ridden Boulder Creek road a number of times, but never taken a turnoff down Cedar Creek fireroad that links up with Eagle Peak road, so time for some exploring.

The day started well enough for the first couple of climbs and I enjoyed the cool morning temps. My hands were even a bit cold for the first 5 miles or so. Finally, the rubber hit the dirt:

The first sign that the day would be a rough one came when I finally arrived at the turnoff for Cedar Creek and looked down to realize that my bottle of perpeteum–four hours worth of calories–had fallen off the bike at some point. As this was one of the hilliest sections of the ride, it was painful to have to double back several miles to find it, but I needed those calories to finish the ride. Having retrieved the bottle, I made it back to Cedar Creek and enjoyed the isolated beauty of this little ridden fireroad:

About this time, it really started to heat up. My Garmin was claiming over 100 degrees, but at least the scenery was nice.

This is about where the fun ended. As I was climbing out of Cedar Creek to Eagle Creek, I got a dramatic flat that emptied the tire in a couple of seconds. I decided to push the bike to the top of the hill where there was a little shade. I only had one spare tube, so decided to try to patch the flat tube to conserve my good tube. Now, you'd think that by this point in my life I'd be good at patching a tube, but this turned into a 45 min comedy of errors: patch the tube, get everything put back together, cameback on, ready to ride, and poof! The tire goes flat again. I patch the tube a second time, get everything put back together, just about to ride off and poof! At this point, I have no more patch glue, so I'm forced to use my only spare tube and just pray that it holds for the rest of the ride. I install it, get it inflated with my mini pump, only to unscrew the valve core as I'm trying to remove the pump. Poof! All the air goes out. Then I do the same thing again. Finally, I manage to get it inflated and remove the pump safely.

I begin the steep ass climb on Eagle Creek out of that hole only to start to bonk from the heat. For the next 15 miles or so of constant climbing, I just feel like shit: pedaling in my granny even on the flats, and stopping to push my bike up several hills. The heat is going to my stomach and my body keeps trying to throw up. It's getting seriously hot, and my water is starting to run low. A rancher passes me in his truck, rolls down the window, shakes his head, and wryly says, "Better you than me!" Yep, the only fools out this time of day are mad dogs and Englishmen.

My water runs out just before I make it to a USFS fire station. Unfortunately, there is a sign saying the water is unfit to drink since it failed a water quality test two days before. I decide to drink it anyway since the hour-long climb up Engineers road to lake Cuyamaca is the only way out. Girardia won't kill me, but dehydration might.

After finally making it to the general store at Lake Cuyamaca, I bought some clean water, and a Red Bull, which helped revive me for the ride back to Descanso. By the time I made it back to my car, I was pretty cooked. According to my Garmin, 54 miles and 8000 feet of climbing, with an average temp of 94 degrees. All in all it's a great route, but next time I'll wait until the predicted high for the day is in the 50s or 60s.

When I finally made it home, I had a great elk and avocado salad. Sure tasted good after a day of sucking down sports products!

 

Otay Mtn Circumambulation

Otay Mountain is a large chunk of federal wilderness just east of San Diego on the Mexican border. With a summit above 3500 feet, it offers spectacular views of San Diego and Tijuana. Though it’s wilderness, which usually means “no bikes,” it’s crossed by a couple of dirt roads used primarily by Immigration officials patrolling for migrants. I’d never ridden to the top, and I decided to make a 30ish-mile loop of it.

With the heat of my ride up Mother Grundy the day before fresh in my mind, I decided to get an early start on this one, rolling out at 6:30. There were no takers for this 4+ hour fireroad grunt, which meant I did the whole thing solo. I like riding with company, but solo riding is just fine. Helps to clear the cobwebs out and improve my singing voice at least! The early start also meant that the marine layer would still be thick, and I spent the first 1.5 hours obscured by the clouds. This isn’t a black and white photo, just thick clouds:

But when I finally did break above the marine layer, there were some nice, cloudswept views.

Self portrait via one of the many blind-corner mirrors:

The obligatory glamor shot of the bike:

Towers at the summit:

And for those who just can’t ride anymore, here’s the fastest way down:

All told, it was 29 miles, and 4100 feet of climbing in 4:25 total time, 3:47 moving time. Glad I got the early start as the weather was fine the whole time. Not sure I’ll be doing this one again soon–it’s quite a grunt–but the views are fantastic.

 

Mother Grundy & Barber Mountain

Did some short but fun exploring today connecting up some dirt and forest roads I’ve been wanting to see. 22.5 miles and 3000 feet of climbing, about 60% dirt. This is rural east country San Diego at its finest, and hottest! (Temps were well into the 90s for much of the ride). There are so many little used dirt roads out there, but it’s just too hot to explore as much as I would like.

This ride did at least give me me some ideas for connecting up longer multi-surace rides once the weather cools down a bit . . .

The Route:

The Pics:

The Weapon of Choice:

The dirt sections of this would have been faster with a hardtail mountain bike. On the other hand, sure was nice having my “road” bike for the paved sections.

 

The Three Bears

After rising up from the desert heat that surrounds it, riding through the high country of the Southern Sierra Nevada Mountains is simply stunning. With thick groves of ponderosa and sequoia trees, there are times when you feel like you are riding a speeder bike on Endor, except that the little people wearing Ewok suits are replaced by real-life bears.

While the prospect of running across an ornery bear on the trail is a little unsettling, there is also something deeply satisfying about getting out into areas where you are not the top predator. I suppose it’s an integral part of “forest therapy.”

In late July, a riding buddy and I spent a weekend exploring some trails in the Southern Sierras, ranging from technical downhills with log rides and other features, to smooth alpine singletrack. We camped under the stars, and took showers under a freezing high-mountain waterfall. We also donated at least a pint of blood to the local mosquitoes, all of which must have been imported from Alaska. Good stuff.

On our last ride of the weekend, my riding buddy was dreading the climb back up to the car on his single speed, and turned back before the trail finish to get an early start. As it was getting toward sunset and I found myself doing a large part of the climb back by myself, the thought occurred to me that riding alone on the trail through bear country at this time of day might not be the best idea.

Continuing my solo climb, my mind started playing tricks on me as various shadows and hunks of wood took the shape of bears lying in wait. After about an hour of climbing, I finally caught up to and passed my buddy, grumbling something about it not being a good idea to ride alone.

Bear cave-womb? I think Georgia O’Keefe would have liked it.

About half a mile later, the trail overlooked a meadow and I stopped to stare at two curious shapes that looked like bears. As I looked more carefully, it turns out they weren’t bears at all, but just pieces rotting wood. Just as I was laughing at my bear paranoia,  a real life bear sitting not too far away from the two hunks of wood sprinted away across the meadow. I didn’t get my camera out in time. Feeling vindicated for my bear paranoia at least, we continued, hoping not to get a closer look at any bears.

About five minutes later, however, we both approached another meadow and spotted two more bears! This time I was able to get the camera out and take a photos before the bears sprinted off. Glad they were as scared of us as we of them. Either that, or the they were satiated because they had already eaten Goldilocks. There are actually two of them in this picture:

Checking out the bikers.

Three Bears stories aside, here’s a few other photos we took in the course of the weekend:

Railing a banked turn on Just Outstanding.

Overlooking Isabella Lake. Photo by Barcy.

One of the most photographed Sequoias ever?

One of several log crossings. This one at least had a rope to help with balance.

Barcy was rocking the log rides! I wasn’t.

They might be giants. Photo by Barcy

Lovely alpine meadow. Beware the bears though.

Sometimes Barcy’s awesome speed cannot be captured by the camera.

This particular trail sucked.  Luckily, the views didn’t. Photo by Barcy.

Nice cycling tan! The waterfall shower was definitely a highlight of the trip.  Photo by Barcy.

Full photo set can be found here.

 

Riding in the Wasatch Mountains

In trashing Bob Dylan’s 1970 album “Self Portrait,” Rolling Stone opened its review with the now famous question: “What is this shit?” That was pretty much my reaction when I first moved to San Diego and started riding the rocky desert trails. Having grown up in Utah and Colorado, I guess I was spoiled by easy access to miles and miles of buff and flowing alpine singletrack.

If Utah was The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, SoCal was the Dylan of the late 70s and 80s:  some real gems, but gravelly and uneven in quality.  Since then I’ve learned to love SoCal too, but there’s still nothing quite like the high country to remind you why you became a mountain biker in the first place.

When most people think of mountain biking in Utah, they think of the great destinations in southern Utah like slick rock and gooseberry mesa. Those places are hard to beat, but northern Utah offers some fantastic trails too, particularly in the Wasatch mountains between Salt Lake and Park City. You could easily design routes in this area that would give you 50+ miles of almost pure singletrack.

In the last week or so, I’ve racked up about 100 miles of singletrack in the area, and just about all of it between 7000 and 9800 feet. The altitude has definitely been humbling, but the views have more than made up for it. I even saw a couple of moose on the trail, which was a highlight.

Photos below are taken from a combination of trails including Dog Lake, Wasatch Crest, Glenwild, Mid Mountain, and Spiro. Thanks to my good friend Steve Parrish for playing tour guide on a couple of days.

Nothing like riding through the aspens:

Full photo sets here, here, and here.

 

A Tale of Two Creeks

With around 7000 feet of climbing in only 55 miles, this was brutal. I had a flat, I bonked, ran out of water, and then had to push my bike for a half mile while trying to recover. Good times!

Route starts in Pine Valley, CA. After a brief stint on old Highway 80, you start the long climb up Kitchen Creek, which takes you up to the top of the Laguna Mountains, where you turn left and make a screaming descent back into Pine Valley.  Second loop gets tougher.  Starting in Pine Valley, make your way west to the dreaded Pine Creek Road, where you do a brutal climb (with grades over 20%) to the top of the Laguna Mountains, then a second screaming descent into Pine Valley. If you know the Mount Laguna Bicycle Classic that Adventure Corps puts on, this is basically laps two and three of that event.

Remind me not to do this one again until winter!

 

SART’s Steep Slope

Located in the San Bernadino mountains east of LA, the Santa Ana River Trail (SART) offers some of the best singletrack in all of Southern California. This isn’t the place to come if you get bored when there’s nothing to huck and no chunk to ride. But if you like miles and miles of flowing, swoopy, singletrack goodness, this is your place.

Cut into a steep cliffside, SART also gives you a chance to come to terms with your feelings about exposure. That is, riding a narrow trial with a mountain on one side and a cliff or steep slope on the other. While the pucker factor isn’t nearly that of sections of the Palm Canyon Epic or Carrizo Gorge, the exposed nature of the trail nearly took out several of my buddies when we hit the trail in late June.

Nice backdrop as the group prepares to drop in. The first 4 miles or so of the trail are some of the best. You do have to pay the piper at the end of the ride for all of this elevation loss at the beginning:

We were all feeling the flow, and getting acclimated to the altitude and exposure when a pile of logs came loose from up the mountain and came crashing over the trail right in between the two lead riders. It’s hard to convey how dramatic this was. Imagine a crafty beaver pulling the pin on his dam and a river of logs cascading over the trail right in front of you:

(Photo by Barcy)

I guess if something like that takes you out, you have to figure it was just your time to go. A bit like getting struck by lightning. Thanks to Jose/Baja’s leadership, we all cleared the trail to make sure it wouldn’t trip up any bikers after us:

(Photo by Barcy)

After the initial miles of flowing descent, we came to a fire road and were presented with an option. Either ride up one of the steeper and more exposed sections of trail, or take the fire road to skip this 1-2 mile section. I had an uneasy feeling about it, and decided to skip it, as did most of the crew. Christian and Jose decided to ride it. As we waited and waited on the other side for them, wondering what could be taking so long, two riders came though and told us that one of our friends had fallen down the side of the trail.

We later learned that Jose’s bars hit a root on one of the narrower sections of trail, knocking him over a 15 foot cliff where he then rolled and tumbled 200 feet or do down and extremely steep slope. He had scratches and blood just about everywhere, but luckily that was about it. This had to be one of the more dramatic crashes since the famous Miles Todd crash at Carrizo Gorge.  The “funny” thing is, one year ago, Jose took a less dramatic spill down SART’s steep slope. When he came to, he looked down to see a scorpion on his body! No scorpion this time, but the crash was a lot scarier.

Since Jose had at least 7 of his 9 lives left, we decided to soldier on, crossing streams here and there.

This allowed Jose to dive in and wash off all the blood!

At a campground at mile 17, we had lunch and prepared for our return trip on this out-and-back trail. Something about the cliff being on your right hand side for the return makes the trail seem totally different, almost like it’s not an out-and-back at all. We made a lot better time, and luckily had no accidents!

About this time, my camera battery died, so that’s the end of the riding pictures.  We finished up with a post-ride meal at a Mexican/Yucatan restaurant in Mentone. Postiively non-Paleo, but it was delicious:

(photo by Barcy)

I’ll definitely be back again. With views like this, how could I resist:

(photo by Baja/Jose)

 

From John O Groats to Lands End, Paleo all the Way

In case you are wondering whether it is really possible to do long-distance riding or touring while following the Paleo diet, I thought you might enjoy looking at the blog Cavegirl, End to End. This woman rode from one tip of Britain to the other, putting in over 12 hours per day. Here is her report on what she ate:

My daily eating was as follows; breakfast – scrambled eggs, some fresh fruit (strawberries/blueberries) and where they had provided it, natural full fat Greek yoghurt. For the designated Pitstops they provided me with cans of tuna, meat and cheese, sometimes some natural yoghurt and apples if I wanted them. During my cycling I consumed between 4 and 6 Nakd bars – these provide around 14 g of carbs per bar from raw compressed dried fruit and nuts. At the evening meal I ate the meat/fish dish with vegetables (no potatoes) and salad drenched with olive oil. On arriving back after each day I snacked on some nuts and very dark (85%) chocolate. When I weighed myself on Monday morning I was exactly the same weight as when I set off although I’ve dropped a kg since so I’m busy eating as my body repairs itself. I’ve also developed some impressive abs, must be leaner and all that climbing helps too!

I gotta hand it to her–I’m not sure I could be that disciplined on a long trip like that!

 

Long Lovely Day in the Lagunas

The forecast could not have been better when a small group of us hit the trail at a little after 7:30: perfectly clear skies, temps in the high 70s, and over 36 miles and 5500 feet of climbing ahead of us. The ride began with a brisk climb up East Mesa Fire Road, but soon leveled out and narrowed to to a small ribbon of singletrack cutting through the grasslands of Cuyamaca Ranchero State Park.

It didn’t take long for the work to begin as we hit the Indian Creek single track:

Indian Creek would be steep enough even if it were buff as a baby’s bottom, but it’s the loose rocks that really give your heart a good workout:

Who put those there?

You can get a sense of the rapid ascent from this pic:

The climbing isn’t for nothing though, as you are rewarded with some nice views:

(That’s Anza-Borrego desert back there).

After some fantastic stretches of singletrack and a little paved road, we refilled our water tanks at Penny Pines and hit the Noble Canyon trailhead:

If sections of Hurkey Creek were made when God came down out of the clouds and laid down a ribbon of singletrack, sections of this trail must have been excreted out of one of the Devil’s orifices. With sections named “widow maker,” “stairway to hell,” and “whore” this isn’t usually the kind of stuff this buff single track lovin’ boy would be riding. But the really chunky sections can easily be walked by wimps like me, and the rest of the trail is just an all-out blast to ride.

The trail starts out smooth and fast. There were even a couple of guys riding it on unicycles!

But if riding chunk is your thing, Noble does not disappoint:

That’s Barcy givin’ the stairway to hell some hell.

Sometimes I feel like a wuss for walking the chunkier sections, but riding chunk does come with a few risks. At one point, Rob was balanced in a trackstand over a challenging uphill section. When he stuck out his left foot to catch himself, there was no ground there to catch him since the trail is exposed and he fell down the cliff about 15 feet, ass over teakettle, onto some rocks. Amazingly, he only had a minor scrape and a jammed finger. I think he lost one of his nine lives though! Here’s the crew helping to get his bike back to the trail:

Unfortunately, what goes down then needs to climb back up. After finishing Noble, we needed to climb the dreaded Pine Creek Road, which is 6 miles of 10-20% grades. I was actually not feeling too bad on this climb today, but before I pat myself on the back, consider that Barcy, pictured in the distance here, is climbing the entire thing on a single speed! He made good use of the traverse climbing technique.

It helps when in pain to contemplate the little details:

All in all, it took over 7 hrs to do the whole loop, though we had plenty of stop time and we were definitely in no hurry. Thankfully, Phil had the foresight to have some beer waiting in a cooler when we got back to the cars. It’s a terrific recovery beverage, which I drink solely to replenish depleted glycogen sores, mind you.

See the full photo set here.

Maps and stats for the day: