James' MTB Blog

Tour de Noble?

2009-11-14T13:28:00.000-08:00

After last week's aborted Tour de Noble, I decided late in the week to give it another shot. With most of my regular riding companions on the DL or doing a 50 mile SART epic, I elected to ride solo.

I had mixed emotions about doing the whole thing alone. Noble can be pretty unforgiving (as we saw last week,) and some of the trails are a little remote. At the same time, its a pretty popular trail on Saturdays and I was familiar with the route after riding in the Lagunas twice in the last three weeks, so the risk seemed relatively low. I just figured I'd stay within myself and go at my own pace, which has its own appeal.

With only myself to worry about, I got an early start and arrived at the Pine Valley trailhead at about 7:30. I was wheels up 10 minutes later and began the 4 mile slog up the paved road.

The weather was flawless, and I just sat back and tried to enjoy the climb as the sun rose over the mountain to the east. Seven days earlier I had climbed the road to the Oak tree for the first time, and had paced myself quite a bit in anticipation of a long day. Today, I wasn't sure what my pace was like since I was alone, but it felt faster and more consistent. I didn't take any rest stops on the way up, and just spun along listening to my ipod and dodging hunters who were driving up and down the road.

I hit the oak tree in about 50 minutes, and was feeling good, so I didn't even pause. I just turned the lockouts off my shock and fork and proceeded down the fire road toward Indian Creek. Once I got to the Indian Creek singletrack I paused for about 3 or 4 minutes to eat a gel and drink some Vitalyte, and then proceeded up the trail.

I cleaned the initial singletrack climb this week after screwing up the entry last week. Even so, that first section of singletrack involved one short HAB, though I rode much more of that section of trail this week than I did last week. From there I rode through the small meadow and began the real Indian Creek climb in earnest.

That climb is not a lot of fun. Its loose, steep in parts, and just sort of beat me down. I rode more this week than last, and didn't stop to rest at all, but did find myself HABing several sections. It helped quite a bit this time to know how long it was and when it would end, which allowed me to ride a little more aggressively and clean some parts I didn't even try last week. Even so, my shoes got more of a workout than I would prefer.

Near the middle of the Indian Creek climb, I did stop to snap this picture, which I liked.
Once I got to the top of Indian Creek I rested for about 5 minutes at 4 Corners (aka Champagne Pass?).
At that point I had a decision to make. I felt great, with no cramping in my legs at all and no real fatigue after I rested a bit. Even so, I just didn't feel like riding Pine Valley trail (for the third time in four weeks) over to Sunrise Highway and back to Penny Pines. We had ridden that route last week, and while Pine Valley trail is pretty fun, didn't feel an overwhelming need to hit it again. The road ride on Sunrise Highway to Penny Pines just seemed like extra miles for the sake of extra miles, especially when I had an attractive alternative. Instead of taking Pine Valley trail to the Sunrise Highway to Penny Pines to the very top of Noble, I instead elected to continue down Indian Creek (aka Pinball) and take that trail over to Noble.

I flew down Pinball, and then climbed the rest of the way up Indian Creek to the Noble connector. I didn't hesitate, and headed right down Noble. Noble went by in a flash. I cleaned several of the rocky sections that I didn't make it through last week, stopped for a second to pay homage to Barcy's collarbone at the tree grove, and thoroughly enjoyed the descent. After two attempts at both widowmaker and stairway I was unable to clean either of them, and since I was alone I figured discretion was the better part of valor. For pure bragging purposes I'd like to be able to clean those two, but whatever.

I did clean all of the other sections that had given me trouble in the past, and did so while just flowing along, without re-tries. Very quickly I found myself at the junction of Noble where heading left leads to extra credit while heading right leads to the road. I felt great, and without hesitating made the left up EC.

The climb up was a little longer than I remembered, but not as difficult or tiring as it had been last year when I rode it last. I rested for a few minutes at the top, and then tackled the final descent of the day. I had hoped to ride the entire thing, but did have to walk one short section that I just couldn't figure out the line through. I made it back to my car very quickly, and was a little struck by the feeling of anticlimax.

Maybe it was my decision to skip Pine Valley trail and the road section. Maybe it was because I was legitimately not tired and felt fine. Maybe it was because I was alone and had no one to share in my accomplishment. Maybe it was because the ride was only 17 miles long, which is fine, but no epic. Whatever it was, I was pretty "meh" at the end. At least my wife would be happy that I was home early in the day.

As I loaded up the car and headed home, the anticlimactic feelings faded and I reflected on all of aspects of the ride that I had enjoyed. The amazing weather. The peace and solitude of the mountains. The opportunity to enjoy God's creation and truly appreciate its beauty. The fun, swoopy sections during the Noble descent. The accomplishment of completing all that climbing and not wanting to die. (I remember my first Noble shuttle two years ago when I was completely wrecked at the end of the 9 mile descent.) So on balance, I felt great. But there is still a part of me that feels like I have unfinished business up there.

So I think I'll try to make it up there again. Next time I'll probably do Pine Valley trail to Sunrise Highway to Penny Pines, and then loop BLT before heading down Noble. At the end of the day, I think the title of this RR is misleading; I didn't do the Tour de Noble. I did Indian Creek to Noble, a worthy ride in its own right, but a bit short of the epic feat that is the full Tour.

In any event, here are the stats:

Total Distance: 17.19 miles
Total Time: 3:39:36
Ascent: 3388 feet
Average Speed: 4.7 mph
Top Speed: 22.8 mph
Bike: Intense Spider XVP
Map

BLT/Los Gatos Redux

2009-10-24T08:53:00.000-07:00

BLT/Los Gatos

2009-09-15T10:00:00.001-07:00

Phoenix Trip: White Tanks Goat Camp

2009-03-15T14:18:00.000-07:00

[RR courtesy of Sean and Evan from here.]

Sunday was the graduation ride consisting of Goat Camp loop.

More climbing, more descending, more chuck, as recommended by the locals at SoMo. We really had no idea what this ride would be truly like, other than hard. MTBBill’s describes the end descent as a constant state of colon lockdown, so we had that to look forward to…or so we thought.

The antenna towers on the right would be close to what we’d be climbing up to.

Starting off on Ford Canyon.

Waddell Trail

Then it was time to climb Mesquite Canyon.

Or hike.

Switchbacks.

Looking down the canyon.

But still more to go.

Last part of Mesquite Canyon before we split off.

Climbing Willow Canyon trail.

Lots of flowers in bloom.

End of Willow Canyon and back on to Ford canyon

Why yes, that would be the trail up the ridgeline below the towers.

Trail paved with wild flowers on both sides.

This ride is demoralizing with the amount of climbing.

At least the scenery makes up for it.

Brief bit of descent, before climbing the trail below the towers.

Where’s Waldo?

We encountering two other riders the entire day.

And then the descent begins.

Pucker factor.

There’s a reason why this is double black diamond.

And it’s not because of the climbs.

We had a few miles of chunk and climbing on our way up the mountain

But it led to this sweet smooth section of singletrack higher up

It weaved along the hillside for quite a ways before we started heading up again

Lots of cactus which just added to the sweet views

Brent and Mark pause as we head up the last leg towards Goat Camp trail.

This was one of the most continuously nasty chunky technical trails I've ridden. Almost to the point of it not being fun. But then you kind of get into it. And then you get in a groove just as its almost over. Unfortunately I don't have many pics, just a few from the Waterfall section.

Sean navigates the opening drop

And clears the middle section.

He made it around the last corner and drop too, only to go over the bars on the flats at the bottom. I made it down to the last corner but wasn't feeling it, so walked down the last bit. Funny how you can lose your technical abilities when you aren't riding hard stuff all the time. I really had to psyche myself up to hit the the opening drop on this section but when I finally did it was easy. Towards the bottom I was cleaning almost everything, and kicking myself for not trying a few things higher up.

All in all a great weekend of riding. That's pretty much all we did - get up, ride, drop James at clinic, night ride, sleep, ride, drive home. Next time I'd like to have a bit more time as there's so much to explore. But this is a pretty decent weekend trip.

Thanks again to Sean for organizing everything!

Total Distance: 15.29 miles
Total Time: 4:55:27
Ascent: 2760 feet
Average Speed: 3.1 mph
Top Speed: 24.3 mph
Bike: Intense Spider XVP
Map:

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Phoenix Trip: White Tanks Sonoran Loop Competitive Track

2009-03-14T23:13:00.000-07:00

[Again, this RR is from Sean's post here.]

So with James back on board and the sun setting, it was time to head for the next camping and riding destination at White Tanks county park. Apparently the northern snowbirds still haven’t migrated back north yet, so all the regular RV camping spots were taken. But the overflow camping was even better. It put us 150’ from the start of the competitive track, one of 3 mountain bike only trail systems in Phoenix. Since we cut the day ride short due to first aid needs, it was time for a night ride to finish out this day.

It reminded us of lower Cobbles: open, fast, swoopy, just perfect for night riding.

During the day, probably more just ho hum.

Then it was time for the usual dinner rib feast.

Total Distance: 7.04 miles
Total Time: 1:16:14
Ascent: 678 feet
Average Speed: 5.6 mph
Top Speed: 18 mph
Bike: Intense Spider XVP
Map:

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Phoenix Trip: South Mountain

2009-03-14T14:08:00.000-07:00

[This RR was written by Sean and posted on dirttreaders here. Additional pictures from Evan]

With 6 weeks to go before the big trip to Epic Mecca, several of us needed a spring training camp for some riding drills. Primarily to hone our technical rock prowess, it would also serve as shake down for our bikes, gear, and yes, our first aid skills. But the chunk terrain that we required wasn’t to be found in San Diego County, the OC, or even SoCal. So with the work week over and the RV loaded up for its first road trip of the year, it was time to leave the land of sanitized trails in search of real chunk. Hold the butter please, just crushed peanuts for the PB&J sandwich.

Day 1

Saturday morning arrived with everyone still groggy from the late night drive.

I don't mind waking up early to cool air and sunshine

Our campsite 45mins S of Phoenix

Today’s objective would be to soak in the rock at South Mountain Park in Phoenix. But this isn’t your average city park. At 16,000 acres, it’s the largest municipal park in the country and the hardest trails here make Noble Canyon look like kids play. The sanitizing trail management of SoCal needs to take a few pages of notes that multi-purpose trails can be under 24” wide, aren’t remotely required to be baby bottom smooth, and can have rock features that equestrian people will ride, just like in the Old West. We arrive at the parking lot to find 3 horses coming off the trail serving as the warm-up climb. First up is Javalina.

Lots of trail users this day.

The difficulty increased as we picked up Mormon Loop. Evan works his way up one of many waterbar steps.

Brent descends the final piece of chunk to join National.

National Trail is the main East-West through the park for a total length of 14.3 miles. But today we’d only be doing 1/8 of it. It’s definitely spring time in the desert with the wild flowers in bloom.

Watch your eyes, the Cactus is in bloom.

More climbing.

Views overlooking down town Phoenix.

More climbing.

Sean hitting a small drop feature.

Sean hitting the leftside of the waterfall drop feature. In your face Widow Maker.

Evan on the entry section to the waterfall.

Evan taking the rightside of the waterfall.

Sean rides the spine. Nicely done.

Sean goes for the hard line.

Sladnas gets in on the action.

One massive rock landscape.

Sladnas cleans a tough rise

Climbing...this mountain has a lot of tough, technical sections. Balance, endurance and power all required. And you have to pick the right line.

Cool cactus

Nice view towards downtown

Sladnas plans his approach

Threading the needle

James up next

In places the trail was worn down into a trench that you had to balance thru

Somewhere about here Mark was so giddy with so much rock, at one point he wanted to strip naked and just roll around in it. Instead we found a rock wall feature with a 90 degree right turn around a large slab.

The approach.

Sean is the first to hit the trailside rock feature

Brent hitting the drop.

Mark hitting it up.

Sladnas just has to be different...

James hitting it down.

We continue the climb to Buena Vista. On the way, there’s a sweet section of chunk descent. Finally we reach Buena Vista to take a break before the big descent.

Group shot to account for any lost bodies at the bottom. Geronimo is pure DH chunk, 1,000’ in 2 miles.

Ignore the scenery, this trail demands full attention.

It’s basically stair steps after a point.

Hey James, why is your leg all red???

Uh oh, Mr. Big ring doesn’t play nice with Mr. Leg.

Crap, this looks even worse after it’s been cleaned.

James declined any further fat deposit removal at this time, so Sean helped bandage him up before bleeding to death on the trail.

Nice views as James heads down Geronimo, pre-carnage

And finishes the ride, post-carnage

Geronimo was pretty technical, though nothing compared to what we would ride Sunday.

Sweet views on the way down

After finishing Geronimo, we made our way back to the RV on pavement.

James did make it to the bottom, but the pain was starting to set in. But hey, this was training. So next was the 4 mile street ride back to the vehicle while dodging neighborhood canines catching the whiff of fresh meat pedaling past.

Once reaching the RV, we further delayed James’ critical care needs as we ate sandwiches for lunch and lamented the fact we covered a paltry 8 miles of SoMo trails and 1,600’ of vertical in 4 hours. Mark set to work finding the cheapest and shady urgent care clinic on his phone. He scored as found out the place we dropped off James at had only started doing urgent care just 3 months prior. James came back with the doctor’s pathetic life story after jumping to the head of the line when the nurse freaked out on his gash. But it was a steal at $30…at least until the infection sets in.

Total Distance: 12.24 miles
Total Time: 4:39:26
Ascent: 1927 feet
Average Speed: 2.6 mph
Top Speed: 19.6 mph
Bike: Intense Spider XVP
Map:

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RR: Black Mountain w/Miner's and Summit

2009-03-01T23:04:00.000-08:00

I have no recollection of this ride.

Looks like a pretty standard local ride, with Miner's Ridge to the cutover to the summit to Miner's to Lilac. Took the road down from Lilac though, which is rare. Hmm.

Total Distance: 10.88 miles
Total Time: 1:36:41
Ascent: 1877 feet
Average Speed: 6.8 mph
Top Speed: 36.5 mph
Bike: Intense Spider XVP
Map:

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TR: Black Mountain Trail Work

2009-02-21T13:46:00.000-08:00

[Editor's note: The summary below was taken from the SDMBA website.]

On Saturday, February 21, eighteen SDMBA volunteers opened a new stretch of single-track at Black Mountain Open Space Park. The new connector links Miner’s Ridge Loop Trail to the north with the Nighthawk trail system to the south. Although the trail technically existed before this volunteer event, its sightlines, signage, and tread were inadequate for mountain biking.

The new connector trail has been a long time in coming. Aerial photos showed the trail existed when the arsenic mine was active. After the mine closed, the mountain reclaimed the trail. In 2002, Ranger John Barone and I discussed cutting a new trail near the site of the old trail. After John left Black Mountain Park, Ranger Tom Miller (with support from city trail manager Rick Thompson) continued to push for the construction of the new trail. Tom managed to bypass some of the bureaucracy of building a new trail by showing that the old trail had once existed and aligning the new connector over the old one. In 2007, Tom led a group that re-cut the connector, but final approval to complete construction (widen, mark, build the puncheon bridge, etc.) and officially open it didn’t come until earlier this year. Our group of 18 volunteers completed that construction.

For the seventh year in a row, Black Mountain Bicycles donated swag – including a rear derailleur and hydration pack – to raffle off to volunteers after trail work concluded around 12:30pm. Everyone went home with something.

Thanks go to all of our volunteers for helping to open yet another trail in Black Mountain Park (our second in the past 3 years) – now go ride it! (A map to the new Connector Trail can be found on the second page of the event announcement.) Special thanks to Rich, Gardner, Everett, Michael, John, Kim, Tom, and Evan for being trail bosses and Sr. Ranger Ed Christensen for providing tools, logistics, materials, and support.

I was on Evan's trail crew, and had a great time doing work and chatting with Ranger Ed on the way back down the mountain. I've ridden this connector trail dozens of times, and have some ambivalence about the work that was done, but appreciate that a local ride of mine is getting some love.

Several pictures, including a couple of me, are available here.

RR: Ramona Ride

2009-01-31T21:54:00.000-08:00

Had an awesome ride today with a ton of DT guys up in Ramona. The ride report with pics (including some of me) is available here.

Total Distance: 12.88 miles
Total Time: 2:49:50
Ascent: 1801 feet
Average Speed: 4.5 mph
Top Speed: 23.3mph
Bike: Intense Spider XVP
Map:

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RR: Local Ride w/Miner's Loop and Lilac Canyon

2009-01-25T22:41:00.000-08:00

This afternoon was a quick local ride, just to trying to keep my momentum going. I rode Miner's loop from home.

Total Distance: 9.55 miles
Total Time: 1:19:39
Ascent: 1457 feet
Average Speed: 7.2 mph
Top Speed: 33.6 mph
Bike: Intense Spider XVP
Map:

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RR: SMaRT

2009-01-18T12:49:00.000-08:00

This afternoon was a short but fun trip up to Fallbrook for a ride on the Santa Margarita River Trail with Doug and his dad. I had been hoping to get some kind of ride in this weekend, and this turned out to be a good option.

We dropped into the trail from a fun downhill near Doug's parent's house, and then rode along the river for a bit. The trail itself is beautiful, and there were quite a few people out today enjoying the amazing weather.

The ride was more or less uneventful. I cleaned a few steep climbs that would have given me trouble in the past, which felt good. I also finished strong up a very steep pavement climb to the finish that Doug had warned me about.

Doug was having a good time, even if it didn't look like it.

The trail was in pretty good shape, though there were some sandy spots.

Father and son on the trails:

I did have an amusing fall as I tried to ride up and over a huge dirt mound that was at the base of the pavement climb. I think my big ring caught as I reached the apex of the mound, causing me to go OTB into the soft dirt. Fortunately, there was no photographic evidence.

I enjoyed riding with Doug as always, and the scenery on this trail is among the best for rides that aren't an hour away in the mountains.

All in all it was a fun, quick trip.

Here are the stats:

Total Distance: 5.23 miles
Total Time: 1:11:47
Ascent: 940 feet
Average Speed: 4.4 mph
Top Speed: 27.5 mph
Bike: Intense Spider XVP
Map:

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RR: Daley Ranch (Intense Demo Day)

2009-01-17T11:10:00.000-08:00

I'm in the midst of trial preparation hell, but somehow found time to work in a short ride this morning at Daley Ranch before heading into work on a Saturday.

Intense was having a demo day out at Daley, and because its so close to work and I am now an Intense owner and fan, I wanted to make it out there for at least a little bit.

I brought my bike, but was hoping to get to ride a new Tracer if one was available. I got there early, but all of the Tracers in my size were already gone, so I elected to demo a Spider 29'er instead. After a quick waiver form and installing my own pedals, I was on my way.

I took Creek Crossing from the parking lot to East Ridge, up Sage, then down the Diamondback singletrack. Just before the turnoff to Diamondback, I saw a coyote just off the trail.

He eventually went his way, and I went mine.

From Diamondback I took East Ridge north to the west side of Jack Creek Meadow Loop, up Hidden Spring (Cardiac) to Englemann Oak, and hooked a left on Cougar Ridge.

On Cougar Ridge, I stopped for a quick picture to the west. It was gorgeous out, and I could see all the way to the ocean.

By taking this route I skipped a significant section of trail that I had ridden before, including the Burnt Mountain and Bobcat singletracks, but I was short on time and trial prep was calling my name.

I then took Cougar Ridge to the newly re-routed Crest singletrack, which was a ton of fun and a big improvement. After that all I had left was the banzai down the Ranch House fire road back to the Intense truck and my car.

As far as my impressions of the Spider 29'er, my thoughts are limited. It felt a lot like my Spider 26'er, so I didn't notice a huge advantage to the bigger wheels. I loved the XTR brakes, however, and the bike did climb very well. If I didn't have the 26" version and was in the market for a full suspension 29'er, I think it would be a great choice. But since I already have a FS 26" bike with almost the same geometry, I can't see buying one of these. Either way, it was fun to ride something different, and the color was really cool.

Here are the stats:

Total Distance: 1.73 miles
Total Time: 1:34:51
Ascent: 1705 feet
Average Speed: 6.8 mph
Top Speed: 30.5 mph
Bike: Intense Spider 29'er
Map:

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RR: Santa Luz Loop

2009-01-04T22:53:00.000-08:00

After yesterday's Secret Trail excursion, I had a chance to do another ride today. I decided to just to a quick lap around the Santa Luz Loop from home, and had an unexpectedly tremendous ride.

I just felt strong from start to finish. I rode the 4S trails over to Carmel Valley Road, and saw that the paragliders were out today.

I continued up Carmel Valley Road to Black Mountain Community Park, then rode down the Santa Luz singletrack and through the meadow.

From there I rode past the horse ranch and through the neighborhood toward the twin *itches. I cleaned the first steep climb and started my descent down the other side toward number two. During the descent, I let me speed get a little high, and took a nasty spill when my front tire caught a huge rut in the middle of the fire road. The recent rain has wreaked havoc with the steep fire roads, and I was lucky to escape with some minor scratches.

From there it was a short HAB up the second hill, then down and across San Dieguito road to the other side of Santa Luz. As always, there were some beautiful views.

I railed the doubletrack down through Lusardi Canyon, and crossed the river at the gate. I then cut through the nursery and rode the fire road up the north side of the canyon. After that I rode along the mesa towards Del Norte High, cut through the construction and pedaled home.

Other than the second crazy-steep fire road and a miscalculation climbing out of Lusardi Canyon, I had no HAB and rode strong the whole way. Finishing the whole loop from home in less than an hour and a half felt great, and all in all I was left with a great impression at the end of the ride.

Here are the stats

Total Distance: 13.77 miles
Total Time: 1:28:31
Ascent: 1584 feet
Average Speed: 9.3 mph
Top Speed: 32.1 mph
Bike: Intense Spider XVP
Map:

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RR: Sweetwater/Steele Canyon Ride

2009-01-03T10:17:00.000-08:00

It was my first ride of 2009, and we're only three days in! Today I rode the secret Steele Canyon trail again, but this time started at Nate's house in Spring Valley and added in some fun singletrack between Sweetwater and Steele Canyon. It rained a little in the middle, but not enough to ruin the ride.

Since this ride is still an NSA-level secret, there's not a lot I can report, except that the trails between Sweetwater and Steele Canyon were awesome, and the singletrack we took off the Secret Mountain were a blast. I liked this route way better than the one we did in late December, and would definitely go back.

I had to cut it a little short to help a friend move, so I ended up doing a little pavement riding at the end that could have been trail. My conditioning also wasn't outstanding but riding with Nate always makes me feel humbled because he's such a strong rider.

Nate pointing out that we'd be doing some climbing:
The rain made things really green and beautiful:

Even with the clouds, we had some impressive views:

Horses? What horses?
Into the abyss...
I also shot a short video of Nate hitting a jump. I didn't hit this one, but after seeing him make it look so easy, really want to try it myself next time...

It was a fun ride, and the singletrack descents were awesome. I also hit a small gap jump in the middle of the ride that sneaked up on me, which felt really good. I would like to get back out here again soon, and try to find a route that combined the stuff we did today with some of what we did a few weeks ago as well. We'll see...

As always, here are the stats:

Total Distance: 17.41 miles
Total Time: 2:51:30
Ascent: 2398 feet
Average Speed: 6.1 mph
Top Speed: 23.5 mph
Bike: Intense Spider XVP
Map:
[Undisclosed for Now]

2009 Goal List

2009-01-01T12:19:00.000-08:00

Last year's Goal List and Ride List provided me with a fun way to measure my mountain biking progress. My list of trails to ride and achievements to accomplish that year made for a neat checklist of MTB milestones, so I thought I'd do it again this year.

However, because I occasionally stressed out in 2008 about riding a particular trail or meeting a particular goal, and riding is supposed to be about recreation and fun for me, I'm toning down the list this year.

First of all, I'm combining the goal and ride list into one master list. Second, it will be shorter and simpler this year. If I do more fun and memorable stuff, great. If not, that's fine too. Its all about priorities for me this year, and I want to keep that in perspective.

So here's the list, in no particular order:

1. Ride the full Tour de Noble: For me, this means climbing from the bottom of the Noble trailhead, up the road to Indian Creek, then over Champagne Pass, down Noble, up and down Extra Credit and back to the car. I almost did this ride at the end of 2008, but it fell through. Its taxing, with a series of difficult climbs at the beginning that makes the downhill portions a survivialfest, but I want to check this one off the list. Conditioning will be a factor.

2. Ride the Spring Canyon to Sycamore Canyon Ride: I've heard this one is brutal, but a lot of fun. As I understand it, I'd ride Spring Canyon to near the end, then a cutover to Sycamore, up to Martha's and back. I've ridden everything but the cutover in separate rides already, so I just need to combine Spring and Sycamore on a day when I'm feeling strong.

3. Ride the Santa Ana River Trail (SART): Its one of the most talked-about trails in SoCal that I've never ridden, and I really want to ride SART this year. I've heard its tough, and because of its location in the San Bernardino mountains can only be ridden at certain times of year, but I want to make it out there in 2009 at least once.

4. Ride in Idyllwild: I'd like to ride the trails up in Idyllwild at some point this year. I'm shooting for Alvin Meadows, Hurkey Creek, or a combination of the two. They're only a couple hours away, and a ton of fun from what I've heard.

5. Ride Cowles Mountain and Pyles Peak: This is one of the few San Diego rides I haven't done yet, and I want to see what this trail is like. I've hiked Cowles from the south, but never ridden it on the bike-legal trails. For some reason this one didn't make my 2008 list, and I plan to remedy that this year.

6. Ride My Archipelago Route Backwards: I rode it clockwise in 2008, and in 2009 I want to ride the same route in the opposite direction. With the Tunnels being shut down, I'll have to make some minor changes to the LPQ section of the route, and the finish at Black Mountain will involve a climb to the peak that is much harder than the finish to the clockwise route was, but I think I can do it.

7. Do an Organized MTB Event or Race: I sort of did this one in 2008 with the Cycle Eastlake event and Cuyamaca Poker Ride, but I want to do another organized event or maybe even a race this year. Maybe it will be the Warrior's Society Toad Festival, or a Racers and Chasers event, or a 12 Hour race, or some other endurance event or race. I'm leaving this goal a little vague, because I'm not sure I have the time or dedication to train for a serious race or competitive event, but want to do something along those lines by the end of the year.

8. Join and Participate in a Mountain Bike Patrol: I've been interested in joining a Mountain Bike Patrol for a while now. IMBA has a NMBP that is akin to the Ski Patrol, but there is no San Diego chapter right now. As far as I know, none of the local city or county parks have patrols either. But I'm interested in volunteering and assisting on the trails, and hope to make that happen in 2009.

9. Ride Otay Mountain: I don't know what route exactly, but I've heard about some fun South Bay rides that include Otay mountain, and want to get out there at some point this year.

10. Do an Out-of-State Ride: Last year the goal was to do a ride outside of SoCal. I made that one, so this year I'm branching out a little. I want to do some out of state ride, whether its something relatively close like Arizona (Sedona or Phoenix) or Nevada (Bootleg or Red Rocks) or something more ambitious like Utah or Colorado. Considering financial limitations and time constraints, this one may be tough.

11. Control my MTB-Related Spending: I spent a ton of money on MTB-related items in 2008. Between multiple bikes, clothes, accessories, and nutrition, the amount of retail expenses I incurred to support my hobby was outrageous. In 2009, I'm making it a specific and important goal to reduce my MTB spending. I'm not buying another bike. I won't need shoes thanks to my Christmas present from my wonderful wife. I will resist the upgradeitis that afflicted me in 2008. I'll limit the amount of clothes and accessories I purchase to necessities, and will resist the siren call of Chainlove.

So there you have it, my 2009 Goal List. Hopefully I have as much success meeting these goals as I did in 2008 with that list.

Year in Review

2008-12-31T23:59:00.000-08:00

2008 started out a little ragged, beginning in January with a week of not riding followed by my five mile local ride that almost required a sag wagon.

Things got worse before they got better, and my inaugural trip to Daley Ranch ended with an early bailout and a renewed commitment to improve my fitness ASAP.

So I set some general goals and made a list of trails I wanted to ride in 2008, and dedicated myself to becoming a better rider.

In February I rode the Santa Luz loop for the first time and also took my first trip to the LPQ Tunnels with the Skyline MTB crew.

I also headed back to ATT in February, and once again experienced some mechanical issues. But I did spend some time playing around on the rocks this time, and started to gain a little confidence...

I also made my first trip up to Noble Canyon when Joel and I shuttled it in the snow. I had an awesome time, and was glad to finally experience the trail that so many people talked about.

We bought Rachel a hybrid mountain bike in February as well, and I took her for a spin around our local 4S trail system. She seemed to like it OK.

In March I did my first ride with the Rock MTB group over in the Tri-Canyons area. It was a decent ride, but involved some interesting terrain including freeway overpasses, aqueducts, and even some singletrack!

I also sold my first real mountain bike, an Iron Horse Warrior 3.5, in March. I had served me fairly well as I began my MTB hobby, but I was on to bigger and better things.

I also made it over to North Hodges later that month, and played around while enjoying some impressive views.

I followed that ride with a trip over to the South side of Hodges, most of which had been closed for several months following the 2007 October wild fires.

My Lake Hodges bonanza continued a week later when I crossed off one of my 2008 Goal List items and climbed Bernardo Peak. It involved more hiking than riding, but I still enjoyed myself.

I also rode Sycamore with Joel one weekend...

And returned the next weekend to complete some unfinished business...

Rachel and I also took some time out to do the Silent Ride with the Rock MTB group which was an moving experience and later that day I spent some time on the trails with my first ride over at Lake Calavera. My fitness was not up to par on that day, and I left wishing I had been able to hang with the group better. I did handle a few techy downhill sections OK though.

March also brought about the end of my regular local ride (as well as a painful lesson in the effects of the needles of the wild artichoke.)

I capped off the month by doing some trail work over at Black Mountain (on a trail that ironically would become part of my new local ride route a few months later!).

April started out with an easy spin around Hodges with Joel, followed by my first trip down Canyon Rim trail at Black Mountain, the trail that would become the training ground for my improving technical downhill skills.

After that I spent an awesome day riding all of the singletrack at the Del Mar Mesa the day before it closed. It was an incredibly fun series of trails, and I am both thrilled to have ridden before it was bulldozed and saddened at the fact that its gone forever now.

I bought a new bike in April, a Specialized Enduro Elite, but it didn't last very long. It just wasn't a fit for me.

The next couple of weeks brought a quickie LPQ run with Sean, followed by the Skyline MTB weekend in the Lagunas and a fun Noble ride where I had a chance to improve my downhill skills.

April ended with an aborted local ride that taught me some chain maintenance lessons, but overall things were going pretty well at that point.

May involved a couple of consecutive trips to Black Mountain for my new local ride, followed by a new route over at Hodges involving both the North and South sides with Sean and Dave G.

One highlight of May was my first organized event ride, Cycle Eastlake. I enjoyed it very much, and would love to do more events like it. Less pavement would have been better, and doing it with friends would also have been fun, but I had a great time nonetheless.

Later that same day I did a local ride just to get in some bonus miles, which set a new single-day mileage record for me.

The last week of May brought a ride that may be the highlight of the year for me: the Tour de Hodges. On a whim I ended up riding almost all of the trails that were open on both North and South Hodges, including Bernardo Peak. It was a 27 mile slogfest for me, and one that I'll remember as a great accomplishment.

After the Tour de Hodges, my next ride was also one that I'll remember as I spent a considerable amount of time wandering around the Tunnels at LPQ. I was able to discover two new Tunnels that I'd never ridden, and also enjoyed dropping in from the Camino del Sur trailhead for the first time.

May concluded with a trip through Santa Luz with Sean, where we saw several interesting sights, including bridges...

Strange gook on the trails...

And what wild artichoke looks like in full bloom...

June started with the now ubiquitous Black Mountain local ride, followed by my first trip to Sweetwater Reservoir. I almost didn't make it to this ride, which was hosted by the group from World Cycles, but am glad I did. Sweetwater turned out to be one of my favorite local trails of the whole year.

After Sweetwater, Sean and I tackled the main trails at Black Mountain for the first time. My local ride had included the Canyon Rim trail and some of the smaller trails that descended the north side of the mountain, but Sean and I set out to explore the whole thing, and we succeeded. Despite being a relatively short ride mileage-wise, it was a ton of climbing and we had a great time riding trails in our backyard that we had never ridden.

A week after riding Black Mountain, I went for a ride with Billy at the Cuyamaca Grand Loop. I remember this as one of my strongest rides of the year in terms of conditioning and fitness, and while the trail itself was a little underwhelming and Billy had some severe mechanical issues, it was a fun day up in the mountains. The views and scenery were impressive.

We saw wild turkeys...

A little singletrack...

And some beautiful forest...

The next week I did my first STR group ride at the Santa Margarita River Trail. I met Doug in person for the first time and also met and rode with local MTB legend MTB Bill as well. The ride itself was fun, and it was neat to get to see a new trail that I'd never ridden.

The next week brought another highlight of the entire year; Santa Rosa Plateau with the Wonderminion. The trail was fun and interesting, the scenery was new and unique, and I had a great time showing our intern Kent the joys of mountainbiking. And I finally got some pictures of myself on the trail, which was nice.

June wrapped up with my first-ever night ride, the SDMBA Cuyamaca Night Ride at the Cuyamaca Grand Loop. This was an interesting ride for me, because it started out with me having a complete bonk despite having ridden very well there earlier in June. I managed to finish the ride relatively strong, but struggled so much at the beginning that the whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth. I did enjoy the night riding aspect, and did several more later in the year.

July brought sweet redemption by way of a return trip to Daley Ranch that went pretty well. While I still had a couple of HAB's, I rode the vast majority of it and did far better than my debacle out there six months earlier.

After that came a fun LPQ ride with Doug, Evan, and Scott where I was able to ride the mysterious tunnel 5 for the first time.

After that ride came more secret trails with my first trip out to Ted Williams. I rode with Sean and Doug, and it turned into a climbing exploration the likes of which only Sean could create. It was fun though, and I was glad to finally be shown this hidden jewel of north county.

Mid-July brought the first of two Archipelago Pre-rides that I did that month, beginning with my initial ride from home to South Hodges to North Hodges to SDRP where I got lost between SDRP and Santa Luz. It was a key first step in what would become a successful epic ride, and some of my pictures from that day are among my favorites.

Five days after my first failed attempt at linking up trails for my Archipelago ride, I was back out there for Pre-Ride 1(b), where I started out at Hodges with Mark and Doug and ultimately found my connector. It was a fun but taxing ride, and I rolled home in the dark around 9:00 at night.

August began with me successfully linking the second section of trails for the Archipelago Ride, starting from home and linking Santa Luz to LPQ and back to Santa Luz. It was a very taxing ride for me, and I ended it wondering if the full ride was even possible.

August also brought some bike shenanigans, with the sale of my first full-suspension rig (Specialized FSR) and purchase of my new frame, an Intense Spider XVP. I'll get into the Spider more later, but as for the FSR, it was an awesome bike and I was a little sorry to see it go. Things turned out OK though.

Despite the revolving door of bikes, August was a brutal time for riding, as work was a nightmare and family was in from out of town. As a result, I went three weeks between rides before I finally worked in a local ride just to taste dirt again.

September started off with a bang, howerver, as I embarked on my first ever out-of-town MTB trip. I joined Sean, Doug, and Brent for a trip up to the Southern Sierras, specifically Kernville and the Sequoias. It was an awesome four days of riding, and the collection of ride reports is available here. My biggest regret was that my fitness wasn't up to par, and the next time I plan a MTB trip, I plan on putting in some serious training miles before hand in order to ensure I'm able to handle several consecutive days of riding. There were a ton of beautiful photos from the trip, but here just a couple of my favorites:

When I got home from Kernville/Quaking Aspens, I still had several days of vacation left, and decided to hit a local trail I had been meaning to ride for a while, Elfin Forest. Despite several consecutive days of riding, my fitness was still a little suspect, and I suffered during most of the Elfin ride. The views were impressive though...

A week later I headed out to MTRP to ride Spring and Oak canyons with Sean, Doug, Evan, and Jeremy.

After that was a fun LPQ spin in the lower canyon trails with Rachel, which was a nice change of pace.

My last September ride was an LPQ night ride with Sean, Dennis and Dave G., who had never been through the tunnels before. Despite some mishaps with my light and mechanical issues, it was a fun ride and made me want to ride at night more often.

October brought the completion of the Spider build, and a new bike was born.

The maiden voyage was an easy ride back at Spring Canyon with Rachel, Billy, and Nate. I was really impressed at Rachel's riding, and started to hope that she'd get on the trails with me more often. The Spider felt great, though the easy trail and relaxed pace wasn't much of a test.

After that, it was time for the Cuyamaca Poker Ride. I rode well, and really appreciated the lighter weight and XC geometry of the Spider. I'll definitely be back next year.

Next up was a night ride with Dave G. at Black Mountain. I was glad to be night riding again and getting some use out of my TriNewt, but miscalculated badly on this ride. I tried the light on my helmet, and it was horrible. I had no depth perception, the beam wasn't bright enough, and it made for a rough ride.

Then cameArchipelago Pre-ride Part III, the final leg of my Archipelago pre-ride series. I had been vacillating about which direction to do the route , and had decided to ride this ride clockwise because I was leaning toward doing the Archipelago route that direction as well. I'm glad I did. I found the gliderport trail down the west face of Black Mountain, and the final piece of my Archipelago ride was in place.

A week later, with my Spider performing well and finances an issue, I elected to sell off my Specialized Enduro that I had ridden since April. This bike and I never really formed a bond, and I wasn't entirely sad to see it go. I was able to get a good price for it, and the "rental fee" for riding it for seven months wasn't too bad.

The final ride of October was a great one, with a trip up to the Lagunas to ride BLT with the Skyline crew. We did some bonus miles in addition to the regular loop, and had a blast. It was actually my first trip up to BLT this year, and I hope to get back up there soon.

November started with a bang. After more than three and a half months of planning, scouting, pre-riding, and (some) conditioning, the morning of the 6th was the day of my full Archipelago Ride. The route was well planned and executed. The company (Doug) was awesome and enhanced the experience. I had some severe cramping issues in my legs, which served as a lesson for next time, but overall it was a day I'll remember for a long time. It was over 42 miles, eight hours of riding, and an epic day. There were a lot of neat pics, but this one was one of my favorites:

The rest of the month was a little anticlimactic, with a trip to Sycamore to clean Martha's and finally ride the switchbacks next on my agenda.

It felt great to clean all of Martha's, but the switchbacks nearly killed me endurance-wise. I blame it on having ridden 42 miles a week earlier...

After a couple week riding drought, I headed over to La Costa (Denk Mountain) to check off another lingering 2008 Ride List trail. It was a decent ride, but the fairly severe nature of the trail (steep climb, then steep descent, then repeat) wasn't really my style. It was fun, but not a place I'd make a habit out of riding on a regular basis. Also, for being geographically close to home, it took forever to get there...

Next came a kind of strange ride out at "lower" Noble Canyon with Billy. We did some exploration on some singletrack near the bottom of the trailhead, and climbed some of the road up to a cutover trail and rode Extra Credit back to the cars. The exploration aspect of the ride was fun, and we did discover some neat singletrack that's off the beaten path. However, I was stung by a bee, and it was a long drive for a fairly short ride, so it wasn't a complete success.

The last ride of November was one of my best performances on a local ride all year. Whether it was the new bike, some better conditioning, or just a unmerited blessing, I cleaned several sections that I usually walk and had a great ride.

December also started strong, with another 2008 Goal List item getting checked off my list. While Rachel back east visiting relatives, I joined Nate for a ride up at San Juan Trail. We rode all the way to Blue Jay and back, and while there were some rough spots for me and the climbing was difficult, it was a great ride.

The next day brought a quick, "training style ride" over at North Hodges. I actually didn't feel like riding, but with an unlimited hall pass and the year winding down, I wanted to ride as much as possible. I negative split the trip to Hernandez Hideaway and back, and felt great at the end.

After a busy couple of weeks, my next ride was back at Black Mountain, and it was a circus. I climbed a trail over on the north section, which was a mistake, and then right at the summit lost a screw in my cleat, resulting in a lengthy trailside hassle and a ride home with no cleat on my left foot. However, what should have been a horrible ride was outweighed by the beauty of the day and the local mountains, which were breathtaking.

Next came a fun solo ride out at Sweetwater, that would have been better if not for some equestrian trail damage that wrecked some of the lower singeltrack. Also, there was just enough mud left on the fire roads to totally gunk up the Spider, resulting in a need for a deep clean the next day.

The last ride of 2008 was a pretty good one. I rode a "secret trail" out in Steele Canyon that was a lot of fun with the Skyline and Rock MTB groups. It was a lot of climbing, and involved some road miles at the end, but the backcountry feel and exploration aspects made it more enjoyable than it otherwise would have been.

It was a great year. I rode a lot, improved some, and delved deeper into a hobby that is truly a large part of my life now.

I legitimately completed each item on my 2008 Goal List, and did each ride but one on my 2008 Ride List. Lake Morena was the only trail I missed, and while I'm disappointed that I didn't hit them all this year, only missing one (reasonably close) trail isn't too bad.

I feel pretty good about making each of my goals for the year. While each of them were measurable and attainable, none were gimmies, and I had to work to make sure that each one was met.

In terms of mileage, I rode a total of 217.53 miles on my mountain bike in the fourth quarter of the year, as opposed to 200.00 in Q3, 254.75 in Q2 and 140.25 miles in Q1. As a result, I rode 812.55 miles this year. I didn't have a goal number of miles to hit, and this seems like a decent accomplishment as well. I will shoot for a little more next year.

So ends 2008. I'll be publishing a 2009 Goal List, that will encompass both my overall goals as well as some specific trails. I've enjoyed writing this blog in 2008, and hope to continue through 2009 as well.

See you next year...

State of the MTB Union (Q4 2008)

2008-12-31T03:06:00.000-08:00

Back on April 1, and July 1, and October 1, I posted quarterly State of the Union addresses on this blog detailing the progress I had made on my 2008 Ride List and 2008 Goal List. At the end of each quarter I always found myself looking forward to writing this post because its interesting for me to look back at the last three months to review what I've accomplished, how I've progressed, and where I want to improve.

I plan on doing an extensive year-end post hitting some of the high points from all of 2008, but in keeping with my tradition of quarterly progress reports, I wanted to do my 4th Quarter review separately.

2008 RIDE LIST:

As far as rides on my 2008 list, I entered Q4 with three rides left on my list. I finally rode the Big Laguna Loop (with extras) and La Costa, which I had been hoping to get to. BLT was an absolute blast because we added in some awesome bonus sections including Agua Dulce and Red Tail Roost. La Costa was decent, with a confidence-building trip down NASCAR coupled with a ton of climbing that wasn't entirely worth it. It was a fun enough trail, but not one I plan on doing on a regular basis like so many other riders in North County.

It looks like I will officially not be completing every ride on my 2008 List, however, because I didn't make it out to Lake Morena. I thought it was going to happen when the Rock MTB group scheduled a ride out there on December 20, but rain forced a change of venue and my last opportunity was squandered. I'm a little bummed to not have crossed every ride off the list, but I'll live. And I'll make sure to get out to Lake Morena in 2009 at least once.

2008 GOAL LIST:

As for my more general 2008 Goal List, the 4th Quarter was a good one. I entered the quarter with only four goals left unaccomplished. To remedy that fact, in early November I finally made it back out to Sycamore to clean all of Martha's Grove (up and down). A week earlier I had already knocked off Goal #2 by doing an all-day type ride courtesy of my Archipelago Ride. And then in early December I did a ride in the OC while riding the famed San Juan Trail. The only other goal left on the list was to improve my climbing skills and general fitness, which I have clearly done, though not to my complete satisfaction.

HIGHLIGHTS OF Q4:

The 4th Quarter was a great one for me, with several awesome rides and a couple of other interesting developments.

The most significant non-riding event of the quarter was the completion of my new bike, an Intense Spider XVP. I bought the frame online for a song back in August, and finally purchased all the components and had it built up in early October by the guys over at Bike Bling. The list of specs is available in this post which I wrote the day I picked it up from the shop. Over the next three months I made some minor additions including my own saddle, carbon handle bars, and finally some new pedals. The bike has been awesome, and though it ended up costing quite a bit, I was able to defray almost the entire cost using supplemental income so I didn't shatter our household budget. I have noticed a significant improvement in my climbing with the Spider over the Enduro, and the bike just seems to fit me better than any of my previous ones. I am looking forward to riding it for years to come.

As far as rides in Q4, I was glad to get Rach out on her first real MTB ride at Spring Canyon in early October. She did great, and I hope to get her out on more rides in 2009.

I also had a chance to do the annual Cuyamaca Poker Ride for the first time this year, and had one of my strongest riding days of the year in terms of fitness. The ride itself was OK, but it was the first real ride I did on the new Spider, and what a difference it made. My fitness and proper bike-fit made the experience much more enjoyable than it would have been if I was out of shape and on the Enduro, and I had a great time.

I also finally made it up to the Lagunas in Q4 to do the BLT ride and I'll remember it as one of the most purely enjoyable rides of the second half of the year. There wasn't any one thing that made it fun, but the trails were new and interesting, the company was good, and the scenery and weather were great, combining for a great day on the trails all around.

November brought my now ledgendary Archipelago Ride, which was a highlight of the entire year in terms of accomplishment. It was 42 miles of riding, and I had some physical challenges during the last third of the ride, but it felt great to finish the whole thing and I really felt like I had achieved something significant by the end. Between the three pre-rides and some google earth scouting efforts, planning the route was almost as much fun as riding it, and I learned that the "exploration" aspect of mountainbiking is one of my favorite parts of the hobby.

I also was glad to make it up to the famed San Juan Trail in December. Nate proved to be an awesome trail guide and de facto coach, and I performed better than I thought I would on a day where I wasn't even feeling my best. Making it all the way to Blue Jay was something I was really proud of, and I ended the ride once again feeling like I had achieved something significant.

My last ride of the year was another interesting one when I rode over at McGinty Mountain with a group of fast riders. The trail was fairly unknown, and while the ride itself wasn't a ton of fun, the backcountry feel and exploration aspect were extremely enjoyable, and I look forward to getting back there and exploring more early in 2009.

For the fourth quarter of 2008, I rode a total of 217.53 miles on my mountain bike, as opposed to 200.00 in Q3, 254.75 in Q2 and 140.25 miles in Q1. As a result, I rode 812.55 miles this year. I didn't have a total mileage goal at the beginning of 2008, but I feel like that number is adequate. I am thinking of setting a mileage goal for 2009, but don't want to be stressed about miles all year at the expense of fun on the trails.

As I said above, I'll be posting a year-end summary with thoughts and pictures from the entire year, but as far as Q4 goes, I feel like I finished strong and look forward to building on the miles I've logged and trails I've ridden this year as I head into 2009.

RR: Steele Canyon Secret Ride

2008-12-27T23:24:00.000-08:00

Billy sent out an email earlier this week inviting me and several others to a "secret ride" on an undisclosed trail in Rancho San Diego today. I knew the general area he was planning on taking us and am always interested in exploring, so I signed up to go.

I was sick for the first time in years on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but by Friday I was feeling significantly better and was pretty much 100% when I woke up Saturday morning, which was awesome. I was still a little worried about doing a large group ride in uncharted territory in light of my recent illness and below-average conditioning, but decided to suck it up and go.

The group met up at the Starbucks in RSD, and there were several familiar faces. Billy and Nate were there, as was Kevin L. and another rider from the Rock MTB group. I also recognized one guy, Steve, who rides with the World Cycles group quite a bit and who I saw at the Sweetwater ride in June and the Cuyamaca Poker Ride back in October. There were a few other faces I didn't recognize but everyone looked fast, increasing my anxiety somewhat. Still, I knew that Billy wouldn't let me get dropped, and I resolved to just have fun and try to keep up.

The route we took is a secret, which limits the amount of information that I am able to post here. The trails were all legal, and in fact after the ride I did some online reasearch and saw that they are popular with hikers due to the unique flora found in this particular area. The trails are relatively unknown to bikers at the moment, however, and all of us who came along today were asked to not publish directions or routes in order to keep them "underground" as long as possible. I promised to respect those wishes, and will do so. Those who would like to ride this trail and the others nearby are welcome to contact me through the blog and I'd be happy to lead a ride out there for a small group. Without giving away too much, the area we were in included portions of the McGinty Mountain ecological preserve and the trails were largely doubletrack with some singletrack.

In any event, generally speaking the ride began with about two miles of paved road riding, followed by a moderate but sustained fire road climb that began literally across the street from my old employer's home which was ironic.

We took a break in the middle of the fire road climb to wait for Billy who had doubled back early in the ride to pump up his shock, so I was able to keep up.

At the top of the fire road climb we had another regroup which was nice, and then began a series of singletrack climbs that were a little rough.

One of the guys I didn't know had a flat on the way up the singletrack climb, allowing for another break/regroup. This was to my benefit. He fixed it quickly and we were back under way. The climbing continued for another mile or so, and we eventually made it to a plateau that served as a georgeous viewpoint. Someone had built a teeter totter there, and a couple of guys took turns riding it. With the way it was positioned near the edge of the viewpoint, as you rode up the front side it looked like you were riding off the end of the earth. I didn't try it, but would like to some day.

The views were sweeping and impressive. I could easily see the ocean to the west, along with Mt. Helix, Cowles Mountain, and even Black Mountain off in the distance. After a short time at the viewpoint we continued along a rolling section of trail that soon gave way to our first sustained descent. The recent rains had made the descent extremely rutted, and several people in the group ended up walking down significant sections. One guy from the Rock cleaned almost the whole thing, and Nate did pretty well too. Steve and I weren't far behind, and I actually cleaned about 90% of the entire descent, including several gnarly rutted sections that were not easy. It wasn't as fun as it would have been if the trail was in good shape, but I really enjoyed it nonetheless.

We regrouped at the bottom and waited for the rest of the riders to make it down. There were some techy spots at the bottom that some cleaned and some didn't.

After everyone else caught up, we started climbing again. And then we continued to climb. And climb. Our route gradually began taking us farther and farther east, back into what felt like wilderness. That aspect of this ride was my favorite; it didn't feel like we were riding local trails, it felt like we were riding in the mountains. There were enough regroups to make me not feel like I was getting left behind, but I was in the back of the pack for the most part.

The scenery and weather were stunning, and while I would have enjoyed myself more if I wasn't huffing and puffing so much, the views and surroundings were too beautiful to no enjoy myself. Eventually the sum total of climbing caught up with me, and I had to do some HAB because of the steepening grade and fatigue. I don't know whether it was out of necessity or pity, but Billy joined me in my HAB for the last section of singletrack climbing which wound its way though a georgeous section of trail. I should have stopped for a picture, but was too tired and wanted to catch up with the group. I did stop near the top for a shot of the views back in the direction we had come from:

We eventually caught up with the rest of the group, and had reached a decision point. The consensus was that we should do a fun descent down the mountain at that point and then ride the road back to the shopping center, rather than re-trace our steps and have to HAB up that rutted descent that we had come down earlier in the ride.

The final descent was a lot of fun, though I did get stuck behind a couple of slower descenders and didn't get to open things up as much as I wanted. We eventually found ourselves at the bottom of the mountain on a dirt road, which we followed to a local street and began the 6 mile road ride back to the Starbucks.

While the description may not have sounded like it, this ride was actually a lot of fun. The backcountry feel and exploration aspects were awesome, and captured probably my favorite thing about mountain biking. The route itself we rode was a little underwhelming, with sustained climbs followed by short, steep, rutted downhills that weren't really worth the effort. There were dozens of other singletrack trails up there however that I can't wait to get back and explore, and I'm sure that with a little effort a fun loop can be developed.

Here are the stats:

Total Distance: 17.93miles
Total Time: 2:41:01
Ascent: 1969 feet
Average Speed: 6.7 mph
Top Speed: 25.7 mph
Bike: Intense Spider XVP
Map:
[Undisclosed for Now]

Spider Build: Final Piece

2008-12-24T12:15:00.000-08:00

It's Christmas Eve today and with that came the final piece of my Spider build. I had finally purchased a seat and handlebars of my own back in November when they became available at Bike Bling and forgot to post an update here, but that's not the focus of today's post. (For what its worth, I went with a WTB Pure V SLT saddle and Easton Monkeylite ML mid rise carbon bars, both of which I like very much.)

After getting my seat and bars, the only piece of the bike that wasn't new was my pedals. I had been using old Shimano M505 pedals from my Specialized FSR XC Pro, and while they worked decently they were far from high-end.

I had been researching pedals for a couple of months, trying to get an idea if I wanted to stick with SPD's or switch to Crank Brothers clipless pedals. Early on in my search I fell in love with the CB Acid 2's, thanks to their light weight, decent size platform, and cool white color that matched my bike. The problem was that the best price I could find for those pedals was around $160.00, which was outside my budget for pedals.

I had been combing ebay for a while, and a few days ago spotted the exact pedals I wanted (brand new) with a reserve of $60.00. At that point there were three days left on the auction, and I figured the price would go up to the $150 range eventually, but I put in a bid anyway just in case.

I monitored the auction closely, and was surprised and thrilled when I won the pedals for only $80.00. What was even better was that the seller voluntarily offered to reduce the shipping cost to me because he was just up the road in Lake Elsinore, so the total cost was $85.00.

I was in the office this afternoon working (on Christmas Eve!) when the mail arrived, and was blown away that the pedals came already. They were in perfect, new condition, and the seller had even included a second set of cleats and shims for free which was amazing.

Even better, the boss let me bang out of work around 1 PM, so I headed home and installed my new toys as soon as possible. They went on with no problem, and clipping in and out has never been easier.

I rode around the driveway to test them out, and at first blush I absolutely love them. They look perfect, feel really good under my feet, and are extremely easy to clip in and out of, something I had a problem with while using the SPD's.

I'm excited to take the bike out for a ride this weekend now that its in final form. Building it from scratch has been a ton of fun, and I feel inordinately blessed to have such a quality bike. It has truly been a merry Christmas already, and the big day isn't even until tomorrow...

Here's how she looks in all of her complete splendor:

RR: Sweetwater Reservoir

2008-12-21T13:09:00.000-08:00

Rachel is still dealing with the effects of the Fall River Virus she got on vacation, so I decided to head out to Skyline today by myself for church and then head over to my good friend John Nelson's college graduation party afterward. I knew that the party would be wrapping up around mid-afternoon and figured that would be an ideal time to go check out Sweetwater Reservoir again. The first and only time I had ridden there was back in June when I rode with the World Cycles crew, and I really enjoyed the trail, so I had been looking for an opportunity to get back there.

Before I could ride, however, I needed to obtain a replacement screw for my cleat after my mishap yesterday on Black Mountain. After church, on the way to the grad party I stopped at Soul Cycles in El Cajon to see about buying a replacement screw. The owner, Dave, was in the shop and hooked me up with a replacement screw for free, which I appreciated tremendously. In less than a minute I was in and out of the shop and able to ride that afternoon. Awesome.

The party was winding down around 2:00, so I headed over to the Steele Bridge and got underway. During the ride back in June, I arrived a few minutes late and had to fly to catch up with the group. It was nice today to start the ride at an easier warm-up pace, and I really enjoyed the first section of singletrack as it paralleled the Sweetwater river and made its way through several fun, techy spots.

At one point early on I passed a hiker and his large yellow lab who was walking off leash next to him. I waved hello and rode on without thinking much about it. About a half mile later, however, I came upon a large coyote just off the trail. The coyote was huge, almost the size of an adult German Shepherd, and it ran off slowly up the hill as I approached. I waited a minute as it retreated further up the hill and then decided to wait a minute or two more to warn the hiker and his dog. I knew that the coyote posed no real threat to a dog his size, but the size of the coyote itself and how slowly it ran away made me at least want to warn the hiker about its presence. The hiker was grateful and elected to leash his dog for the time being, so I felt good about staying to issue the warning.

From there I continued through the singletrack to the fire road that paralleled the river. There were one or two muddly spots in the middle of the fire roads, but I had no choice to just pedal through and not worry about it. At least the singletrack so far had been mud-free.

It had turned out to be an absolutely breathtaking day, and with the rain earlier in the week keeping me off the trails and another series of storms forecast for the next week, I was thrilled to be getting two rides in this weekend.

After the fire road I began the steep climb up the main hill. It had been my undoing back in June, and while I did significantly better today, there was still some HAB about 2/3 of the way through as fatigue set in. I was on the bike pedaling about halfway up when I experienced a "burp" in my rear tire for the first time. I have been running tubeless tires with Stan's sealant since I built the Spider, and I had heard they sometimes burp when the tire pressure gets low, but this was the first time it had happened. The tire was still far from flat, but I stopped and put some air in it anyway with my hand pump just to be sure. I took this picture from near the top of the climb where I stopped, looking back the way I'd come:

I eventually made it to the top of the climb, and then enjoyed the descent down toward the small pond and the short climb afterward toward the Palapa. From there I headed left up the next singletrack climb that would take me over towards the lake.

I made the next climb with no problem, and then came to a decision point. Back in June I had just doubled back to the Palapa from there, while most of the group descended down toward the lake and then did a steep singletrack climb up the back side of the hill to the Palapa. I had some gas left in my tank, and would always rather do a loop than an out-and-back, so I headed down the hill toward the lake.

This turned out to be a mistake, but not for the reason you may think.

The initial descent was very bumpy and rough, which seemed strange to me. At the bottom I made a right and rode along a narrow singletrack that was almost completely obliterated by post holes and clods of dirt. I pedaled as much as I could, but the soil was so torn up that it became impossible to ride. The only culprit I could determine was equestrians who had apparently ridden this trail right after the rain a few days ago. The trail for the next 3/4 of a mile was totally annihilated, with 4 inch deep holes and torn up soil along the entire trail. While there were two climbs that would have been tough if the trail was pristine, riding even the flat sections was impossible thanks to the damage. The scenery was pretty, even if the trail was a mess.

As a result I ended up HABing most of the singletrack between the bottom of the hill and the Palapa, which wasn't a ton of fun. Also, the extensive HAB caused my right cleat to start coming loose, which made clipping and unclipping a problem when I did try to ride a section of trail.

Once I finally reached the Palapa I tightened down both cleats and took in the views before getting back under way. The downhill from the back side of the Palapa was the highlight of the trail when I rode it in June, but there were some puddles on the lower section that I slowed down for today that took a little of the thrill out of it. I eventually re-joined the main fire road that took me back to the singletrack trail that parallels the river, and headed back towards the car.

During the singletrack section near the end I did manage to clean several short steep climbs that felt good, and also nailed a techy rocky downhill that was a lot of fun. The portion of this trail between the Steele Bridge and the fire road is a blast to ride and very scenic, making it one of my favorite sections of trail I've ridden.

I really enjoy this trail, and would ride it more often if it was closer to home. I really want to explore some singletrack that I saw betwee the steep climb and descent down from the Palapa as well. By the end of the ride my bike was a muddy mess from the puddles on the fire roads, but the fun I had was well worth it.

Here are the stats:

Total Distance: 12.05 miles
Total Time: 2:04:26
Ascent: 1706 feet
Average Speed: 5.8 mph
Top Speed: 20.4 mph
Bike: Intense Spider XVP
Map:

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RR: Black Mountain

2008-12-20T23:16:00.000-08:00

I had an interesting ride this morning that started out rough and only got worse, yet by the end I was still in a better mood than when I started. I must be making some progress in my approach to life.

I had a fairly limited window in which to ride this morning because of some home improvement projects and Christmas shopping that I had to do, so I was conflicted about where to ride. I'm a little bored with all of the regular stuff that I've been riding, and wanted something new. Doug invited me to go with him to explore some Ramona trails which I've wanted to do for a while, but he couldn't start until 10:00 a.m. and I didn't have the whole day available. I had also gone through another unfortunate two week layoff since my last ride and wasn't sure where my fitness would be.

My indecision led to laziness, and I elected to just stay near home and ride my local route to Black Mountain, with maybe a trip to the summit tacked on for good measure. As I started out and pedaled through the 4S trails towards the mountain, I figured that the least I could do to shake things up was to try to climb the rocky trail up the north face of the mountain to Miner's instead of riding Carmel Valley road to the paved climb up to the trailhead.

As I started the dirt climb things weren't too bad, but they deteriorated rapidly. My two weeks of 12 hour work days and no exercise exacted their toll about a third of the way up, and I was off the bike and huffing way earlier than I should have been. The dirt climb was a poor choice for me today, but would have been quicker and more fun than the two road climbs if I was in the right condition. I'll definitely try it again sometime soon, but need to get back on the stupid stationary bike beforehand.

I eventually reached the top and made my way over to Miner's. I was once again beset by more HAB than usual, and I was questioning my decision to even go for a ride this morning. I had done so well on Miner's just a few weeks ago, and it was particularly frustrating to be performing so badly today after having some great success back on November 30th. I was also unable to clean that fun techy section today that I had made a couple weeks ago, which was demoralizing.

As I essentially pushed my bike up Miner's clockwise, I considered just doing the loop and skipping the ride to the summit like I had tentatively planned. I felt like crap, and didn't want to continue to suffer during the limited down-time that I had available today. As I neared the cut-over trail that would mark my decision point, I looked back toward the north and was treated to an amazing view of the snow-capped Palomar mountains.

As I turned toward the east, I could see that the Cuyamaca mountains also had significant snowfall visible from where I was.

The views immediately changed my whole demeanor and attitude, and I decided to make the trek to the summit to see if I could get an even better view.

I rode pretty well through the cut-over, even cleaning the tricky G-out near the end, and then made the HAB up to the main fire road. I spun along the fire road happily toward the summit, where indeed the view were spectacular. I stopped near the top to enjoy the views to the east before continuing to the summit to check out the mountains to the north as well.

As I made it to the summit, I rode toward the edge of the road and planned to stop for a minute to take in the views. As I stopped and tried to unclip my left pedal, my shoe rotated outward but the cleat remained stationary, stuck in the pedal. I unclipped my right shoe quickly before I fell over, and realized that the left cleat was rotating underneath the sole of the shoe while still attached to the pedal.

I played with it for a minute or two, rotating my ankle around trying the get the cleat to unclip, but with no success. I eventually was forced to take the shoe off my foot while the shoe was still attached to the pedal, and spent about 10 minutes trying to dislodge the cleat and shoe from the pedal, frustrated but amused at the situation.

I tried all kinds of tricks, but eventually had to just put the shoe back on try to wrench it free by twisting my ankle. That method finally worked, and after the shoe came unclipped, I discovered the culprit that caused the problem: I had lost one of the screws that held the cleat in place, which caused the cleat to rotate on the bottom of the shoe instead of disengaging from the pedal.

The screw was apparently long gone, so I tightened down the remaining screw and clipped back in, hoping that tightening the one screw down very tight would keep the cleat from rotating. I put the shoe back on and clipped in. I then tried to unclip to test it out, and the cleat rotated inside the pedal and stayed clipped. Crap. I wrenched the shoe free again, and this time elected to remove the cleat entirely, meaning that I would be unable to clip in my left shoe at all. The Shimano M505 cleats that I was using have almost no platform, so pedaling was going to be a little rough, but I figured that was better than being stuck to the pedal during the entire descent down Black Mountain.

Time was also a factor at this point. I had things to do today and my mechanical issues had cost me about 25 minutes that I had not factored in when planning out this ride. I made it down the Gorge Trail without dabbing, but did stop to snap a picture on the way down so that I could illustrate why I have dubbed it the Gorge Trail.

I also almost made it up the steep climb at the end of Gorge but my left foot slipped off the pedal during my final lunge and I stalled briefly, forcing a dab.

I cleaned all the switches going down Miner's, and because of my pedal issues and time concerns, elected to just ride the main trail down the north face of the mountain back to the 4S trails to home. Even with all the pedal nonsense I made it home in less than two hours, which was nice. With the rough start fitness-wise and mechanical issues I would have expected myself to be frustrated at the end of the ride, but the views of those snow-capped mountains really had an effect on me, and I was in a great mood the rest of the day.

One thing that is becoming clear is that my occasional two week gaps between rides really hurts my endurance and sets back my fitness considerably. I need to do something during the week to make sure my fitness doesn't drop as dramatically as it did these last two weeks when I was unable to ride. It looks like the stationary bike may be the only option...

Here are the stats from today:

Total Distance: 8.57 miles
Total Time: 1:59:51
Ascent: 1702 feet
Average Speed: 4.3 mph
Top Speed: 31.6 mph
Bike: Intense Spider XVP
Map:

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RR: North Hodges

2008-12-07T20:16:00.000-08:00

I managed to work in a quick North Hodges ride this afternoon before the Bronco game, primarily out of a sense of obligation. With Rach still out of town my time is my own, and I wanted to get some miles in when I had the chance. I was a little tired from 22 miles at San Juan Trail yesterday, so I wanted to do a ride that was fun but not too strenuous. North Hodges was the perfect fit.

When I arrived at the parking lot near the Self Storage, I realized that there wasn't any water left in my camelback from yesterday's ride like I had thought. So I threw a multi-tool in my jacket pocket and decided to ride without a camelback, something I almost never do.

I rode the basic North Hodges route, under the bridge, up the short hill, down along the lake, across the creek, up the fire road, up the ridge trail, down toward the lake, along the singletrack that parallels the road, through the fun singletrack that lines the west side of the lake, finishing at Hernandez Hideaway. When I reached HH, I realized that it had taken me just over 33 minutes to get that far. I decided at that moment to see if I could achieve a "negative split" for this ride, meaning I would try to take less time to ride back to the car than I did to reach the midpoint at HH.

I was already a little tired at that point, but spun a higher gear through the west side singletrack and along the road in order to try to make up time, and then prepared myself for the short, steep climb up to the ridge. I had not been able to clean that climb during the back-half of the Archipelago Ride, but today I sucked it up and grunted my way to the top. Without stopping to pat myself on the back, I spun through the ridge singletrack as quickly as I could. I did get hung up on the section where you have to get up and over a series of rocks during a turn on the trail, but after a dab was able to keep going. (At some point I really need to get to where I can clean that spot. Its ridiculous that there is a section at Hodges I can't clean...)

As I descended from the ridge and pedaled along the fire road that runs just above the lake, I could see that a negative split would be tough to get. I was also tiring significantly at that point and had one last climb near the end to contend with still. Despite my negative projections, I flew down the fire road as fast as I could, crossed the stream, and turned big gears during the singletrack along the lake. Time was slipping away as I approached the final climb, and I rode up as fast as I could. As I reached the summit of that last climb I was at the one hour four minute mark, meaning I had to make it back to the car in less than two minutes to achieve a negative split.

I flew down the last descent, rode toward the freeway, then under the bridge and big-ringed the last section of "trail" toward the parking lot. As the stats below prove, I made my negative split by a mere three seconds, tired but pleased with my accomplishment.

It was a fun "training" style ride, and I was pretty happy to have made it to Hernandez Hideaway and back in an hour and 5 minutes. I may try to shoot for under an hour next time just to make things interesting.

Once again Rachel had the camera, but I think I have enough pictures of Hodges and the pace of this ride didn't lend itself to photos anyway.

Here are the stats:

Total Distance: 12.21 miles
Total Time: 1:05:57
Ascent: 805 feet
Average Speed: 11.1 mph
Top Speed: 20.9 mph
Bike: Intense Spider XVP
Map:

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RR: San Juan Trail

2008-12-06T17:16:00.000-08:00

With Rachel out of town this weekend I knew I wanted to do a big Saturday ride, but didn't know where to go. I debated about doing Aliso, Noble, or the San Clemente singletracks, but after a call from Nate Friday afternoon, my fate was sealed: We were finally riding San Juan.

The circumstances were perfect: Billy was out with the flu or else he would have vetoed San Juan (he hates it after a bad experience in July), Nate had been there so he knew the trail, and I had the whole day free. Awesome.

Nate picked me up at a park and ride in RB at 6:30, and we made it to the trailhead by about 7:45. The morning was flawless; cool and crisp but not cold, and the temperatures were ideal for climbing. Which we would be doing a lot of on this trail.

After a short warm-up pedaling in circles in the parking lot, we started up the famed San Juan Trail. The first set of switchbacks came up right away, and I found myself breathing hard from the get-go. Despite how good I felt riding last weekend, I hadn't been on the stationary bike all week, and it appeared that I was going to pay for that.

I made a couple of the early switchbacks, especially those that turned to the left. The right turns were more of a problem for me, and I found myself dabbing fairly often.

The trail was in good condition overall, and wasn't loose, but it was rutted, and I found myself having some balance issues climbing while in the deep ruts in the middle of the trail. I handled the climb OK for the first section, and Nate was nice enough to wait up if he found himself getting too far out in front.

There were a couple of spots fairly early on where the trail had eroded, leaving a narrow space with significant exposure off to the side. I walked two of those sections but sacked up and rode a couple others.

As the climb continued there were a couple of really tough, rocky switchbacks that I also had to hike, and eventually fatigue set in and I found myself HABing sections of ridable trail because I was simply tired.

At one point I fell farther behind than usual, and Nate came back to ride with me. I rallied a little at that point, and rode fairly strongly for a bit before fatigue once again reared its ugly head. Eventually I was riding again, and made it to the top of the main portion of the climb. At that point I enjoyed a really fun flowy section of singletrack that undulated and wound through some scrub bushes. After that it was more climbing, and then suddenly we were at Cocktail Rock. We had hit Cocktail at exactly the two hour mark of the ride, which I realize isn't great, but didn't feel terrible either. On a better climbing day fitness wise, I could have shaved at least a half-hour off that time. Nate could have done it solo in an hour.

Spent a few minutes at Cocktail, and asked some guys there if they knew about the upper loop that Nate had never ridden. They suggested we ride all the way to Blue Jay, which I wasn't sure about, but we decided to go for it. They were riding towards Blue Jay, but planned to split off to go ride Los Pinos and offered to show us where to go as far as they could. We left Cocktail as part of their group, rode down a fun downhill section, through some meadows, and then started climbing again. The trail at that point reminded me a lot of Noble, with brush and trees along the trail and fun rocky singletrack as the main feature.

I began to really feel the effects of the climbing about halfway to Blue Jay, and was getting a little concerned about bonking. After one particularly long climb I caught up to Nate, who told me that the rest of the group had split off to go ride Los Pinos, and had given him directions to Blue Jay. We rested for a minute there, and Nate helped me try to fix my pedals, which had been giving me problems. After a short rest and some bike repair, we started out to complete the last leg of our trip to Blue Jay.

The next section of trail did have some climbing, but was mostly manageable and I was able to stay on the bike and ride the whole thing. After just a short while we found ourselves standing at the Blue Jay campground, tired but pleased with our achievement.

After a short rest, we started back the way we came, eager to enjoy the fruit of our labor from all the climbing we had done. The downhill from Blue Jay to the base of the hill we had descended earlier was a blast, and it was over far to quickly. We then had a fairly lengthy HAB up the steep downhill we had ridden after Cocktail, and once we reached the top we were excited and ready for some sustained downhill as we descended San Juan.

The descent was fun and fast, though I did have a problem descending a couple of the upper switchbacks. On one of them I turned too tight and started to tip, and my left shoe would not come unclipped. As a result I capsized, landing painfully on my left knee and shin, still clipped in. I actually lay there for a minute or two, stuck, until I was able to wrench my cleat free from the pedal. I really want new pedals. I had some scrapes and bruises from the fall, but no serious injuries, and re-mounted the bike and pedaled on.

After that mishap I was a little tentative descending some of the other techy switchbacks, but did manage to clean a couple. We bombed the rest of the downhill in no time, and were back at the car quicker than I expected.

It was a fun ride, and one I'd actually do again. I wish I had been more faithful on the stationary bike in the week leading up to it so my conditioning had been a little better, but as it was I wasn't terrible. I'm very happy we decided to go all the way to Blue Jay. Even though the extra climbing was rough, I finished the day feeling pretty good, and had plenty left in the tank. I hear there is a "lollipop loop" after Cocktail that I'm sorry we missed, since our entire ride was an out and back.

Nate was an excellent ride leader, and provided me with several helpful tips during the climb that helped me pedal more efficiently, take the switchbacks better, and ride in and above ruts more effectively. I appreciated his input tremendously.

We stopped for Mexican on the way home, and then I relaxed and watched college football the rest of the afternoon. Awesome day.

Rachel had the camara for her vacation, and we gave my old one to her sister, so I am without pictures for this entire ride, which is a disappointment. The views from the top of SJT were georgeous, and we could see all the way to Catalina. I won't be without a camara the next time I ride here.

This was also the final "tangible" item on my 2008 Goal List: Do a Ride in the OC. With the completion of this ride, the only item on my List that I haven't crossed off is the "Improve my Climbing and General Fitness goal, which I will evaluate at the end of the year. I was thrilled to get this ride in before the year ended, and will talk more about the goals and my accomplishments in my year-end post that will come in a few weeks.

Here are the stats:

Total Distance: 21.14 miles
Total Time: 4:46:40
Ascent: 4377 feet
Average Speed: 4.4 mph
Top Speed: 19.0 mph
Bike: Intense Spider XVP
Map:

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RR: Local Ride w/Miner's Loop and Canyon Rim

2008-11-30T22:23:00.000-08:00

I had a chance to work in a bonus ride this weekend this afternoon, which is always nice. After church and some household chores were done, Rach had some project she wanted to work on and I found myself with a free hour and decided to just do a local ride to get some bonus miles in.

I headed from home over to Black Mountain, intending to just do the Miner's Loop and head back. The trail conditions were absolutely amazing thanks to some light showers we had experienced a few days earlier, and I found myself cleaning sections up the clockwise side of Miner's that I never make. It felt awesome, and I was maintaining a pretty brisk pace through the entire first part of the ride.

I still did have some HAB on Miner's, but it was much, much less than usual. I even cleaned a fun, techy spot with several big rocks in the middle of the climb that I have always fumbled in the past. It also helped that I remembered to lock-out my front fork on most of the climb, which made some the the steep rock-ups much easier.

I bypassed the cut-over and decided to just ride the entire Miner's Loop clockwise. At the top of the loop I ran into a hiker and his three kids, one of whom was in a regular small-wheeled stroller. I said hello as I stopped to let them pass, and laughed as the Dad pushed the stroller up and over several large rocks in the trail.

After they passed, I continued the descent and managed to clean all of the switchbacks at the end of Miner's, something that usually feels more difficult than it was today. The trail conditions were simply amazing.

From the end of Miner's I headed over to Canyon Rim, where I cleaned the whole descent except for one usually easy spot that was not as packed down as I expected. It was right at the apex of a tight turn that looked solid enough as I approached, but when I rode over it and started to turn, the soil beneath my tire shifted and I was forced to dab in order to keep from sliding off the trail into the bush.

From there I headed down the crazy fire road and up the short climb near the pond, then down the hill near the houses and through the 4S trails to home. I noticed at the end of the ride that today's ride was a little longer than yesterday's, but right outside my back door and in an hour less time. The exploration yesterday was worth the drive, but the contrast was amusing considering the very similar mileage and climbing statistics.

It felt good to get in a final ride in November, and heading into the final month of 2008 I'm not sure how much I'll be able to ride, so the bonus miles were nice. Also, my fitness seems to be improving, particularly since I've been hitting the stationary bike for a half hour or so three times per week. It makes a big difference that I can really recognize on days like today.

It was a last minute local ride, and I forgot my camera, so no pictures unfortunately. But I did have the GPS, so here are the stats:

Total Distance: 9.60 miles
Total Time: 1:19:408
Ascent: 1539 feet
Average Speed: 7.3 mph
Top Speed: 35.7 mph
Bike: Intense Spider XVP
Map:

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RR: "Lower Noble" and Extra Credit

2008-11-29T22:20:00.000-08:00

This morning I elected to do a little exploring with Billy up at Noble Canyon. Rather than ride the regular route, however, Billy wanted to explore some singletrack near the bottom of the trail that he had been eying on previous rides.

We met up at our usual spot in La Mesa and carpooled up to the lower Noble trailhead. The parking lot was pretty full already, though we only saw a few other riders at the bottom.

We headed out of the main parking lot and headed towards the road climb that most people take when doing the full Tour de Noble. Our plan was a little undefined, but the general goal was to explore the lower singletrack and see if there was another route into Noble Canyon itself.

Instead of taking the road climb at first, we rode a section of brushy singletrack that was actually pretty fun. From there it was a short climb, and then we had a fun downhill singletrack section that eventually ended up on the trail that I've used in the past as a bailout point when descending Noble when I didn't want to do Extra Credit at the end. Instead of heading east towards Extra Credit, we headed west and began the road climb.

We climbed for a mile and a half or so, and Billy pointed out several spots where we could have linked up with some singletrack that paralleled the road. Instead, we kept climbing.

About halfway up the paved road climb, we reached a spot where Billy knew of a fire road that linked up with some singletrack trails just east of the road. We started up the fire road but were stopped by a guy in a Bobcat who told us that the fire road was closed to hikers and bikers.

We tried to plead out case, but the guy became really agitated, so we doubled back down the road a short distance to where we had seen a trail that headed east which we figured would meet up with the fire road anyway.

When we arrived back at that trail, we had some doubts. It was steep, rocky, and looked like there would be some HAB. Also, it wasn't clear from the bottom of the trail whether it in fact did intersect the fire road we had been looking for. After some discussion, we decided to give it a shot.

We HAB'ed for about half a mile up the steep hill, and at a couple of points almost turned back when we couldn't see if the trail intersected the fire road. We perservered just a little higher, however, and were rewarded with the junction we were hoping for. Here is a shot of what we climbed:

From the fire road we headed south (heading north would have taken us back to Bobcat guy very quickly) and began looking for another section of singletrack, which we found after a little while riding along the fire road.

The next section was very entertaining, with some techy spots and tight turns that were a blast. We followed the trail as it wound southeast, and eventually ended up at another fire road that split into two directions. One direction headed east into Noble Canyon.

The other direction headed southwest, back down towards the paved road. We were not here to ride Noble today, we wanted to explore lower Noble singletrack, so we took the trail less traveled and sailed down towards the paved road. During the descent, a bee apparently flew into my jersey and stung me right on the chest. I reached inside my jersey and pulled the stinger out, but the sting still hurt like crazy. Annoyed but undaunted, we soldiered on.

We reached the paved road after a short descent, and instead of taking it back down towards the trailhead, we followed a neat singletrack trail south that paralleled the road for a bit.

It proved to be another fun section of narrow singletrack that clearly didn't get much use. Brush was encroaching on all sides, and we were a little scratched and scraped by the time we reached what we thought was a dead end. We were about to double back and though we'd have to just ride the road back toward the trailhead when Billy suggested we hike up a bit from the dead end to see if we could meet up with the road that way. It turned out to be a good call, and we found that where we stopped wasn't really a dead end, just a place where the brush was a little more dense than even before. We plowed through, and found ourselves at the dirt lot that was next to the road where the Noble bailout trail intersected.

From there we headed farther south for just a short bit to ride a fun section of downhill singletrack that was an absolute blast. It was flowy and packed down, allowing me to get up some real speed. At the end of that short section we doubled back on the singletrack we had ridden earlier, and instead of heading west toward the paved road, we headed east toward Extra Credit.

We climbed Extra Credit, and while I was tired, I managed to clean the climb without stopping which was a first for me. We did stop at the top to rest for a minute and prep for the descent, and then we were on our way.

The first part of the Extra Credit downhill is fun and manageable, but it gets much more technical towards the bottom. Back in April I cleaned about 70% of the techy sections on the Enduro, but today I struggled somewhat. I don't think it had anything to do with the Spider itself, which had been a blast to ride all day. Part of my problem was that I was more tentative than usual. I had fallen over earlier on the ride and put a horrible scratch on the lowers of my beautiful new Fox F100 RLC, which had really upset me. As a result, as I navigated the rocky minefield that is lower Extra Credit, I was more worried about falling and scratching up my bike than I was choosing the right line or keeping momentum like I needed to.

Also, the trail conditions were a little damp up at Noble today, and while there wasn't any mud or puddles, dirt kept getting in my pedals and cleats, making clipping and unclipping difficult. On the fall that scratched my fork, I was unable to unclip and put a foot down to stabilize myself because of the dirt in the cleat and pedal. With that memory fresh in my head, I found myself walking portions of Extra Credit that I had cleaned seven months ago, which was a disappointment.

I did stop to session a spot or two, and cleaned the ones I focused on trying to make, which was nice.

At the end of the trail I took my traditional picture next to the trailhead sign, and we visitied for a few minutes with a group of guys who had shuttled down the main Noble Canyon trail for a while before heading home.

It was a fun, low-key ride that fit the bill for today. I wasn't up for an epic Noble ride and didn't want to do any of the same old north county rides that I had been doing, so some fun exploration at an easy pace was perfect. It was quite a drive to make for nine miles of riding, but the exploration aspect was worth it.

Also, doing a big chunk of the road ride was a good trail run for the full Tour de Noble that I hope to do sometime in 2009. The new trails also provide some fun variations to the Noble route that will make for a more interesting trip out there next time.

Here are the stats:

Total Distance: 9.08 miles
Total Time: 2:24:08
Ascent: 1772 feet
Average Speed: 3.8 mph
Top Speed: 21.1 mph
Bike: Intense Spider XVP
Map:

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