Family – The Ramblings of MTBBill

Roadtrip Part 2 – North Rim

The August Roadtrip continues on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. My longtime buddy Bill O’Neil joined us on the segment of the trip arriving a couple of hours after we setup camp.

Day 8 – The Morning Cup of Joe. The Rainbow Rim Trail three feet behind me.

Day 8 – We rode the Rainbow Rim Trail from Locust Point to Parisswapitts Point as an Out-And-Back. On our way back, at the best downhill section I had a pretty castistrophic tire slash. Somehow I got 1.5″ slash in side of the tire. I was able to boot the tire with duct tape, but it did not last. I ended up bailing and letting Bill drive back and pick me up near Fence Point.

Day 9 was an side trip to Hurricane Utah to get a new tire. Hats off to Quentin an the fellows at Over The Edge Hurricane for getting me taken care of and back rolling. I also bought a spare tire so should such a thing happen again I won’t have to make another unscheduled day trip.

Day 10 – Rainbow Rim Locust to Timp OAB. Thunderstorms were the start of the show!

Day 10 – The Rainbow Rim Trail from Locust Point to Timp Point and back. Nichol had to roll out and go back to adulting so Bill and I were left to our methods of mayhem.

Day 11 – Another segment of the AZT in the books

Day 11 – The Arizona Trail. Telephone Hill to Highway 89A. Boy did we thread the needle with a weather window. We got sprinkled on a little on the ride, but not one minute after we got in the truck at the far end did the skies shutdown and pounding began. On our way back to camp we thought there was snow on the ground but it was piled up hail. Crazy!

Day 12 – Basecamp near Navajo Lake established. Elevation 9,150 feet

Day 12 – Moved to Navajo Lake. The forest service roads getting off the north rim held up well from the storms. While not terribly far of a drive, between some admin tasks like tear down, dumping tanks, getting more fresh water and setting up and the new location it took up the bulk of the day. A good rest day.

The Utah Adventure starts!

Roadtrip Part 1 – Flagstaff

So I am on three-week MTB vacation. These posts are quite a bit time late as I typically have the choice of riding, enjoying tasty beverages, chilling or posting stuff on the internet. Guess which one gets bottom billing? Here is a quick recap of the events of the first part.

Day 1 – The MTBBILL Mobile Command Module moves to Flagstaff

Day 1 was the transit to Flagstaff with the travel trailer. The first ride was on day 2 in the Fort Valley area. I climbed up Chimney, Lower Moto, a bit of the AZT, connected up with Secret and then descended Schultz Creek. Schultz Creek was ever bit as good as I remembered it

On Day 3, I checked out the Flagstaff MTB skills park which was right next to where I camped at Fort Tuthill. This is an impressive skills park with access to the regional network of trails. After playing around at the park, I hit up Soldiers Trail and The Bridge trail to loop right back to camp.

Day 4 – A good chunk of the Walnut Creek segment of the Arizona Trail

I also did a side trip to check out Fisher Cave which is down in the valley shown in the previous picture.

Day 4 was Chicken Noodle Soup for the MTB Soul. The Walnut Creek Segment of Arizona Trail is simply amazing. I did about an 18 mile loop that included the AZT, the Flagstaff loop trail and other tasty singletrack. Later that evening my lovely wife and dogs arrived to join in the vacation festivities.

My lovely wife joined me for MTB vacation time.

For Day 5 I cut my wife some slack and we did a shuttle up to the top of Schultz pass. We then did the half of the loop I climbed in day 2 as a descent. Secret to AZT to Moto to Chimney and the the lower bit of Schultz Creek. She was most appreciative of not throwing a beat down on her out of the gate.

For Day 6, I did a 24 mile dumbell looking route from camp that included Highland, Soldiers, Flagstaff Loop, Rogers. Gold Digger and Two-Spot. It was a glorious morning when I started. Pretty much at the apex of my ride the thunderstorms rolled in. I had 10 miles with a hill in the middle to get over. I arrived back at camp a waterlogged mess. It was kinda awesome in its own way.

Day 7 – MBB Mobile Command Module Underway

Day 7 was move day. It sucked having to pack up all the stuff that got caught out in the storm. Everything has “its place” with our little house on wheels and stuff being wet meant stuff had to go in different places. I managed to get rolling by 10AM enroute to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Now I have been to Locust Point a handful of times but I had never traveled those 20 miles of dirt roads towing a trailer. A handful of miles down the main dirt road. I parked my truck and trailer and hopped in my wife’s Outback and we drove the rest of the way to access the remaining roads and potential spots. After a successful scouting mission in the Outback (Dubbed the Lunar Lander), I was back in the truck with the Command Module in tow. We got a primo spot with the Rainbow Rim trail about 30 feet out our door with the canyon a few feet beyond that.

The adventure continues…

Out for the season

Messing Up my knee back in February was a blessing in disguise, maybe even a life-saver. My knee and ears hurt bad enough that I went to see my primary doctor, with whom I had not seen in five or so years. My knee hurt from the bike injury and my ears hurt from hearing my incredible wife wanking everyday about me needing to go have that looked at. Instead of looking at just my knee, my doctor insisted on doing a full workup as if I were a new patient. After reviewing my medical records, she took note of a diagnosis of a faint heart murmur about 20 years ago. She referred me to a Cardiologist.

After my initial visit with the Cardiologist and an EKG (A bunch of wires, pads and holes in my man sweater afterwards), I was called back in a few days later for an ECG (ultrasound of the heart). A few days after that my Cardiologist called me and informed that my faint hear murmur had degraded into moderate to borderline severe Aortic Stenosis with regurgitation. Basically, my Aortic Valve was not opening and closing properly and it was allowing non-oxygenated blood to backflow into the chamber where the oxygenated blood is at. This is causing my heart to work harder than it should. I was not having any of the typically symptoms of fatigue, shortness of breath, chest pain and numbness in the extremities at the time. My Cardiologist was quite the straight shooter with me in that the only way to fix my particular condition was with surgery and it would most likely need to happen within a year or two max. He set me up for a six-month follow-up with a stipulation that I should call him if any of those symptoms develop.

Looking forward to getting back out here

Between then and now I became more self-aware that I was having some of those symptoms. Fatigue, well I’m not a spring chicken and getting old sucks. Shortness of breath, well yeah when I’m climbing a steep hill on my bike and …I’m no spring chicken. Now for chest pain, I cracked my sternum in 2004 in an MTB crash and I was chalking that slowly growing discomfort up to being visited by the ghost of bike injuries past. (Which is a thing…when you are not a spring chicken.)

In late September, I had that follow up round of testing with my Cardiologist and things had continued to degrade. I was not completely surprised when he told me it was time to take care of this. Failing to take action now could result in permeant damage to my heart beyond the valve and put me at escalating risk of an “unscheduled” cardiac event in the next 1-5 years.

On November 11^th, I had open heart surgery to replace my aortic valve (with an bovine valve #prostethitic_heart_valves). I had already had a cardiac caterer procedure and no other work was needed such as stints or bypasses. I spent five days in the hospital and I am now recovering at home. Currently I’m in the “sucks to be me” level recovery at home which should glide slope into “does not suck as bad to be me” recovery for a total of two to three months. If all goes well, I’m expected to be able to resume normal life (to include mountain biking) around mid-February.

After the initial diagnosis back in March, I made a serious commitment at eating healthier and getting fit beyond just mountain biking. I feel like I was pretty close to the fittest and healthiest I could possible be going into the surgery. I was working on the premise that the “Stronger In…Stronger Out” mantra would apply for my recovery. Between all of my fitness recording devices (fitness watch, heart-rate monitor, Peloton) I have a good set of baseline metrics of where I was at pre-surgery to geek out on as I work my way back to where I was and beyond. Right now the focus is on letting the heart fully heal. The big stick in this recovery tent is going to be my sternum healing up.

I had to give my primary doctor a huge Thank You. I know myself well enough (now) to realize that if she had not sent me to that cardiologist, I would have continued to press on with my life and chalking up those sneaky symptoms to just having a tough time staying in shape as I age. I think we as mountain bikers are often limit pushers. We push ourselves to be fitter, faster, more skilled, or at any number of aspects of the sport that we love. I think along with that goes a bit of just suck it up mentality and push on through. I recommend that as your vintage starts getting interesting, you should not assume that fatigue, shortness of breath of just generally having a tougher time being able to do what you used to do is related to just the date on your birth certificate. It would be better to be on the safe side with a check up, because it is always better to out on the dirt than be under the dirt!

The knee is all better by the way. #AfterMarketHeartParts

Norcal Roadtrip

So my youngest son, Jake has been accepted to Humbolt State University to finish off his degree in Forestry and Wildland Fire Management. We decide to take the travel trailer up there for a week to get the lay of the land and find him a place to live out in town. First stop along the journey was a overnighter to see my oldest son who lives south of San Jose. It was really nice to have both of my not so much boys anymore in the same spot.

The next made the rest of the way up north and setup shop in Trinidad at a campsite nestled between redwoods.

So everyday we had some chores to do which mostly included scoping out rooms for rent and doing interviews with the landlords/owners.

But that stuff took up less than half of each day so we were about to checkout some stuff.

As luck would have it a good friend, JD, has a brother who lives in nearby Bluelake. After some emails and phone calls his brother Tim took Jake and I out for a tour through the local woods. We even started right from the HSU campus. I do believe Jake is pretty stoked about this.

The last day our planned stay up there we ended up finding “The Place” and put some ink to paper. The next morning we headed out but this time we decided to take a different route we took us inland though some mighty pretty country side. I’m not so sure SoCal is ever going to get Jake back.

We made our way down to Fresno and had enough time to check out thier MTB skills park. It was not bad. I would not make a special trip for it, but if you are passing through, go for it.

The next day we mad our way back to home. A very productive and fun trip.

One Helluva Fall!

What a fall, what a fall! Well actually has been a crazy last half of the year. Sometimes work is well, a whole lot of work and this year was particularly so. I spent way too much traveling this year to places I’m not particularly fond of.

The work was certainly rewarding and the people I interacted are some of America’s finest, but I’m glad to put this years traveling for work behind.

The MTB action as been pretty sparse as of late as well. With limited time back at the homestead I put a priority on quality time with the family.

Of course I was not off the bike cold-turkey, I was just hitting up some of the local goods for quickies vice big rides. Sometimes it was more about relaxing out on the trail than the actual riding. One of my favorite spots out at Daley Ranch is pictured below.

And of course Lake Calavera is almost in my backyard so there were a few loops done out there as well.

For those of you who have been paying attention you should have noticed a growing prominence of pictures of this young lady pictured below over the last handful of years on the site. Nichol and I have known each other for 30 years. Last year we got engaged and…..

This month we went and got hitched! Instead of having wedding and working the logistics of people coming to see us get married, we traveled back to Chicago and got married at the spot where we first met.

We then went on bit of traveling wedding celebration road show. We flew down to Virginia where we shared some tasty beverages and grub with friends there. From there we drove down to North Carolina to celebrate with most of my family that live in that area.

My oldest son joined us in North Carolina and I was stoked for him to be able to spend some time with my folks. Will loves to fish so my Dad and his friends hooked us up with some excellent time out on one of the local lakes.

We ended up with cooler full of fish and memories to last a lifetime.

While there was no MTBing done back in North Carolina, I did a enjoy taking Will on a stroll through the same woods I tromped around in when I was a kid. It was every bit as rewarding as a great MTB ride.

We finished up the road show back in San Diego with a gathering at a Common Theory Public House with some of our local peeps.

So it has been quite a ride over the last handful of months without a whole lot of riding. I’m looking forward to the future along with getting the normalcy of two-wheeled excitement back into the rotation. Live On…..Ride On!

Laguna Mountains Camping

Last Sunday through Wednesday my youngest son, Jake, and I did a three-night camping trip up in the Laguna Mountains east of San Diego. We got in some mountain biking, hiking and some good just kicking back time.

Nichol joined us on the first day for a bike ride around the meadow, dinner and some marshmallow destruction before heading back home to play responsible adult while the boys played in the dirt. Over the last few years there has been some reroutes to the meadow loop as well to some of the spur trails. I would say they are all for the better.

Back at camp, the marshmallows did not stand a chance.

The morning of day 2 was meet with some leisurely breakfast making before hitting up some of the trails.

Some play time on the Los Gatos trail was had.

Jake working on a skinny.

Jake working the camera.

We spent the early part of the afternoon just chilling out camp watch the squirrels trying to figure out how to get to our camp treats. This guy was craving some Cheetos. That afternoon we did a hike nearby that include the PCT connector trail from the meadow.

Day 3 we were up pretty early to hit some of the other Pretty Cool Trails in the area. We rode the meadow over the Penny Pines Trailhead and then made our way over the Pioneer Mail Trailhead where we picked up the Pine Mountain Trail. We took the Pine Mountain trail over to the Indian Creek Trail at Champagne Pass. Indian Creek is the primary legal trail connector for bikes between Cuyamaca and the Laguna Mountains.

We dropped off of Champagne pass to the east on the Indian Creek trail heading back to towards the Lagunas.

Jake loves him some downhill fun but is not a fan of climbing at all. He wonders why every place can’t be like Mammoth or Big Bear. Once we got to meadow pictured above, I took great pleasure in letting him know it was 3 miles to anywhere from here in either direction and it was uphill in both directions. We continued on the Indian Creek Trail to the east and climbed up to the junction with the Noble Canyon Trail.

From there we turned north and climbed Noble. (Colloquially known as the “Elbon” trail.) There is a recently completely reroute of Noble up near the top. The reroute eliminates a couple of road crossings. The new section is much tighter and a twistier that the original section and while a bit loose right now it should bed in nicely once we get some rains. I’m sure some of the Strava-tards and will wank about the reroute messing with their times. (My suggesting to those folks is shut up, just ride faster or turn to juicing.) Noble Canyon has its loyal followings of which some subscribe to the “Never Change My Trail” mentality so I would expect there will be discontent for a few months. Personally I think the reroute is going to be really nice once bedded in.

We took the “shortcut” spur trail that connects back to west end of the meadow vice going all the way back to the Penny Pines Trailhead. Once back at the meadow it was a quite spin back to camp.

It was pretty hot during the middle of the day so we kicked back in the shade of camp for a while before jumping in the truck for a swing by Laguna General Store for a Mexican Coke (The south of the border variant is made with real cane sugar vice corn syrup…tastier) and an Ice Cream bar before we did some recon work for some of the other trails in the area that are on my to-do list. Dinner that night was some tasty rib-eyes, grilled asparagus and zucchini with some brown rice. That night we shook off the food coma by strapping on the headlamps to do a mini night ride out on the meadow that included some lights off time to check out the stars on that completely dark night.

The next morning I was up before sunrise to get in a solo ride while the boy slept in. Presumably there would be no one else out of the trail as well. Sunrise was a Pretty Cool Time of day to be out and about by yourself in the woods. On the way back from the 16 mile loop I saw Mr. Wyle Coyote out looking for breakfast. After the initially moving away from me for a bit the coyote went back to hunting once establishing that I was not there to bother him. I watched him for a good five minutes or so before moving along.

Jake was just waking up when I got back to camp. A second round of coffee was in order for me and it was time for breakfast all around. After breakfast it was time to break down camp and head out of the mountains. I had a great time on the camping trip with Jake. With the exception of a few minutes, we did not have data coverage so having Jake “unplugged” was a bonus. With no competition with the all powerful 3G/4G it allowed for things like watching the “Campfire TV”, gazing at the stars, observations of the “little” things and conversations that would rarely occur otherwise. Good times. With some new GPS data and observations, I’m planning on updating some of the maps, files and pages I have for this area on the site, so stay tuned.

Another Cruise in Cuyamaca

Nichol and I went back up to Cuyamaca State Park this past weekend for another ride. We started at the staging area by the San Diego River and went up the west-side connector trail to the Visitor Center

From there we took the Green Valley fire road up through the valley to the bottom of Soapstone Grade.

Instead of making the left hander and going up Soapstone Grade fire road which is part of the Cuyamaca Grand Loop, we continued straight onto the Upper Green Valley Trail and climbed up to the La Cima trail that roughly parallels Sunrise Highway. This section of trail was fairly rocky which extracts some additional energy out of you beyond what the grade would tell. As you near the top of the trail you leave Cuyamaca Rancho State Park and enter the Anza Borrego State Park.

We then took the La Cima trail west and enjoyed some sweet flowing mostly downhill singletrack for a couple of miles.

When then turned south onto the California Riding and Hiking Trail (CRHT). This a is really nice section of singletrack that offers some great views of Lake Cuyamaca and the surrounding grasslands.

For the first half of this section you are doing some mild climbing before the trail transitions into mild descending with good flow.

Just before the CRHT joins up with Soapstone Grade fire road at top of that fire road’s steep climb you leave the Anza Borrego State Park and reenter Cuyamaca Rancho State Park. From here we turned east on Soapstone Grade fireroad for about a mile of flat land cruising.

We then took the Stonewall Creek fireroad south from here which shed off elevation fairly quickly back down into Green Valley. There are both some rocky and sandy sections on this fire road that if not handled well, can lead to an unplanned dismount at speed which could be hard to stick the landing. Stonewall Creek fireroad connected back to the Green Valley fireroad where we retraced our route back to the truck. This was a little over a 17-mile lollipop shaped route that had a little over 1,800 feet of climbing involved. This was Nichol’s longest and hardest ride to date that offered some new technical challenges for her. To celebrate a ride well done that did not include any blood letting we sampled some of the offerings from Nickel Beer Company in Julian before chasing down some Mexican food. It was a good day to be on a mountain bike.

Where The Hell Have You Been?

Where The Hell Have You Been? I have gotten that question a couple of times as of late. Yep I have been slacking on the posting stuff of my Blog.

I have been getting in some quality Hockey Dad time in with my youngest son on most weekends as he is playing on two In-Line hockey teams. One recreational league team out of Kit Carson Park in Escondido and a tournament team (The San Diego Stingrays). This works out to practice and games commitments of four days a week.

With both teams practicing out of Escondido I have been getting in quite a bit of riding in at Lake Hodges and the surrounding area as of late. Besides the stuff already on my site I have managed to find some cool stuff here and there like this patch of woods between Lake Hodges and Poway.

I have also managed to find some complete crap as well. This tripe located in the city of Poway is simply insulting. They dumped 4-6″ of gravel beside a stupidly steep road and called it a trail. The unprofessional asses that did this debacle did not even bother to compact the gravel down. This thing is so F’d up that had to put signs up ever 50 feet to try and convince people that it is a trail. City of Poway—This is not a F$%^ing Trail! If you would care to improve your trail building knowledge why don’t you spend an afternoon on the playground at Chaparral Elementary School. Pay attention to the six year olds with the Tonka trucks, they get it more than your “trail builders” do!

Enough about city governments wasting money, I managed to catch a baseball game with my girlfriend. The Padres even managed to win on the night we went.

Of course San Diego is arguably a Craft Beer Mecca so there has been plenty of outings to check out what the latest awesome offerings are from the over 71 (and growing) microbreweries in the county.

Recognizing that mountain biking is a preexisting condition with me my, girlfriend he has gotten onboard with the program and is coming up to speed quite nicely.

I have also managed to get in some dirt time at La Costa here and there. If for nothing else than to check out some advertising dollars well spent on the Copper Canyon Bridges.

My work schedule as of late has been conducive to grabbing some after work mileage out in South Bay. I have ridden out here numerous times and there are lots of trails to push the pedals around on. In the past I have nearly always been with somebody showing me around through the maze of canyons with interconnections through parking lots, culverts, streets and backyards. It has been kind of fun trying to use the “Swartz” on solo efforts to retrace some of my previously guided steps. More to follow as I continue to get semi-lost with that ongoing effort.

So as far as where the hell have a been? I’ve been around on my bike….

Lake Hodges – Benardo Mountain

On Sunday Jake had hockey practice over at Kit Carson park in Escondido so I took the opportunity to get in some pedal time out at Lake Hodges.

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I stuck to the North Side trails on this outing.

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Updating the Lake Hodges pages on my website has been on my to-do list for quite some. Now that there is a pedistrian and bike bridge connecting the north and south side of the lake there are more ride options in the area on a single outing. Additionally, a few years ago I got a letter from some of the land owners and the western end of the easement road (known as the high road) that did not want anyone using the easement rsload for recreation and asked that I take down that information from my site. Well obviously I’m a busy guy and have not be able to get to that yet. It looks like it maybe all figured out by now since new signage has gone up. Of course that new signage has made things as clear as mud. Take a look at the picture above. The easement road sign says “No Trespassing” yet they installed a people tunstill beside the gate. New signs were put up telling you it is okay to hike and bike to the right, but no trespassing to the left. Looking at the sign above at the far western end of the easement road one would think it is okay to go through the gate and ride off to the right vice on the easement road that goes to the left. That is not the case at all. What the signs are trying to convey is that when you are on the easement road, everything uphill of the road is private property and everything downhill (towards the lake) is part of the park. This is also not entirely correct as the private property owners land typically goes some number of feet/yards downhill of the road. The park has put up private property signs at the bottom of the trails that connect the lower trails to the upper easement road. I find it odd that some of the land owners don’t want people on the eastern end of the easement road, yet nearly all of them have gates onto the easement road from their backyard. Presumably so they can use the easement road to get into the park. Hmmm so it is okay for those land owners to get onto the little sliver of the easement road they own and then trespass on their various neighbors property and then enter the park through unauthorized trails but it is not okay for the public to do so. Hmmmm, the best advice I can give is to do your best to make sense of the various “non-truth” signs you see and make your own judgement calls. Following the predominate and fresh foot and bike tracks is probably a safe bet.

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The Benardo Mountain trail has no controversy involved with it. It just a nice trail that will work you over on the climb up to the peak. There are some tough grade sections and some technical bits as well that will test both skill and fitness. There was some nice purple blooms going off on the climb.

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The view of the bridge connecting the North side to the South side from the peak.

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Snow on the mountains to the east.

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After Bernardo Mountain I rode out towards the dam until it was time to turn around and get back to the rink. I made it back just as Jake was get off the rink so two sweaty Porter Boys to funk of the truck on the drive back to Casa Del Bill.

San Clemente Single Tracking

So after getting back from Japan on Monday, I got in some quality time with my youngest son Jake on Tuesday and Wednesday. The boy has been growing like a weed and was in need of resizing/refreshing some of his hockey gear. HockeyGiant.com has a large store in Anaheim so a shopping outing was added to the day’s to-do list. The San Clemente Single Tracks (aka “The Weedpatch”) was right along the way so a pit stop in order. There a couple of ways to get into the area and we parked off of Cristianitos Road. This is real popular place for the local surfers hitting up Trestles to park so we looked like the odd men out without a surfboard in tow when we headed out.

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We had not started out our morning planning on going for a ride so I had made the breakfast equivalent of a extra large all-meat pizza comprised of eggs, toasts, grits (the real all-natural stone ground stuff) and copious amounts of thick-cut applewood smoked bacon. (Just for the record, all-meat pizza itself a breakfast food group!) While breakfast had been mighty tasty we were still pretty stuffed when we started pedaling. Jake had kicked my ass on the climbs during our last outing but that was not the case today. My youngest buck soon learned that one of the skill sets that Dad honed while obtaining his official old guy qualifications was the ability climb hills with a belly full of bacon.

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One nice thing about this area is that even when you are climbing there are plenty undulations here and there that break most of the climbs up. Bacon burps on the climbs and smiles on the descents was the theme on this outing. I always enjoy all the flowing swooping goodness out in this area. The trails conditions were also good out today. My favorite time out here is in the spring when everthing is green but there was nothing to complain about with it today.

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We did about a 15 miles of trails out here before loading up the bikes and continuing on up to Anaheim to beat up on Dad’s wallet at the hockey store. Another good day out a bike made even better by spending it with one of my boys.