General MTB – Page 16 – The Ramblings of MTBBill

Updated Los Penasquitos Page

It has been long overdue, but I have finally updated my Los Penasquitos page to reflect the current configuration of trails in the area.

Yes, it does include the Tunnels area. More from a trail inventory perspective than a go ride it endorsement. Although, if those trails were legal I would highly endorse them. But it is not legal to ride those single tracks to I won’t endorse riding those really awesome trails.

I also included the miles of mostly shaded single track along Penasquitos Creek. These are trails that provide a quality outdoor experience that are also off-limits to bikes. While the best stuff out at Penasquitos is off limits to bikes, there is still plenty of miles of dirt to get yourself in a good workout here. You can read more about it on the updated page.

New trail goodness at Black Mountain

I spent a couple of afternoons this past week getting reacquainted with Black Mountain in near Rancho Bernardo. The Lilac Canyon trail has recently been rerouted and it is way much for the better.

The trail still starts from the Miner’s Ridge Loop trailhead but now instead of steeply descending down to Carmel Valley Road it down contours along the north slope of Black Mountain around to the glider port.

Shortly before the trail reaches the glider port a single track forks off to the north and pass under Carmel Valley Road. This is another nice section of singletrack that works its way around to the north side of the Black Mountain Ranch Park (baseball fields). This provides a direct connection to the Santa Luz/Larsardi Creek Loop. This is a really nice trail connection that I’m stoked about. I’ll be updating my site soon with new data on the trail.

I had kinda lost my appreciation for just how much climbing there is at Black Mountain. The first ride out here I did about 17 miles and 2,500 miles and on the second ride I did 16.75 miles and 3,000 feet of climbing.

It seems mighty early for the rattlers to be out and about already but this fellow above was the third rattler I have seen this year. I came around a turn and I was at that distance where I had to decide wither to bunny hop the snake or throw out the anchor. I chose to throw out the anchor and ended up pulling off a totally awesome nose wheelie stop that I’m positive I could not pull off again if I tried.

The Miner’s Ridge Loop is in fantastic shape right now with the rain we had the previous week. If you have not been out here in a while you should go check it out while the greenery of spring is in full effect.

Feels Like Spring At Penasquitos!

With all of the destruction that has happened in the Penasquitos Canyon area over the last decade due to land development coupled with the various land management agencies waking up with from decades of management slumber the whole area is kind of a land management circus show. The only groups that are making out in this deal are the developers and the folks making a living off protecting Fairy Shrimp (I’m still looking for a good recipe BTW)

My Los Penasquitos Canyon page has been absurdly out of date ever since the development started. I have decided to finally update the page so I have been riding out here as of late to refresh my GPS data and try to figure out the best legal way to ride out in this area that is not completely mudane and boring. It is fairly tough as the mountain bikers have very little in the way of legal quality trails. It seems the only things that are not endangered out here are no biking signs. (Just for the record that trail in the picture above is not single track, it is more like a baby stroller trail, ATV trail, etc…) You can get in some good riding with a quality outdoor experience but you are going to have illegally share with the hikers and the equestrians and blow by closed signs.

The Camino Ruiz trail is the nearly lone exception to legal boredom of highway wide fire roads in the canyon offered to mountain bikers. This is a nice chunk of single track.

Ok, ranting aside, the warm weather streak we have been having in February has both plants and critters getting confused. Flower are blooming and the everything is nice and green.

Chasing the sun greenery

It is pretty early for the snakes to be coming out already. This is a rather healthy looking whip snake.

It was in evening time so he was mighty sluggish and very easy to handle. He seemed more than happy to leech some heat off of me before getting anxious to head off.

Last weekend at the San Clemente Singletracks I saw my first rattlesnake of the season but he was uncooperative for the camera. I saw my second rattler of the year at Penasquitos Canyon this week and this fella was more amiable to getting his picture taken. The guys are going to be sucking when the weather shifts back to typical temperatures soon.

Daley Ranch After Work Rides

So Nichol has been looking way too comfortable riding around Lake Hodges as of late so it was time bring on something a little more challenging for the after work rides.

Nichol meet Daley Ranch. Just for the record the top section of the East Ridge Trail was the only time she hike-a-biked any section of the first ride out here. I have a feeling it is just a matter of time before I’m chasing her up the hills.

We were chasing daylight on our first outing so we did Creek Crossing to Sage to the Jack Meadow Loop. After the loop we took the East Ridge trail back to the Creek Crossing trail and back the trailhead. It was only 9 miles and change but was more elevation change than the 18 mile loop we last did at Lake Hodges.

Our second after-work ride at Daley this week started out the same but at the top of the Jack Meadow Loop we took the Hidden Springs trail (aka “The Wall”) up onto the western ridge where we rode the Engelman Oak and the Cougar Ridge trails (fire roads) over the Crest trail. The trail is holding pretty well considering that we have been way short on rain for a long time. After the Crest trail we took the ranch access road back to the trail. This was only a mile longer than the previous outing but added about 500 feet of additional climbing. This is a good time of year to be riding out here with mild temps and greenery all around.

XP-10 Jump Starter Review

I’m planning on doing some solo adventures in the not so distant future and while I believe I have the being sufficient aspects of mountain biking out on the trail figured out, I assessed that I needed to shore up my solo base-camping and exploring with my truck self sufficiency a bit. I always carry a set of jumper cables in my truck which are great if there is another vehicle around but what do you do if you are out in the middle of nowhere and your battery goes dead? Luckily it has not happened to me yet but I have had a couple of scares. The Rainbow Rim Trail on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon for examples qualifies as an out in the middle of nowhere ride. You lose cell coverage at least 20 miles before you get to the trailhead and you could be waiting a day plus for someone else to come along if you are out there in the middle of the at certain times of the year. I wanted a way to jump start my truck should the battery go dead without having to resort to install a second battery and isolator system in the truck. I also did not want something that was bulky or weighed a ton. Additionally, I wanted a method to recharge my various gadgets I would have around the truck base-camp (laptop for futzing with photos, DSLR and GoPro Batteries, etc…)

So after a bunch of research and gawking with various offering I bought the Micro-Start XP-10 Jump Starter/Personal Power Supply from Antigravity Batteries. I have had it now for a few months and the XP-10 fits the bill for my needs and then some. The Lithium-Ion Jump Starter/Battery Pack is quite small for the power it provides. Its 9″ by 3.2″ by 1.2″ and weighs just 1 lb. 2 oz. It comes in a simulated leather carrying case with an assortment of plug in and out cables. It regards to its primary purpose of jumpstarting my truck, it has that covered in spades.

The Smart Clamp Jumper Cables

It comes with a diminutive set of battery clamp cables (14.5″ Long) that plug into a specific port on the end of the battery. Antigravity calls them “Smart Clamps” since they check for things like reverse polarity and how bad off the battery is discharged. To use just hook up the clamps to your car battery, plug the clamps into the XP-10 battery and turn it on, if you get a green light on the clamp, hop in your vehicle and start it up. The XP-10 provides 300 starting amps with a peak current of up to 600amps! The directions tell you to disconnect the battery clamps within 30 seconds of starting your vehicle. I have disconnected my truck battery completely and this thing was able to start my truck. I did this several times and the battery still showed a full charge. There are videos of folks starting six and eight cylinder trucks dozens of times on a single charge.

Now for the personal power supply features. The unit has two USB Outputs that can provide 2A and 1A of charging current for whatever USB devices you may have. At the same end of the battery as the USB ports is the connection for the battery clamps (normally behind a rubber cover) and a LED flashlight that has High, Low, Strobe and SOS modes. The company’s website list the battery as 18,000mA capacity and the back of the case list it as 66.6WH which I’m not sure how many smart phone recharges that will get you but a lot seems be in the right ballpark. More importantly the amperage it can provide is impressive. The literature does not give a lumens value for the “Hi-Power” LED flashlight. The beam on the light is more a flood than spot. Comparing to some of my other flashlights I would guess this is around a 100-130 lumen light. While the light can be handy it is was not one of my needs when looking for a jumper starter.

The kit includes a short 4 way USB cable that has iPhone lighting and 30-pin plugs along with USB mini and micro plugs.

On the side of the unit are 5 LEDs that give an indication of the unit’s charge level. The power of the battery is such that I can use the battery for other things and still be confident that it could start my truck as long as I have 3 LEDS left. The single button that operates the unit is located on this side as well. Once turned on, the unit can detect if the devices are not drawing any power and will automatically shut itself off. One of the outputs its provides is a 12V 10A circuit that can be used for a wide array items. The kit does not include a female cigarette socket to the 5.1mm DC plug cable which would be quite handy. This was not a deal breaker for me as you can get it for about $11 on the companies website. But in my case I had one already from another piece of gear.

An additionally output is a 19V circuit that can handle up to 3.5A. The majority of laptop makers in the world seem to have settled on 19 volts as the charging voltage for their devices. The kit includes a small DC plug jumper (5.1 mm that fits both the 12V and 19V ports) and 8 adaptors that fit the majority of the laptop manufacturer’s offerings. Note for you Apple folks, the MacBook Pro and Air laptops use different voltages (16.5V or 14.5 based on various models and years) so making a custom adaptor is not a simple task for your equipment.

Charging the XP-10 is as simple as using the provided AC-DC charging adaptor or the 12V cigarette plug adaptor. The XP-10 also has built in overcharge as well as over-discharge protection circuitry. Amongst the other devices of this genre, the overcharge protection and the ability to be charged from a vehicle (12-14V) were huge selling points for me. Some of the other units could not be charged from a cigarette lighter port or did not have overcharge protection. The ability to charge the unit in this manner allows me to use this battery around camp and I can recharge it from the truck while driving to the next location. Additionally I have a portable/backpacking solar panel (which I’m going to review later) that can output the correct voltage to charge this battery as well. This means I can let the sun charge up the battery over the course of the day while I’m out playing on the trails and not worry about it being overcharged (which can damage batteries). I can then use this battery to recharge my toys back at camp without having to be concerned about draining down the batteries in my truck.

I don’t have fancy official testing stuff like graphs of voltage/amperage over time stuff. Here are some practical things I have done with battery pack. All of the following was done on single charge. I disconnected my Toyota Tacoma’s (4.0L V6 Engine) battery from the truck and started the truck three times. Yes, this battery pack jump started my truck three times with no battery in the truck whatsoever. The following day I recharged a coworkers Blackberry from 5% to 70%. Later that day I recharged another Blackberry from 8% back to 100%. During this time the charge level on the XP-10 battery went from 5 lights (which I assume to be mean 80 to 100% full) down to four. The following day I recharged my ASUS Zenbook Laptop (quad-core i7 Intel processor) from 11% back up to 96% (while I continued to use it) before the XP-10 shutdown as it was discharged.

I’m pretty freaking impressed with this gadget. The MSRP is $209.99 and I paid around $150 for my unit. I consider it well worth the investment for the versatility and piece of mind it provides.

Chasing the Sun at Lake Hodges

I have been hitting up Lake Hodges as the after-work ride as of late. It is right on the way home at it only take a handful minutes to be out on the trail after getting off the freeway.

Here is Nichol working a log ride.

Critters seen along the trail.

Views from the trail behind and above the boat launch.

A mechanical on the Tuesday ride turned me into a reluctant single speeder. Of course it happened right after the apex of the ride.

So I have not dusted my night-time riding gear in quite sometime. As an after-work ride in January chasing the sun is always part of the equation. The sunsets have been pretty awesome as of late so “losing” the race with the sun is its own reward.

Winter in San Diego

My how time flies. It been a while since my last post. I would like to say that I have been too busy riding my bike to post, but that is simply not the case. Between work, family, the holidays and a handful of the other things getting to the keyboard has just not been happening.

However I have been getting out and about and doing some research and just seeing stuff. Valley of the Moon out near Jacumba is really cool and I am planning to spend some more time out there.

I have also been riding some trails that I’m obliged to not publish.

The recent rains have certainly greened this up around the county. Above is Raptor Ridge just east of Lake Hodges.

Some more of the greenery.

Cruising the Del Dios Trail

One of the latest chasing the sun after-work rides

We did not leave any daylight unused on this ride.

BLT, Redtail Roost and Noble Canyon

Saturday Nichol and I went up to Big Laguna Meadow to get in some biking and a night of camping.

It was quite a pretty day with some fall colors up in the trees and exceptionally nice temps. After setting up camp we did a cruise around meadow.

We were up bright and early the next morning to meet a gang-o-folks down at the lower Noble Canyon Trailhead for some playing around for the better part of the day. We left some vehicles at the bottom and then drove up to the Redtail Roost trailhead off of Sunrise Highway. There were at total of 10 of us in the gaggle. Redtail roost is a fun trail that goes along a wooded ridgeline for a ways before descending down into the Laguna Meadow area. Encountering a dude all decked out in camouflage early along the trail was good reminder that it is hunting season up here. I was also glad I passed on wearing my buckskin jersey and Viking helmet on this ride.

After descending Redtail Roost we climbed up Aqua Dulce to the top of the Los Gatos trail where we then descended down to the meadow. But not without playing a few features here and there. Here is Michael playing on a skinny.

Dave getting in some log action as well. Once down on the meadow we went up the east side of the meadow a ways and the did a side loop that included a portion of the connector trail that goes between the meadow and the Pacific Crest Trail. Once back at the meadow we went around and up the west side of the meadow and caught the connector over to Penny Pines and the upper Noble Canyon trailhead. It was here that David’s frame broke where the downtube meets the bottom bracket. So he broke off from the group for a very dodgy ride back to Redtail Roost along Sunrise Highway.

It was Noble Canyon time now and there was plenty of good stuff as always between the top and the bottom. Here is Jenny rolling through the woods up near the top.

James playing on a jump about halfway down or so.

James rolling into the “Stairway to Hell”

Kevin meets Stairway to Hell. I was kind of jealous of his superlight rig earlier in the ride, you know like on the climbs. I was pretty stoke with my rig through these parts. After spending most the summer riding a XC hardtail rent-a-wreck my long-legged stretched out full suspension couch felt awesome through this stuff. Woot Woot!

James working through some chunk. By the time we hit the bottom trailhead most folks’ mileage device had us doing between 24 and 25 miles with a little under 2,800 feet of climbing in. While the rest of the crew headed out, I went back up to he meadow and we broke camp down at a leisurely pace and then headed out for tasty BBQ and Beer at Alpine Beer Company. Another good weekend on a bike.

Sasebo Catchup

I have been back from Sasebo for a couple of weeks now. The last few weeks that I was in Japan was pretty hectic. I did have time to ride but little time to do much posting. Here are some pictures.

From the north slope of Mt Yumihari. I come to loath the rental wreak that I had. Cantilever rim brakes! I now that the hand shake strength of a pair vise grips.

Views found in a break in the foliage.

There was plenty of rain which kept most the trails soggy for way too much of the time I was there. I often did the road climb up to the top of the Mt Yumihari after work. It was almost always a chasing the sun kind of ride. While I typically beat the sun, the rain got me on more than a few occasions.

Views from a park at near the top of Mt Eboshi east of town.

Sasebo as seen from Mt Eboshi

More of Mt Eboshi

More views from the chasing the sun series

I lost the race against the sun on this ride

Intentionally enjoyed losing the race on this evening.

Views from south of town.

Sunshine Ride in Sasebo

Over the last month that I have been working over here there has been about four individual days that it has not rained for some portion of the day. The soil composition in this area is typically clay based which holds up to the rain well but becomes treacherously slick. The cantilever rim brakes coupled with the 1.75 tires on my rent-a-wreck hard-tail makes riding of this stuff with an moisture on them at all downright sporty.

It rained early Saturday and had been sunny ever since so I decided to test the waters on one of the prominent mountains in the area, Akasaki. The trail has seen some maintenance earlier in the year so the tread was in good condition and the trail was well brushed. I could tell during the climb that traction could be a problem on the descent as plenty of finesse was required on the climb to keep from breaking the rear wheel loose. The views from top were exceptional.

The descent of this trail was however still pretty slick and made for a squirrely descent, particularly in the turns. Notice in the photo above there is some four fingered braking going on. If I would have known my work project was going to be extended by nearly a month, I would have brought my bike over. On the plus side this rental is completely unforgiving so it forces you to handle the bike precisely.

After way too much fun on the “easy” descent, I passed on this trail under the guise of discretion is the better part of valor. I opted to spend the rest of the ride scoping out trailheads and crossings off the back roads of the area for future exploration when the trails are drier.

This sign unfortunately does not say “Hiro-San’s Texas Style BBQ 100 meters ahead”. There are lots of wild boar in this area and I believe the signs either says beware of boars or indicates a typical boar crossing. Ummmm Bacon!

Shirahama Beach was the apex point of this ride. A snack and a little bit of chilling was in order before it was time to start a good bit of climbing on the return leg.

I have come across about half a dozen of these land crabs here in Japan. I was a good half a mile from the ocean and at least 100 feet plus in elevation. These are the basically the same kinds of crabs you see around the rocks in most stateside beaches but these guys have adapted to thrive away from the shorelines here. Mr. Crabs here was pissed.

A view of Kujyukushima from Tenkaiho Park. I have ridden on all of these peaks at one time or another with the exception of the volcano looking peak to the left, Mt Atago. It is still on the list.

This is literally the lawn mowing crew at this park. The grounds keepers stake out the goats and once they eat down their circle they move the stakes. Pretty cool.

Got Grass Will Mow! (Will through in fertilizing your lawn for free)

By the time I made my way “home” I had covered 22 miles and 3,000 feet of climbing. A yummy Nippon microbrew was definitely earned.