Mountain Bike Bill, The Dirt on the Dirt

Category: Trails

Trails in General

Rolling through the Dog Days of Summer

Man long time no post.  The Dog Days of Summer have seemed to go on forever.  I spent most of the summer either down by the coast or as high up in the mountains as I could get.   La Costa, Lake Calavera, The San Clemente Singletracks and the Laguna Mountains have been the been most of my main riding haunts.

 Pretty Cool Trail

Of course there have been some excursions outside of the local range as well as places not fit for public blabbage.  Here is a Pretty Cool Trail off the beaten path that during the right kind of weather would be within sight of Palm Springs.

Homebase of my employeer is Philadephia and I am part of small contigent of folks who take care of things here on West Side.   Quite a few of my co-workers back in Philly are mountain bikers as well so we when they are out here we try to squeeze in some “Off Site” time with me playing Julie the cruise director.   Here is Jonathan out of the Laguna Mountains lugging around my UZZI.

Some good summer monsoon clouds rolling in.

Rocking a log ride 

I have been up on the Big Laguna Trail more times this summer than I have in quite a few years combined.    Here is Michael Paul riding the big log on the Los Gatos Trail.

From the top of the of Los Gatos trail near Mount Laguna you can get in some awesome views when it is clear out.   In the center of the picture above is downtown San Diego and Point Loma, 49.5 miles away as a crow flys.

Here is a zoomed in shot.  The downtown buildings are in the middle and Point Loma is on the left hand edge of the screen.  For a number of years I worked out at Point Loma and I always marveled at the handful of days in the winter when you could look at downtwon with snow capped mountains as the backdrop.   It was pretty cool to see the view from the opposite direction on this day.

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From another visit, here is my youngest son Jake making a run at the big log on the Los Gatos Trail.

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  This was a successful “One and Done” run for the log ride.  I’m going to have to watch out for this boy.

Lagging at La Costa

So I spent last week working in Southern Japan.   I was hoping to squeak in a bike ride but the rental place was out of mountain bikes.  The weather was pretty freaking rough as well as I don’t think the humidity every dropped below 95%.  I think that even if I would have had a bike I would have had to muster up some serious motivation to get out in the woods when it is 99 degrees out with 99% humidity.   So I took in a bit of traditional and limited sight seeing during this visit.   I will be back for a longer period in the fall so I will get my time on the trails.JA-Sasebo-JUL12-04

Yesterday was my travel day back to the San Deigo.  With the International Date Line in the mix, I did Sunday twice in the course of my 27 hours of planes, trains and automobiles.   I was pretty freaking toast by the time my head hit the pillow yesterday.    I did sleep well last night but was still dragging a bit today.   I decided that a lunchtime ride would help to snap the body back onto my timezone.    I decided to ride Rancho La Costa a few miles away from Casa Del Bill.  I also decided to ride my bike to the trailhead as I could use the extra excercise on the several intervening hills along the way.

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I was meeting Michael (aka YetiRider) that works near the trail system and routinely knocks out a lunchtime loop out there.   I knew I was going to feel a little tired but was quite surprised just how freaking tired I felt about five minutes into the commute to the trailhead.   My body was quite certain it was a little before 2AM its time.   I made it to  Michaels work shortly before his lunch break and we were soon hitting up the last bit of asphalt to get to the trailhead.    I was feeling a bit better in that I did not feel so fatigued by the time we got to the trailhead.

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I climbed alright on the way up but I certainly felt off in the way of not firing on all cylinders.   On the way down I realized my reflexs were more than a little off and I found myself dabbing in spots I would not normally dab in.  It was good to be out on the bike but it was a little disconcerting to be all out of wack.

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The pavement return back to my place drained the rest of my energy so I don’t think I really helped out the jet lag out at all today because after a shower and snack I knapped away the rest of the day.   It was still a good experiment.

Soul Ride in the Laguna Mountains

Wednesday was pretty freaking hot (by San Diego Weather Weenie standards) with a bit of mugginess thrown in due to a bit of weather on the way in.      Steve and I decided to pass up triple digit sufferage in the usual Alpine spot and head up into the Laguna Mountains for what we consider the “Soul Ride”.   Big Laguna Meadow and the network of surrounding trails.

One of the reasons we call this the Soul Ride (Along with the overused “Chicken Soup for the Soul” reference) is that it is just a fun time out on the bike.  While most of the usual places around San Diego County have browned all up and gotten into full on summer mode, you can still find plenty of greenery and wildflowers out and about up here.

It was cooler in the Laguna Mountains but it was still 90 when we started.   It was quite overcast when we started but there was just enough breeze to keep things reasonable.

Steve brought out the clown bike so of course a show had to be put on.  This rock is known as “Dental Plan” because if you screw up you are going to need one.

Later on in the day there was a bit of a break from the full blown overcast which made for some nice bit of afternoon color.   This is the connector between the Noble Canyon Trailhead and the Big Laguna Trail.  If you are going to do the Tour De Noble you will be on this trail at some point.  Today we did this trail as an out-and-back to refill our water bladders at the Noble Trailhead.

We are on the northernwest of the meadow here.  This was one of the fire boundary lines that held during the 2003 wildfires that swept through the area. There were thousands of acres burned to the west (behind me in this shot).   The area has been recovering well.

This is a nice scenic spot along the southern side of the meadow.  The only thing it needs is……….

A stupid human trick!   (I can get Steve to try anything when I pull out the camera)   Steve had eyed up this line before but had not pulled the trigger before. I think it took him having my high quality steed underfoot to allow him to pull this off.    This line has been named “Compressor”.

This picture should explain the name.   7.5″ of travel in the rear and 7″ in front were fully used on this move. 

Stuntworks over it was time to work our way back to the vehicles as pulled pork sandwiches and tasty microbrews at Alpine Beer Company were calling our names.   Our chosen path was one less traveled with some challenging bits.  This Wednesday did not suck.

Lake Calavera

Before all of the 4th of July festivities started, I rolled out from Casa De La Bill to hit up Lake Calavera to feel a bit better about the tasty beers and snacks I would be having later in the day.   It was less than a 3 mile street ride to get to the dirt for some quality exercise.    I have not been here in quite some time and while at first I was impressed to see that there was some trail signs out and about I was soon disappointed to see fences.   I view fences as the land mangment equivalent saying the dog ate my homework.   If land mangers would do the thier homework  a bit better they would need a lot less of this stuff.  It was fairly easy to see where the public was giving the fencing passing and failing grades by looking at where the fences were cut and where it was allowed to remain.  LakeCalavera-04JUL12-01

While I do enjoy “front 40” of Lake Calavera (northern part), the middle and back 40 are where some of the best trails are at.

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A nice little corner.

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A little creek crossing.   Some of the trails called for a bit of elbow and knee tucking here and there to not brush against some of the prevelant Poison Oak.   

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At pretty much the apex of my ride I broke my chain, which gave a bit of a minor delay.   One thing I like about the mountain biking culture is the idea of being self-sufficient while out and about.   Not quite the same as being on a road bike where you could get by with a cell phone and a debit card.

Messing around in the San Jacinto Mountains

This weekend I decided to head out for an overnighter in the San Jacinto Mountains.   There are a lot of great trails around here and we were interested in messing around in some lesser ridden areas.  Bill O’Neil and I met up fairly early in the morning and the temps were already quickly climbing.

We did a bit of driving around on some of the back dirt roads to finalize our game plan and investigate all of the options.    This gate showed much promise so we decided to add this area to the two-wheeled investigation efforts.

With a plan negoiated that included such phrases like “Do you think those thin brown lines are too close together on the map”,  “It sorta flattens out after the first seven miles” and “Just for the record, this segment is your idea”  we started turning the pedals into the dry 90 degree heat.

After what I would consider a rough opening bit of terrain, heat and grade we got up onto a small plateau were thoughts of tasty steaks and carne asada burritos started running through our heads.

This small herd of around 10 or so cattle were following the old ranch road we were taking.   Special note on Trail Etiquette – Bikes yield to horns. 

The old ranch road turned out to be a nice route that we took.  We soon worked our way over to the next segment that turned out to be a bit brutal when combined with the growing heat and pockets of dead air.   My hiking calves got some work in here and there on this segment.

As we neared the top of the ridgeline sadddle we were shooting for we got into some trees and a breeze picked up which made a huge difference.  We were already considered with rationing our water considering how far we had to go still.

Once at the saddle we proceeded along a trail that followed the ridgelines for quite a long way.  There were some great views along this route.

This was most definitely a pretty cool trail.

Cool rock formations on the ridgeline.  The wind was often howling up here which was great for beating the heat but it was enough to blow me off my intended line a time or two.

This was really cool bit of exploring we did but it was certainly no cakewalk with the heat that was out.  By the time we got back down to the truck, we were more interested in our first liquids being water more so that tasty hop and malt goodness.  After a bit of truck-side recovery we were off to the  Paridise Valley Cafe were some excellent baby back ribs with the fixins were chased with a couple of tasty beverages.   After that we found a back corner of the Garner Valley area to set up camp in the dark.  We spent the rest of the evening  recounting the festivities of the day while sampling tasty San Diego area micro-brews.

View from the tent when I opened my eyes

The view from my tent when I first opened my eyes.

Aliso and Wood Canyons

Bill O’Neil and I met for a cruise through  Aliso and Wood Canyon Park in Laguna Hills of Orange County today.  My last ride out here was cut short due to a mechnical so today was really my first time seeing the majority of the trails in some number of years.   I found it amazingly depressing how bad some of the trails have been widened with go-arounds that seemed to be at nearly every minor obstacle.   The Cholla trail for example is just a complete mess compared to a handful of years ago.  I wish people could just check their ego and get off and walk the stuff they can’t ride instead of making or taking the go-arounds.   (I know preaching to the choir here) 

 

Here is a shot at the top of the Rock-It trail. Plenty of go-arounds here as well.  This was a mighty fun descent (following the original lines).   Once down Rock-It we worked our way over to Mathis.  My memory of the steepness and length of this climb has been dulled over the years.   It was quite vividly refreshed today as it took quite a bit of gruntage to get my Intense UZZI up this climb.

Once up to the top of Mathis we continued up along the ridge fireroad to “Top of the World”   This was a good place to take a breather and enjoy the views of the Pacifc and Laguna Beach.   From here we went back down to Mathis and picked up the “Car Wreck” trail.

This was my first time on this trail and it was quite a bit of fun.  I managed to not get any pictures taken of the technical bits.  The picture above is just after all of the technical bits along with the namesake remains of an old vehicle.  This trail feeds right into the Oak Grove Trail.   A pretty section of trail.

The next trail we hit up was the Dripping Cave trail.   There were some nice tree lined bits as well as some short grunt working climbing in the direction we were going.

We farted around a bit at the at actual dripping cave

Some of it was just downright photo posing.    It was right about this time we thought we heard the sound of tiny bubbles trying to escape from finely crafted brown glass bottled far off in the distance.    We set out to investigate the sound and found the offending bubbles (in my truck).    Ballast Point’s Sculpin IPA and Mission Brewing’s Dark Seas Russian Imperial Stout were tasty accompaniments to post-ride chit-chat.   Another NON-Bad day to be on a bike.

Longest Day of the Year Ride

With Wednesday being the longest daylight day of the year it only seemed right to get out on a bike.   My Wednesdays are normally booked up but this particularly day was open so it was time to hit the trail.

While the temps were nowhere near what they are going to get, they were enough to cause this weather weenie, to suffer on the climb up out of Alpine to the “playgrounds”.  Clearly I have been enjoying plenty of tasty beverages without earning them and the climb was making me pay!    Long climb story short, I sucked on the climb but  I climbed non the less.  

While Steve was up to his usual airborne antics…

I was content just to keep the wheels on the ground and play in the chunk.  

The chunk and rocks were where it was at with me today.   The dirt is definitely in “Summer Mode” which means there are combinations of exceptionally loose dirt combined mega-compacted hard pack that can make for some interesting turns here and there.   It is quite a contrast from the “Hero Dirt” seen out here in the winter time.    There was a bit of relearning to do on some of the trail.   The rocks however are for the most part a know value.  

  

Of course for those that play here all the time it was Perfect Flight Weather.

The “Three Miles of Smiles” descent offered up both adrenaline giggles and a few Oh Crap moments due to some loose bits.   Coming hot out of one corner Steve thought this was a rattler at first but it was a Rosa Boa instead.  These things are pretty cool snakes that are quite docile.   After our feel of Boa fondling we were along our way to the trailhead and onward to Alpine Beer Company for some yummy grub and tasty beverages.   Not a bad use of Summer Solstice in my mind.

Big Laguna Meadow Cruise

The weather was pretty freaking awesome this past weekend out in the east end of San Diego County.     It was a wonderful time to head out to the Laguna Mountain Recreation Area for some playing around on the Big Laguna trail.

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While just a few days away from the offical start of summer, there was plenty of green and patches of wildflowers here and there.

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While riding technical stuff and challenging yourself is always fun and exciting sometimes just getting out on a nice sliver of singlerack in some beautiful countryside good for the soul.  Such was the case of on this day.

Tasty Beer from Alpine Beer Company afterwards does not hurt either!

“Practicing” at Lake Hodges

My youngest son is playing on a tournement inline hockey team right now and he has practice at Kit Carson Park in Escondido every weekend.   The rinks are just up road from Lake Hodges  so I have been grabbing a ride there while Jake is practicing.  You can grab some mileage out here and if you include Bernardio Mountain you can get in some good grunting.   Here are few pics from a couple of weeks ago.

Here is a view froma bit of singletrack on the south side of the lake. 

 Out near the trails on the side side of the lake

Good springtime prettiness.

Alpine Return

It had been far to long since I have have been out to play on one of my favorite tech play grounds out in Alpine but I finally got back out this week.  This ride was nearly called off due to impending rain, but since San Diego attracts on the sharpest weather guessing minds, the afternoon turned out to be a go.

There was some new trail side decorations on the climb up.  Silly 4x4er, this is a bike trail!

It is funny how after a bit of time away for this trail the rocks look gnarlier upon your return.   

The storm was coming in and the clouds made for some interesting backdrops for pictures that we typically do not see much of here in SOCAL. 

Front row seats for Circ-de-Soul-Steve.   In a rare moment seldom caught on camera Steve did prove that he is indeed not a green blooded alien from a far away solar system in the  in the Dirtus-Major Constellation. 

A mighty fine afternoon on a bike