Mountain Bike Bill, The Dirt on the Dirt

Category: San Diego

San Diego Trails

A quick spin at Spring Canyon

Yesterday, I decided to hit up the SDMBA advocacy meeting.  The meeting did not start until 7pm and since I work in San Diego and live in North County what to with all that time between work and the meeting.  Ah yes, the ole standby….go for a ride.   The destination was Spring Canyon just north of the 52.    This canyon is eventually going to be annexed into Mission Trails and link Sycamore Canyon/Goodan Ranch to Mission Trails but right now it is well “social” in nature.  These trails have been for decades and it is such a poorly guarded secret that most of the public has no idea it is not a fully endorsed trail system.   More often than not people assume it is part of Mission Trails Regional Park.  The same folks also think these are by far the best trails “in” Mission Trails.

Okay enough with the history and issues, this is nice place to ride on real “Preserve Quality” trails, aka singletrack. 

The weather was pretty darn great and the greenery and the flowers blooming was just awesome.

I decided to take the single speed out today, and while it is generally a good choice for out here, there was one hill that put a beat down on me for a bit.  It is all good, as I need the beat down.

The return trip back to the trailhead was an all gradually downhill affair that was a bunch of swooping fun.  There was enough turns that I only spun out on the singlespeed in a few sections.  I’m no racer so it was just set back and enjoy the cruise through those sections.  Good stuff. 

While I could not stay for the entire SDMBA meeting (Had to pick Will up from Hockey practice) it was a good meeting with lots of exciting things brewing in SD County.  We have multiple cities interesting in MTB Skills Progression Parks, corporate sponsors getting more involved, and the IMBA trail crew coming out this coming weekend.  Lots more stuff as well so stay tuned to tby signing up for the thier free Trailnews letter.

On a more painful sidenote, after the meeting, I became aware that I have gotten into some Poison Oak on a “scouting expedition” the day before.   Yeah!!  At the time of this typing, I’ve got the stuff in a bad way and I’m down with the full regime of Zenfel and the various other products for dealing with the stuff.   Not so good times, but hey it sometimes is the price you pay when looking for hidden trail gems.

Oh…Almost forgot, I saw two rattlesnakes on this ride and managed to get an picture of one of them.  It is only March and I have already seen more snakes that I have in an entire year before.   

Anderson Truck Trail Sunday Action

Sunday, I went out to Anderson Truck Trail to do some playing on the rocks. Normally I only ride here during the week, but since I had not been here in a few weeks I was up for it. In addition to the usual suspects, I ran into some new peeps and well as some friends I had not expected to see today.

I ran into Allison at the bottom getting ready for a couple of shuttle runs.   Normally there would have some smack talk a fligging at this point, but since she had done some big run the day before she was cut some slack.  Take note that Allison has the St. Pattys day color scheme covered.

DustyBottoms on the climb.

MacRider and Jeff working the climb.

The view on the climb started getting pretty nice.

We are all the way up, time to put the saddle all the down. 😉 

This kicker is known as the Satan Jump.

Me hitting the “Diving Board”.   I was shooting some video so I did not take many photos.  Some of the photos here were shot by other folks in the group.

MacRider playing in the rocks.

Mark and Jeff cruising through the rocks.

Fun Granite Ahead!

We had a great run down the mountain after playing up top.  There was no carnage on the day, but my brake lever took a beating. Believe or not, this lever was able to be straightened out.

All Hail – Daylight Savings Time!

If there is ever a shortage of good times while riding in Bonita, I have note seen it yet. Yesterday, I hooked up with the Bonita Bikers crew for some South Bay riding. I actually recognized a few of the trails on this trip, but was still treated to trails I had not been on before.

It was an awesomely pretty day out and the greenery of spring is here.


(Don and Kimie strolling across a hillside)

Our route for the day?  Hell if I really know.   Bob and weave here.  Cross a street there.  Drop into culvert other way over there.   Oh yeah cool trails between all of that stuff.  

With all of the grow, some of the singletrack is tricky as it easily hides rocks that can give you a little trip up if you are not paving attention.  Hoserr working a climb. 


Gill gruntin’ over the top of a rise.

Ahhhhhhh  Singletrack!

Greg cruising up “Seven Bitches”

Kimee styling on a bridge.  Daryl was rather elusive for getting pictures on this ride as he was always out in front making us all look bad on his singlespeed.  I did manage to catch him off the bike here.

In addition to the seemingly never ending cool trails down here, it was awesome to that extra hour of daylight freedom with the time change.   There is nothing wrong with night rides, but having that late in the day sunshine to play in is just killer.    I have no idea how many miles we did, but it was sizable and felt more like a weekend ride than a midweek ride.     If you are interested in catching this ride during the week, it goes down every Tuesday and Thursday at 3:30pm from the the parking lot at the Performance Bike Shop in Bonita.

San Dieguito River Park Trailwork

Saturday I spent a good chunk of the day helping out with the construction of a new section of trail that will be part of the Coast-to-Crest trail.   This was a a short notice trailwork to get some things accomplished prior to March 15th when restrictions on access to the area take effect in an effort to give the threatened gnatcatcher bird a better breeding season.  

Before we could get started in earnest we had to relocate a couple of the “locals”.

I was pretty stoked with this shot above as I got this snake’s eye in focus and the light was good enough that you could see the flash of the camera.  While nobody but me can pick it out, there is a bit of my reflection in the it’s eyes.   I can’t help but wonder if I had one of those $5K 22MP cameras and some L-series glass would I have been able to pick that up better.

This was some exceptionally tough work done that involved almost exclusively rock work. This section of the trail is within the 20 year flood plan of the San Dieguito River so it will be a raised section of trail with periodic culverts. Our main jobe today was to frame in were the trail is going to go and start on the foundation of rocks that will eventually be filled with dirt.  

We used some sizable rock to make the frame of the trail. There was one rock large enough to be dubbed “The Asteroid”. When completed it will be cool to ride by that spot and say “Yeah, I help put that rock there”

This was the first time that SDMBA has worked with the SDRP folks and I think we left a good impression about the quality of work SDMBA can produce. One this was for certain, I was good and pooped.

Here are some additional photos.

A singlespeed doubleshot

I don’t ride my single speed much.  I like to think that I ride it just enough to remind myself how much I love my full suspension bikes.   When I went Lake Calvera on Saturday, I brought along the single speed for the post work ride.   Calvera does not beat you up too bad on a single speed, but it certainly adds to the effort per mile equation.  After the trailwork and the ride, I was good and pooped at the end of the day.

It did not take long Sunday morning to realize that I had not been liberal enough with the sunscreen yesterday.  I was not burnt, but a little toasty on the edges.  Just enough to really feel the sun on my face when I went outside.  It was an exceptionally gorgeous day and unseasonably warm in the 80s.  I got quite a bit of the house and family stuff taken care of and around 4pm, I decided to sneak in a quite ride before the day was gone.  So a quite 10 minute drive from the house and I was at La Costa for the second time this week.  I also grabbed the singlespeed on the way out as it was right by the garage door and not hung back up yet.  Ahh what the hell was the general thinking.

 The single speed put a bit of a beat down on me as I was just a little stiff from the day before. I ended up having a good ride and caught yet another good sunset to boot.

This photo was taken of me by my good friend “Ty Mer”.  He does some professional photography shoots on occasion.  You can reach him at

20D Canon Street
Circuit City, CA 92081 🙂

Lake Calavera Trailwork

Yesterday, around 60 people showed up to work on a troubled section of trail that was in need of erosion control. More importantly in was a chance for SDMBA to work the Department of Fish and Game. 


Gardner giving the safety brief prior to heading out to the work site.

Even though it has not rained in a couple of weeks there were still some wet areas due to poor drainage. Several crews built the neccessary drainage.

“Sparticus” in action. This is a really cool tool that is basically a spider web of chain that allows for really large rocks to be moved efficiently. SDMBA has built five of these so far and several were in use on this day.

In addition to some of the usual faces you see at these events there were also plenty of new faces including plenty youngsters and teenagers. These are the future stewards of these lands so it was great to see entire families involved.

This event included one of the largest water diversion projects I have seen at a trailwork event. The amount of rocks and dirt moved for this was truly impressive. I’m pretty sure everyone how had a hand in this section slept very well that night.

A special thanks is owed to Erik Trogden (The SDMBA’s Coastal North County Liason) for leading the effort to put this event together. Thanks to Bicycle Warehouse for supporting the event with the copious amounts of schwag. More importantly, thanks to Warren Wong from the Department of Fish and Game for allowing SDMBA to work with his agency to improve this trail. Hopefully this will be the start of a good working relationship to improve both the habitat and trail resources of Lake Calvera.

Here are some additional pictures.

After the trailwork a few of us went for a bike ride at Calvera.  While out in the “Back 40”, we got to see some “game” on the Fish and Game managed land.

La Costa Tuesday

Yesterday after work I got in a spin at La Costa with Rich.  As always Rich is pretty zippy on the climbs and he has a habit of getting quicker when smells weakness.  Such was the case this afternoon has I found myself having to push myself to keep up.  We check out out some recent damage caused by some idiot who has a key to the backgate of the property.  The bonehead tried to drive his truck up one of the singletracks.  He went up a good ways before he bottomed out his truck and had to turn back.   What a jerk.  Rich the astute steward that he is had already repaired what he could but it will be a while before the trailside sage grows back.   Please call the police if you see something stupid like this occuring. 

Besides the spot the rest of the trail is in great shape.  We went up Vista Del Mar and down Switchbacks.   We then did it going the other way.   The visibility was pretty good today considering when had the marine layer in most of the day.  You could see both San Clemente and Cantalina Islands.  San Clemente is over 50 miles away so it was quite a treat.   Rich was really on fire going down the trails today.  I’m going to give him the trail builder advantage today since he knows every nook and cranny of this place.   Not a bad way to speed sometime after work.

Good Ride and Old Friends

Now that we have had a little break in the rain enough to give the trails some dryout time, I went out to Alpine to ride Anderson Truck Trail which handles the moisture well.   I was joined by Cliff, Danny and Chip.  It was first time riding with Danny but Cliff and Chip are old friends.   I spent eight days down in Copper Canyon in Mexico back in 2005.  Cliff is not only one of my biking buds,  he is also my real estate agent who did mighty good by me a few years back when we stepped up to a larger home.    I have not seen too much of either of thes guys in a while so riding together was good for catching up.  Mother Nature has been doing some landscaping on the trail and there are some spots that are going to need some attention on the trail.    I only had my video camera today so no pictures from the day.   The ones here are from a week or so earlier.

The climb up went well really pretty scenery and and blue skies.   There was enough moisture in the ground that you could just feel a little more resistance on the climb.   We enventually made our way to the top and then enjoyed the fruit of our labor.   I did not hit some of the stuff I normally would since I had my XC helmet cam vice the full-face helmet.  If you are wondering why I use a full-face helmet when “playing” in and on serious rocks/chunk read this experience at Goat Camp nearly a year ago.

The return trip back down the main part of ATT was really freaking great with insanely perfect traction.  It was quite possibly my quite run to the bottom.   Afterwords I had a good chunk of time to kill before the monthly SDMBA meeting.  Lucky for me Chip invited me back to Casa Del “ChipandDale” for dinner.    While dinner was in the works, another one of the Copper Canyon crew,  Joey,  swung by for a bit.   For dinner they had some family friends come over so I added some folks in the friends column over a really yummy meal.  I was about to drop off into a food coma, when Chip informed I was about to be late for the meeting.  Luckily they live just a few minutes away from meeting so I got there just in time.   The rest of the night was spent at the SDMBA meeting where Michael Beck, the San Diego Director of the Endangered Habitats League was the quest speaker.  It was interesting to see a different perspective on the land usage debate in San Diego and get a better understanding of what organizations like his are trying to do.   I can’t say that I liked everything I heard but I understood it.   One thing is for certain mountain bikers have more in common with these groups than we have different and hopefully they can see that responsible trail users can be dedicated stewards of the lands.

Give the trails a break already!!!

With all of the rains we have been getting a good number of our trails have been soaked and need some time to dry out.   I see on a number of forums some selfish freaking idiots/don’t-give-a-shit-types going out on the trails right after the rains and rutting up the trails and going around puddles making our singletrack wider.  It amazing these jackasses are so hardcore they can go out during or right after a rain but have to go around ever puddle.   Anyone who does this crap is not hard core, rad or “gnar”.  They are a selfish jackass! 

Please give the trails thier due time to dry out and spread the word.  We only get to ride a mere 330+ days a year here in San Diego,  surely we can find something else to do for a few days after the rains.  

Here is a wet trail rating guideline that floats around every season.  It is just a guidline and after these current rains, the trails will need even more rain than suggested.

SDMBA Volunteer Appreciation Gala

Saturday the San Diego Mountain Bike Association had it’s annual Volunteer Appreciation Event at the Visitor’s Center of Mission Trails Regional Park.

The event started off with an afternoon ride through the park.   A sizable crowd showed up for the pre-festivities ride that included three different routes for various skills levels.

I ended with the group that I believe should have been called “Should have known better group”.

We decided to climb Jackson to Suycutt Wash and then up to the saddle between North and South Fortuna Mountain.  There is some steep freaking fireroads on this route.  Somewhere near the top of the saddle, I remembered why I don’t ride much here.   Freaking fireroads everywhere trying to be passed off to the public as trails.  Just because you designate something a trail does not make it a trail.  I did chuckle pretty hard later in the day when someone said this place should be called  “Missing Trails Regional Park”.   The rumor/good news is that the management is starting to see the light on sustainable multiuse singletracks.   Okay rant aside,  after making it to the saddle we hung a right and climbed up to the peak of South Fortuna Mountain were we got in some cool views of downtown, Point Loma and the Coronado Islands.  From here we got in some mighty zippy descending that included some hike-a-biking down a portion of “The Steps” trails   Before long we were back to Jackson Drive and dumped a lot of hard earned elevation down the gravely fireroad.

Back at the visitor’s center, I along with a bunch of trails rats and dirt divas enjoyed a good time hanging, grubbing and conversating with each other.  Some of these folks I only see during trailwork events.   It was certainly a good time.  

Some people looked to be planning for world-wide singletrack domination.

It was a pretty lively crowd and there was a rumor that a gang sign or two might have been thrown around. (I think I caught the highly secretive “Sparticus” sign in use)

Later in the evening, there was some absolutely funny awards and killer swag handed out.  Many Shimano shiny bits, cool clothes and various assorted goodies found there way to good homes that evening. Nobody left empty handed.

There was one huge item left to the end for SDMBA’s Volunteer of the Year.    For that Dave Turner was on hand to present Mike MacGregor with a brand spanking shiny new Turner Frame!   Mike logged a grunch of trailwork hours at SDMBA events over the past year, established and headed up the new Trailwork committee and devoted a mountain of time off the trail to help out SDMBA and the MTB community at large.   

Congratulations Mike!    

Special thanks to Andy, Minette, the Social Comittee and rest of the folks that put this thing on.  I think everyone that was there would say it was a really great event.