Mountain Bike Bill, The Dirt on the Dirt

Category: Orange County

Orange County Trails

Playing on the San Juan Trail

Sunday was a return to the San Juan Trail at the southern end of the Santa Ana Mountains.  The weather was in the typical range of So-Cal Awesomeness. 

The climb up from the bottom went well.  There was a really stiff wind that sometime gusted to what I would guess would be 25-30 mph.  On several occasions I had to put a foot down to keep from being blown off the trail.  Luckily, the trail weaved around sidehills enough that there was lots of wind breaks. 

The views were pretty impressive from up at Cocktail Rock.  On this ride I decide to continue on the New San Juan Trail were I enjoyed technical sections and fun swoopy stuff in the trees.

I took a bit of breather near the junction with the Viejo Tie Trail before continuing on to the Old San Juan Trail.  I got the oppurtunity earn some Karma points by helping out a guy change a flat how had forgotten his pump and tire irons.   After that I enjoyed the descent and cruise down through the meadow along the Old San Juan Trail.   The climb back up to Cocktail Rock was just as much of a beater as I remember, but it was nice in that I had not done this segment in some number of years.  I ran to a MTB Bud (aka Mushroom Dave) there and we chit-chatted a bit before it was time for the fun 6 mile descent back to the trailhead.

The descent was quite awesome, with one 2 second exception.  While I kept looking ahead down the trail other riders on thier way, I got suprised by another rider just past the apex of a blind turn.   The loose decomposed granite in the turn and my hard breaking do not mix too well together and the bike slide out from under me.   Another thing that did not mix to well was my knee and the decomposed granite which resulted in a minor fleshwound (make sure to use your best Monty Python impressionation while saying it).   It cleaned up quite well but pretty ugly at first.   Luckily I did not hit the dude or his bike as that could have made things much worse.

A litte bloodshed aside, it was an awesome day to be out on a bike.

Give the Trails some time!

Okay, it is that time again lots of rain and we all want to go for a ride.   

Take a look at Wet Trail Rating Page here.  

Want to get in the conversation?  Check out this thread that comes up every year about this time.

BOTTOM LINE – Give the trails some time to dry out, going out to soon will screw our trails up.

2009 Opener – The Los Pinos Trail

What a great way to start off the new year with some dirt I have never been on.  It has been on the list for quite a few years but I had never gotten around to get getting on it. From what I have been told we hit the trail when it was in the best condition in years.   This trail is not for everyone, ummmm it would probably not be a stretch to say this trail is not for most riders.  It has a grunch of hike-a-biking and some steep and often hairy descents.  I’ll be getting a page up on the site before long on this one.  For now here are some pics.


Rodman with some earlier “Just a Warmup” Hike-A-Bike.

The views did not suck all day.

Some of the mild Downage.

Where is Waldo on this brutal Hike-A-Bike Section?

Here’s a hint.

Mark on one of the ridable climbs.  We were on the peak in the distance earlier.

More trail goodness.

Pretty much all the Hike-A-Bikage is done now.  The San Juan Trail works it way along the face of the Sugarloaf peak in the distance.

Some techie bit near the bottom.

All in All, I would have to say we brought in the Newt Year in right!

San Clemente Singletracks

Well after a really long time in the works I finally published the San Clemente Singletracks Page.   It is not my best trail review, but I have found it so difficult to describe a route well that it has languished in the draft stage for nearly a year.  So I basically gave up on my normal style and just went with a general description of the area as well as a few of the major trails.  After that just go ride, get blissfully disoriented and have one heck of a time out there.   I have to give a special thanks to John Early who provided me with a few GPX routes (to share with you) that were continuous from start to finish.    Every time I have every been to this trail system, I’m always exploring and do stuff like doubling back, go the wrong way just cause and basically make a mess of my GPS track.   I will probably clean up the trail review here in the coming months but I got tired of holding on to this one.  So enjoy and maybe go for a ride!

Wallstreet �

Pushing My Luck

I have been fighting off the early signs of a cold so I opted to do something non-epic to for my weekend ride.   I had driven by the Ronald Casper Wilderness Park dozens of time on my way out to the San Juan Trail.  I had heard that it was an okay ride but all fireroads for mountain biking.   I figured I would be stopping often to take pictures so a bit of minor chest congestion should not be too big of a deal.  The chest congestion ended up not being much a factor at all.  But something else would be.

Windmill

 I started off from the Old Corral/Windmill area and took the Bell Canyon trail.  I had barely gotten on the bike when I spotted a group of deer.  They certainly knew I was there so I kneeled down and looked away from them and acted like I was looking for something on the ground.   Feigning that I was uninterested in them was enough to calm them enough that they cautiously  moved along the edge of the meadow gettting closer to me.  I spent a good 10 minutes here before they moved along. 

Deer 

After this things went along pretty nicely.  With all of the rain we have been having there was green everywhere.   I eventually made my way to the Oso Trail and started climbing a ridge.  This trail turned steep in quite a few sections, but it was cool as views of Santiago, Los Pinos and Surgarloaf peaks were often seen in the distance.  I was a little over half a mile from reaching Badger Pass when I heard a loud bang and immediately felt the rear tire go flat.    I thought “No Big Deal, I know how to boot a sidewall tear”.   It did not take long to find the tear and it was not good.   I had about a two inch split in the tire just above the bead.   Not a good place at all.   After taking inventory of all my stuff, I was also a bit bummed.   About a month or so ago, I had used up all my duct tape helping someone get a busted chainstay patched up enought to limp home and had fogotten to replenish my tape.   

Badger Pass Gazebo

I ended up using a really big patch on the inside of the tire with strips of first aid tape to help spread the load out.  I also still had a tireliner still in the tire from a dersert ride that I shifted around to the side.   Once I inflated the tire it was obvious the patch was pretty marginal.  I deflated the tire and added two small patches on the outside as well as some more first aid tape to the outside of the tire.  This ended up working better as when I inflated the tire (with much less air than I normally use) there was much less bulging.    I had little confidence that this patch was going to hold and had already committed to about a four mile hike back to my truck.   Looking at the map I figure it would be only be marginally longer to take Badger Pass down to the San Juan Creek Trail and then back to my truck vice going back the way I came.   I could at least see some new stuff on my way back. 

Flowers

So I gingerly made my way down Badger Pass as I wanted to flex that sidewall as little as possible.  Badger Pass ended up being really pretty with all of the growth.  I knew it was a fireroad but in places it was vitrually a hard to follow singletrack.  The poppys and lupines where really going off through as well.  It was quite a treat. 

Flowers

 Once I had made my way down to the San Juan Creek Trail, I was amazed to see how well the patch was holding up.   The San Juan Creek Trail (aka fireroad) was pretty non-eventual as well as mostly fairly crappy as it was very close to highway 74.   Once back near the park entance and back on the pavement I rolled back towards my truck.   The rear tire was slowing loosing some air so I stopped and carefully put some more back in.  

I felt really lucky at the point having averted a sizable hike.   I stopped at the junction of the East Ridge Trail as I really wanted to check out as much of the park as I could at this was on the list.   Since I had already mentally committed for a hike today, I figured what the heck, there are a couple of trails that I can hike back on if the tire blows and only have a few miles to deal with.    So up the East Ridge I went and worked over to the Sunrise trail.   At the bottom of Sunrise I had to put some more air in the tire and bulging and increased some.   

 Hmmmm, I only have about a mile back to the truck from here.   I really wanted to check out the Starr Rise trail up to the West Ridge Trail.   I decided to push my luck some more and went up the Starr Rise trail.  I was loosing air a little quicker now and I need to pump up again when I reach the West Ridge.   I thought heading north would be risking too much, but I was will to push my luck again and headed south the West Ridge trail.

trail

There were some more nice views to be seen from the West Ridge and I took it out to the end of the park.   The bulging was getting bad now.  I had seen pretty much everything I wanted to so it was time to head back.   I pumped up again when I got back to the Bell Canyon trail and it looked like it was going to go at any second.   I worked by way back to towards the truck and sure enough it popped.   The cool thing was that I was exactly half a mile from my truck.   It was still really pretty out and I felt really great about the timing of the flat.   I had planned on a four mile hike and ended up only doing half a mile.

 I got in a total of 17 miles of riding out at Caspers with 13 of it being on a booted, patched, and taped tire.  I feel quite lucky!

Up-Down-Up-Down……Bell Ridge Action

Wow! The Trabuco Canyon – Bell Ridge loop is a bunch bigger than the 20-mile distance would leave you to believe.   I have not crunched all the numbers yet but it looks like something like over 4,400 feet of climbing.   There was supposed to be three of us, but one our cohorts in grime whipped out a “little” 70-mile fixie night road ride last night and somehow managed to oversleep.  I have no idea how that could have happened 🙂

The ride started pretty rough for me.  I participated in a hockey skating clinic yesterday and I woke up with some funky kinks and soreness in my legs.  We had a five-mile dirt road ride to start things off before hitting the Trabuco trail.  The road did little to get my legs to feeling better.  It was not until somewhere around the turnoff  for the West Horsethief trail where my legs seemed to start feeling okay.  Of course this is also the spot where the Trabuco trail starts getting really tricky  to climb in spots with patches of loose shale rocks that requires a bunch of finesse while extracting some extra energy from your legs.

Trabuco Canyon in 2005

Once we made it up to Main Divide Truck Trail it was time to take the Los Pinos trail a ways before peeling off onto Bell Ridge.     This ride had some great views in all directions, but boy did we pay for the pleasure.   Most of the time my butt was either on the nose of my saddle climbing or nearly dragging on the rear wheel on descents.  

Down on Bell Ridge

There were at least three sections that were Hike-A-Bike climbs and one that most riders would Hike-A-Bike down.  I took a long hard look at the one gnarly downhill section in question and decided to hike it down.  I’m pretty sure I could have cleaned it, but I was not so sure about doing it on the first attempt.  Considering we were a long time away from help, I opted on the safer option.   Next time I’m going to bring some protective gear and give it a shot. 

Up on Bell Ridge

The steep up and down action of the trail kept on going until the last few miles when grades mellowed out to “moderate” and the sight lines opened up to allow for some bits of sustained speed.  We finished up the ride by dropping down into a neighborhood and take a bit of surface street action back to our truck.

Bell Ridge B&W Action

Bell Ridge was a great ride that was a bit more challenging than unabated fun.  Check back on the site over the coming weeks to see a full review and maps. 

UPDATE: The Full Review is now posted

-Bill

More ZZZZs or the San Juan Trail

I woke up really tired this morning and was not really feeling a desire to ride.   I knew I needed to ride, but I just did not feel too interested to get going.    Over the last four days I had not been sleeping well and I spent most of yesterday at the hockey rink as it was opening and both of my boys played games.   So after setting on the couch for a while flip-flopping on wither to go back to bed or not, I decided to go for a ride “anyway”.   

 The San Juan trail was the trail of choice today and it was to be a solo effort.  As luck would have I ran it Mike and Larry who I had not ridden with in a couple of years.    I would tag along with them for the whole day.    It was quite comfortable  at the lower trail which I knew from experience meant it was going to get hot today.     I had my logged legged bike so I was going to be mostly a spinning effort up the trail.

On the climb up, Mike’s rear shifter went on the fritz keeping the bike in the 11 tooth cog in the back.   This is not exactly a gear you want to try pushing up San Juan.    Mike had a bit of thin rope in his pack so after a bit of MacGyver action when had in a gear the would be manageable.

MacGyver Shifter

I have always been slow to adapt to the heat so the 80+ temps and my fatigue were catching up with me near the top, so after reaching Cocktail Rock, I decided to just head back down from there.  Mike and Larry decided to come down from there as well.   The extra effort required to get the bigger bike up the hill paid off  with a very cushy and zippy descent back down.   

Heading down the SJT
Awesomely Beautiful Day

I ended up running to folks I had met a few weeks earlier out on a ride, and then further down the trail I ran into one of my frequent riding buds on his way up the trail.   After a few minutes of chit-chat he was back to climbing and I was back to having a ripping good time down the hill.

Larry on Descent
Larry on descent

Mike on Descent
Mike on the way down.

Once down at the bottom, Mike whipped out a cooler with some Deschutes Brewing Company’s Mirror Pond Ale.  Yummy!!   So this solo ride that almost did not happen turned out to be a really good social event

 -Bill

Singletrack for the Soul

I had not seen my buddy Jerry in what seemed like half a year.  We had just not been able to get a weekend to mesh up.  The planets had finally aligned and both Bill O’Neil, Jerry and I managed to get together for a ride.  As an added bonus, SoCal rider at large and all around great guy Jeff Sherman managed to put in some last-minute commuting mileage to join us.  I had not seen him in over a year.  Today would have been a good day even if we would had went straight to shooting the breeze over some beers.    I as it turned out we had a great day out on the San Clemente Singletracks.   (For those that have been inquiring about when I am going to get a page up on this place, I’m close, make a week or so away.)

The day was mostly cloudy with the temperatures being cool but not quite cold.  The rainy season we are having has made the hillsides quite green and the singletrack is getting quite single in most places.   I have a feeling this place is going to be going off with colors in the spring. 

Singletrack Hillside 

I took the single speed out today and it was an excellent bike out here with only a couple of hills causing great distress and/or hoofing it.   The traction was pretty good with only a couple of spots that are not draining well.   I was having a really good time out here today and I felt like I was railing most of the turns.    I did however crash twice but came out absolutely unscathed.  The first one was on the steepest descent in the entire place.   After riding along a contouring hillside singltrack, the trail abrutly turns straight down the hill for a short bit.   I came into the top of the turn at the top of the hill too hot which started a comical four or five step process of near saves that amplified the next error until about half way down the hill, the bike and I went flying off into the tall grass.    I had stopped earlier up the trail to take the photo above so my buds were all waiting at the bottom the hill with ring-side seats for the “Bobbling Bill and Bike Show”.    You know you are will buds, when they immediately ask in a concerned tone “are you okay?” and as soon as you say “Yeah”  they break out into uncontrollable  gut-busting laughter.   Even I was laughing over that one.    

UPDATE: Here is Jerry’s photo “Bobbling Bill and Bike Show”.   

Bill Go Boom

The other crash was a bit more interesting,  I came into a turn at the top of steep chute too fast and went offline enough to have my front wheel get grabbed by a small stump and over the bars I went in slo-mo fashion.   While I came out unscathed, a strap on my helmet gave up the ghost for the cause.  Taking a peek at my tires I realized they were not doing a good job of shedding off dirt and mud which may have contributed to my follies off the trail today.  The rest of the ride was filled with more hella fun singletracking until we realized that there was damn good beers with our name of them waiting at the end of the ride.

 Jeff a climbing

Here is Jeff climbing. 

We had all brought a couple of our favorite brews to mix and match with the group but Jeff was the big hit by bringing a couple of growlers of Kern River Brewing Companies finest creations.   We finished catching up on things on a patio of a local burger joint.  Great singletrack with some great friends followed up with some great beers.   This was certainly and outing were the experience was greater than the sum of its individual parts.

San Clemente Singletrack Mashing

This morning was to be a fairly quick run through the San Clemente Singletracks in order to get back home to see the Chargers  vs Patriots game. (Yes, I know I’m still slacking on getting a page on this place put together)  I was meeting some folks up there but failed to realize they were meeting near the beach end of the place.   I went to the Dog Park start and did not figure out my mistake until it was time to roll.  It worked out well as I had a nice solo roll through a good chunk of the park to warm up with before meeting up with the group somewhere along “no-turns”.    After meeting up with the group it was apparent they were pushing a good pace.  Since I’m still having to single speed things right now, that was exactly what I was doing.  Either pushing or having a good pace.  Considering my current state of physical fitness it was a little too much pushing.  If I keep riding the SS that will go away soon enough.  I rode with the folks for the better part of thier route which included some loop-backs onto stuff I had done earlier in the day.  I’m still getting to know this place and they took some turns that I would not have done otherwise.  By the time I split off from the group I figured I had done somewhere around 15 miles or so and I still had to make my way back up to the dog park from near the south end of the system.   By the time I got back to my truck, my arms and lower back where fried.  Ahhh the joys of single speeding!

 San Clemente Singletrack

-Bill

The San Clemente Singletracks

I went out here today for the first time with a SocalTrailRiders.org group and I was pretty impressed with the single track out there. The place has lots of twists and turns while maintaining great flow. I did not take many pictures at all today (Busy trying to keep up) Here are a few:

The Warrior Society folks had a small contingent out there today as well. Here we are regrouping


While watching those guys work their way up a hill.

Some of the nice downs.

A not so nice up

Various folks from the ride. 

With me living in North County San Diego this place is going to go onto my local ride rotation. I heard someone say this is one of Orange County’s trail gems. I would have to totally agree.    Over the next few weeks I will be putting together a page and map up on the site. Mucho thanks to OMR for leading the ride today and all of the rest of the folks who made this a fun post-turkey burn ride.