Mountain Bike Bill, The Dirt on the Dirt

Month: February 2011

Wednesday Stoke in Alpine

Time for another round of Wednesday fun in Alpine.  The weather was starting to roll in but most of the time sky was full of white puffy clouds with a pretty blue backdrop. 

I had not been here since the big batch of rain we had a while back and it was pretty astonished to see all the little changes momma-nature had done to the place.  Of course the the trail elves has been out making “shoes” so to say. 

Historically I have had a bad habit of riding this place in the middle of the summer and stewing my brain in the process.   I  have ridden this place quite a bit over these cooler months and it was quite nice to do the climb in reasonable conditions.  Maybe I am not as retarded as I thought (ask me again in August!)  Once at the top it was time to play in some chunk.   Steve up near the top.

Me getting started.

This bump-a-bump line gave me some troubles today.  It took me three tries and a little skin exfoliation to get it done today.

More playing on the rocks.

The Big Black Fatty coming in for a landing.

The trails elves had tweaked this kicker since my last time here and the thing really pops up now.  I carrried nearly all the way over the rock tranny to a rather harsh landing.  Yeah for forgiving suspension.

The descent down the main trail was pretty awesome as the dirt has just right moisture in it be both velcro-ish and stupidly fast.   The dirt was way too good to stop and take pics.   Another great day on a bike.

Noble Canyon and the BLT

What an awesome weekend I had.   Jeff Sherman was down for the weekend from Kernville for the weekend and Bill O’neil came down from West LA as well.   Friday was yummy grub and tasty beverages at Stone Brewing Company.   Saturday was Big Laguna – Noble Canyon ride.   We had a sizable group of 11 and did it in semi-slacker fashion by cutting out the Pine Valley and Indian Creek segment and doing a point-to-point ride versus the classic climb-o-rama Tour De Noble. 

We started thing off up top by taking the Redtail Roost singletrack down into Aqua Dulce,  from there we worked our way up to the top of Los Gatos Ravine.  We did of course play on a log or two in the process. 

Trickier than it looks.

Once on Los Gatos we stopped and played on an feature or six.   Here is “Dental Plan” 

 Some more of “Dental Plan”

There was some log ridage and log pileage to be played on.

Once down on Big Laguna Meadow.  We went clockwise around to the west side where we found the “Water of the World” pond almost frozen over. 

Halfway up the west side we cut back over to the east side of the meadow at the lake and the went up the meadow counter-clockwise.  There was some log chunkage found to play on before making our way over to Noble Canyon.

Noble Canyon was as awesome as always and the there was some log airage to be had.  

As well as some Rock Airage.

Stairway to Hell did not disappoint.

Stairway Chunkage.

A bit of roman wallage on Extra Credit. 

After polishing off the trail we were treated to the first release of Kernville Brewing Company’s Chocolate Porter creation courtesy of JFSH…….Tasty Stuff!

A mighty fine day on a bike with old and new friends a like.

Sycamore and Santee playtime or “Plague-aholic” rides again

Wednesday afternoon I got out for a ride out at Sycamore Canyon and the Santee area in general.  Steve had been off the bike for over two weeks with what he described as “The Plague”.   Last week  the germal infestion caused an aborted attempt for a ride with Steve, but this week “Plague-aholic” made the show.  Not wanting to push his recovery luck we opted for something much more XC oriented and mellow than the typical Wednesday stoke rides. 

This area is pretty singlespeed friendly  so I decided the bring out my one-geared steed out today for a little bit of trail luvin.

XC mellow day or not Steve has a passion for rocks, so I made a point show him a couple of play spots

The steep head angle of this bike was not most rock hounding capable rig (for my skills) so picking the lines carefully was the name of the game.

We ventured over towards Santee and did some more line scopeage and rock play.

The texture of this rock was pretty freaky and we could not help but want to call this the “Brain Rock”

We played and snooped around until daylight became and issue and then headed back.  Not a bad way to spend a Wednesday afterwork.

(Photos: Mostly by Steve, all with his camera)

Ranger Creek and Palisades Loop (WA)

So I finally got around to getting a page put together for the Ranger Creek – Palisades Trail Loop near Mount Rainer in Washington State.    I did this ride a couple of times in August and it is a fantastic mix of awesome trail, views and and some lung busting climbs.  The route described on the page included an out-and-back to Noble Knob which resulted in even more awesome views and brought the ride up to around 21 miles with about 4,000 feet of climb and a day full of smiles.

While it is covered in at least a few of snow this time of year, if you should find yourself in Washington in the summer months, it is well worth your time to check out this loop.

Here is all the rest of the information on the Ranger Creek and Palisades Trail Loop.