So this weekend the family spent a couple of days in Big Bear at my brother-in-law’s cabin. I brought along the bikes just in case we could carve some time out for some fun in the dirt.
Turns out we did grab some time one morning so the boys and I headed for the lazy boy chairs at Snow Summit for lift to the top of the mountain.
This was my first time doing the lift assisted riding on the mountain as well. I have done stuff in the area and on the back side of the mountain but had never taken any of the stuff into town. From the top of the lift we took 2N10 west along the ridgeline for a few miles and then took the short singletrack out to the Grand Viewpoint.
While I think the views from here are pretty cool (been here once before), the boys were like, “Yeah Yeah Yeah, is it time to go downhill yet?”
Lucky for them it was time to point the bikes down the hill. After a quick bit of backtracking to 2N10, we took the Pine Knot Trail (1E01) down the hill. We had discussed doing the traditional Grandview Point Loop that used the fireroad 2N08 to go down the mountain and the Towne Trail to cut back over to the Snow Summit parking lot. Taking the Pine Knot trail would have us needing to ride an additional three miles back through town. In a rare moment of sibling concurrence the boys asked “who would want to go down a fireroad? Let’s take the singletrack!” (Ahhhh, I was so proud, some of my parenting has been getting through. 🙂 ) After this point we did not see much of Will except for regroups. We wanted to blaze ahead and I wanted to keep Jake within earshot.
Jake is gettting quite a bit faster. On a couple of occasions when I zipped ahead to get setup for a shot of him coming by I was surprised how quickly he caught up. I was also surprised at how long it took me to catch back up to him after I put the camera away and got back on the bike. He is working that hardtail really well.
Once down at the bottom at the Glen Aspen Picnic area we worked our way down on the streets to Highway 18 and cruised back through town. To add a little more trail to the return leg, after going through the village, we hung a right on Knickerbocker Street and after a short bit we hung a left onto 2N08 and back onto the dirt. There was some steep fireroad climbing to be done for a bit and it wiped the smiles of the boys’ face. It was good for them. I don’t want them to get used to the whole chair-lift lizard thing. All was better once we got up to where the Town Trail comes off of 2N08 and contours it way back to the Snow Summit parking lot. The boys had a good time and I was glad to get some quality time out on the dirt with them. We celebrated we some post-ride sodas.
