Mountain Bike Bill, The Dirt on the Dirt

Tag: Calvera

Lake Calvera with Jake

With all of the competing interests pulling at my boys’ time such as friends, hockey practice, hockey games, etc…It was really cool that Jake wanted to join me on a ride at Lake Calvera this morning.

I took him on a different group of trails than what I have typically done in the past.  Some of it was due to some of the trails being closed by the City of Carlsbad as they have started actively managing thier slice of the Calvera “Area”.  Another reason for the trail change up is tha Jake has gotten strong and better on the bike so I thought it was time to take him on some of the more technical bits.

Jake did quite well on the technical bits.   I was surprised that the squeeze type rock moves gave him more troubles than having to go up and over rocks.

Which he seemed to find easy to just pop up onto and roll off of.  Makes me wish I had started riding a mountain bike when I was a little grommet. 

This trail feature should have a sign “You can be no taller than this to got on this ride”.  It would have been a face smasher if I would have tried it.  All together we did about 12 miles or so.

On our pedal back to the house we started thinking about tasty brown cold beverages for post ride refreshments.

Ahh, Coke Slurpees!

Back to Hitting the Local Stuff

I got back from Japan a couple of weeks ago and have been taking it easy for the most.  Enjoying the “normal” things in my life like the kid’s hockey games, practice, honey-dos, etc…. Oh, and I managed to break my FN left big toe just strolling through the house.    So not much in the way of blogging about mountain biking.  But I been squeaking in some ride here here and there.

Before the toe breakage, I met up with one of the usual suspects at one of the usual suspect spots for some playtime on the rocks.   After not riding here for over six months, the rocks and all the moves looked bigger.   I’m going to have to repolish my game in this area.

Just a couple of days ago, I tested out the toe on ride through Calvera with my youngest son, Jake.  While the toe was mildly a pain, it is okay to ride with.

 

What I was really stoked about was how well Jake was hanging.   I rode at around 90% of my normal pass and he was right there the whole time.  We did not do a whole lot of stopping either, just riding.  

Kids never seem to amaze me at the rate at which they progress.   We had a really good time out there and we got in around 12-14 miles all together.  It was a good day to be a Dad and on a bike.

Help Save Calvera!

MTB Comments on the City of Carlsbad Lake Calavera Trails Master Plan Needed
Respond before the COB, Monday, August 24th deadline.

EMAIL your opinion to pam.drew@carlsbadca.gov  (This might be a type also include pam.drew@carlsbad.ca.gov)

1. All trails shall be multi-use. No segregation of trails based on trail width or biking vs. hiking.
2. No use of decomposed granite for trail surface improvements. Leave trail surface natural.
3. No widening of existing trails to meet Type A, B or C requirements. Trails are already wide enough.
4. Addition of quality multi-use singletrack into the trails plan. If the opened trails don’t provide a better experience than the closed trails, users will keep using the closed trails.

We have until Monday August 24th to file comments with the City of Carlsbad.

The next order of business will be dealing w/ DFG property and all the poaching/illegal building. The issue right now however, is public comment on the city plan (not DFG issues).

THANKS!!!!

 

iTards on the Trail

I’m generally okay if folks want to rock out on the trail with an iPod.  It is when they do both ears and have the tunes up high enough that they can not hear the world around them.    There is a whole list of mini-rants that I could go into about missing turns on group rides and not being able to interact with other trail users and coming across as jerks.    Blah Blah Blah….

 Here is a case from a ride a couple of days ago that involved a hiking “iTard”.   I’m riding along and spot a rattlesnake on the side of the trail.  I stop and check him out.   He is a good sized snake but has not reacted to me yet.   I like to get this critters away from the trail as some boneheads will kill them if they encounter them.  After getting a couple of shots I’m about to get the snake’s attention so it will go away when I hear a couple of hikers coming.    The snake and I are near a curve, with the snake being between me and the approaching hiker.    From the sound, I could tell they were trail runners.   I yell for them to hold up.   Nothing.    The first runner in all of his iTardness rounds the corner in all of his white-corded bud wearing glory.   I yeah “snake” really loud now and his girlfriend (just rounding the corner) stops and joins in the yelling fest.   The dude is on a collision course with this snake.  I wave my arms frantically and yell one more time and iDumbAss finally stops and looks at me with a bewildered look like “What”?   I simply pointed at the snake that was about two strides away from being in striking distance.    iTard freaks out at bit in full reverse.   After that I snake gets a little concerned and makes some noise and goes away.   

 Rattler

Shortly after the hikers pass me, I hear iTard’s girlfriend running him through the ringer about not being able to hear what is going on.  I snickered as I got rolling again to complete some North County trail goodness. 

Trail Goodies

National Trails Day at Lake Calvera

Today was National Trails Day and the City of Carlsbad put together some events that included a hike and a bike ride.  The San Diego Mountain Bike Association asked for mountain bikers to support and what a great showing of support the Mountain Biking community did today.  My rough estimates, Mountain Bikers were over 2/3rds of the participants present.  With some city officials present, it was apparent that we got their attention.

Briefs
SDMBA’s Coastal North County Liason, Erik Trogden give a quick brief. 

There was a quick round of briefings and waiver  signings that have to occur for these types of events and then we were off for a quick ride.  

Adult Group
Most of the Intermediate Group

There were two ride groups, an intermediate and a beginner ride.   I was going to led a third kid-friendly ride.  As it turned out all of the kidless adults went for the intermediate ride, so the beginner ride became the grommet ride.

 Free Rider
This gadget is cool.   This connect the seatpost of th big bike to the head tube of the little bike.  It lifts the little bikes front wheel off the ground so Dad can steer a little easier.  Both ends have quick disconnects so that either bike could be used as normal within a minute or two.

The kids were riding well ,so the loop ended up being just a bit bigger than planned.

Grommet Crew

The Junior League

It was really great that so many people took the time out to represent Mountain Bikers to the City of Carlsbad.  I know that Saturdays for many is often the only chance during the week they have to get in a big ride.  So THANK YOU to all who gave up the “big ride” to help further our interests here in North County.