Mountain Bike Bill, The Dirt on the Dirt

Tag: SCST

Greenery at SCST

I spent an afternoon this weekend showing Nichol around the San Clemente Singletracks (aka San Onfre State Park aka “The Weed Patch).  The trails are in great conditions and the winter greenery is in full effect.

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It is really awesome that the state park legalized the majority of the user-built trail network out here but I always find the “Cultural” names they gave the trails funny.  (And nearly unpronounceable to boot).  The Pacific Ocean is off in the distance here along with the Oregon and Ho Chi-Min trails.

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Climbing “Stitches” which I think the park calls “Yuma’ukawichum Pompe”.  No matter what you call it, it is a nice bit of trail.

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Cruising “No-Tools”.  This trail got its name because no tools were used in its original construction.  Folks just rode the route enough that a trail bedded in.  Off in the distance in Santiago Peak and the San Ana Mountains that are home many a trail such as.  Trabuco and Holy Jim, the San Juan Trail and West Horse Thief  just name a few.

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Nichol working a turn on “Holeshot”.  It is really hard to ride all of the trails in a single visit as you would have to double up on a few loops to reach all the trails .  I estimate you would do nearly 30 miles with a healthy dose of elevation change.

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We only a did fraction of the trail system, but certainly earned post-ride beers and a stop by one of my favorite burger stops in the area, aptly named Burger Stop.    We are definitely going to get back here a few times over the winter just to enjoy all of the greenery on these excellent trails.

San Clemente Single Tracking

So after getting back from Japan on Monday, I got in some quality time with my youngest son Jake on Tuesday and Wednesday.   The boy has been growing like a weed and was in need of resizing/refreshing some of his hockey gear.   HockeyGiant.com has a large store in Anaheim so a shopping outing was added to the day’s to-do list.   The San Clemente Single Tracks (aka “The Weedpatch”) was right along the way so a pit stop in order.  There a couple of ways to get into the area and we parked off of Cristianitos Road.  This is real popular place for the local surfers hitting up Trestles to park so we looked like the odd men out without a surfboard in tow when we headed out. 

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We had not started out our morning planning on going for a ride so I had made the breakfast equivalent of a extra large all-meat pizza comprised of eggs, toasts, grits (the real all-natural stone ground stuff) and copious amounts of thick-cut applewood smoked bacon.  (Just for the record, all-meat pizza itself a breakfast food group!)   While breakfast had been mighty tasty we were still pretty stuffed when we started pedaling.  Jake had kicked my ass on the climbs during our last outing but that was not the case today.   My youngest buck soon learned that one of the skill sets that Dad honed while obtaining his official old guy qualifications was the ability climb hills with a belly full of bacon. 

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One nice thing about this area is that even when you are climbing there are plenty undulations here and there that break most of the climbs up.    Bacon burps on the climbs and smiles on the descents was the theme on this outing.  I always enjoy all the flowing swooping goodness out in this area.  The trails conditions were also good out today.  My favorite time out here is in the spring when everthing is green but there was nothing to complain about with it today. 

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We did about a 15 miles of trails out here before loading up the bikes and continuing on up to Anaheim to beat up on Dad’s wallet at the hockey store.  Another good day out a bike made even better by spending it with one of my boys.

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!

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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.