I Rode My Bike Today...

I rode my bike this morning with this guy. And, it was grand. Another Brown Mtn/El P outting. Is there such a thing as too many of those? I think not. Luis was an animal on the SS today. Id get him on the steep climbs but he’d get me on the gradual climbs and when it was time to point the bikes DH.... he was GONE. I couldnt catch him. It was as though he was riding his Enduro. :eek::thumbsup::cool:

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Kept on waiting to hear when the forests were going to open up then we all got the word on friday! Been waiting with @trmn8er for the opening as he wanted to explore up by Guffy and beyond. Driving up there it was super cloudy, then when turning off the 138 the clouds parted and clear blue skies!! Weather was fantastic, cool finally! Met a couple of groups of hikers on SOT, all friendly except a guy who told us we needed to get off and get on the fire road. Skipped a segment then hopped back on then headed over to blue ridge and bombed down it. Only saw a couple of bikers.

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You can see the blanket of clouds down below.

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Epic SOT goodness!

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Not the best names with this fire season?!?!
 
Whiting Ranch & twice around the Luge this morning. Got an early start at 7 AM, and it was chilly. Uneventful through Whiting until Cactus and three groups of hikers coming up. :gag:

Crossed over to STT and had a fairly lonely ride ... until the DH To Luge Flag section where I caught up to a really slow rider. Same thing happened at the same spot the second loop. :bang:

Luge was good, but I dropped my chain my second time down. Luckily, I did not get run over while fixing it in the middle of the trail. :eek:

Good ride, but tons of people.

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So as Sara mentioned, we rode bikes Saturday. Golden Eagle. It was blue skies, crisp morning, great trail conditions.

@Voodoo Tom had to be a badazz and show up with a new badazz bike on a badazz ride.
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Up above the clouds.
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I hate Voodoo’s new bike! It’s way too cool, it rides way to good, and he likes it way too much. I threw some heat on the final descent and Voodoo stuck to my rear wheel. :gotnothing:
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We had a Sara citing and it was good.
 
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With the wife and kid out of town I had a second day to roam free. With the WW50 right around the corner I felt like I needed to get some level of baseline. I've done a couple fairly strenuous 30 plussers lately, and to be honest they felt harder than I thought they should have by the end. To be fair, one I think was more smoke related. Though not WW50 level I decided to up the ante today and do a combo of Chesebro and New Millenium. Ended up with 43.8/6,041. Well, if today was a fact finding mission, I'm not super stoked on what I learned. To be fair, the 15/3K in Laguna yesterday was not nothing by any means, and I was definitely affected by that today. BUT, today was hard. At least the end of it was. Like, super hard. Turning left off of Las Virgenes to Bark Park at mile 28 instead of taking the easy 2 mile pavement cruise back to the truck was a moment of consternation. Turning left at the top of Bark Park to do the full 15/2500 loop instead of right to do the 5/600 LV downhill back to the truck was a straight up war inside my brain. @herzalot and I had a brief conversation yesterday about another brutal ride that was going on in the desert at the same time. My comment was that I don't think I'm bored enough with actual fun mountain biking yet to need that in my life. Those words rang in my head as I turned left onto the NM loop. It was a slog, and halfway through the climb up to the water tower before the first switchbacks I had reached the point where I was simply no longer having any semblance of fun. Weird day. It wasn't that my legs, or even my lungs gave out. That all felt better than the last 30+ I did, but I just couldn't get comfortable on the bike by the end. A$$ hurt, neck was stiff, and I felt like I couldn't move the way I wanted. Started getting sloppy, and making dumb mistakes.

This isn't me throwing in the towel on big rides. Far from it. Hell, maybe this will be my motivation to do more and get this kind of distance cemented in my repertoire. But in the meantime, I'm more than happy to not sit on my bike for a few days.

Conditions check: Man, I feel like things have really deteriorated over the last few weeks. The wall has gotten super boney. Gave it two tries today, but the ledge at the very top has gotten so pronounced it feels impossible for me to get over. The Gas Pipe sections of Sheep Corral is as sandy as I've ever seen it. Very different from even last week. New Millenium is pretty rough around the edges now too. Rock hard and full of braking bumps, blown out corners, and gopher holes. Sure hope we get some rain soon to reshape things, and allow for some trail work.
 
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buggravy said:
With the wife and kid out of town I had a second day to roam free. With the WW50 right around the corner I felt like I needed to get some level of baseline. I've done a couple fairly strenuous 30 plussers lately, and to be honest they felt harder than I thought they should have by the end. To be fair, one I think was more smoke related. Though not WW50 level I decided to up the ante today and do a combo of Chesebro and New Millenium. Ended up with 43.8/6,041. Well, if today was a fact finding mission, I'm not super stoked on what I learned. To be fair, the 15/3K in Laguna yesterday was not nothing by any means, and I was definitely not unaffected by that today. BUT, today was hard. At least the end of it was. Like, super hard. Turning left off of Las Virgenes to Bark Park instead of taking the easy 2 mile pavement cruise back to the truck was a moment of consternation. Turning left at the top of Bark Park to do the full 15/2500 loop instead of right to do the 5/600 LV downhill back to the truck was a straight up war inside my brain. @herzalot and I had a brief conversation yesterday about another brutal ride that was going on in the desert at the same time. My comment was that I don't think I'm bored enough with actual fun mountain biking yet to need that in my life. Those words rang in my head as I tuned left onto the NM loop. It was a slog, and halfway through the climb up to the water tower before the first switchbacks I had reached the point where I was simply no longer having any semblance of fun. Weird day. It wasn't that my legs, or even my lungs gave out. That all felt better than the last 30+ I did, but I just couldn't get comfortable on the bike by the end. A$$ hurt, neck was stiff, and I felt like I couldn't move the way I wanted. Started getting sloppy, and making dumb mistakes.

This isn't me throwing in the towel on big rides. Far from it. Hell, maybe this is will be my motivation to do more and get this kind of distance cemented in my repertoire. But in the meantime, I'm more than happy to not sit on my bike for a few days.

Conditions check: Man, I feels like things have really deteriorated over the last few weeks. The wall has gotten super boney. Gave it two tries today, but the ledge at the very top has gotten so pronounced it feels impossible for me to get over. The Gas Pipe sections of Sheep Corral is as sandy as I've ever seen it. Very different from even last week. New Millenium is pretty rough around the edges now too. Rock hard and full of braking bumps, blown out corners, and gopher holes. Sure hope we get some rain soon to reshape things, and allow for some trail work.
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Matt that’s a very solid effort. Big rides are easier when you have company to suffer with at least for me.
 
Slowly ramping up the miles... wanted to hit 14, but Firstborn wasn't feeling it. Good to see the youth are more out of shape than the olds!
I wanted to hit three trails, but we ended up with two. It was fine. Really nice out, and ran into a friend while out and about.

10/1,100/1.5

No pics from that one, but my wife went for a tandem to drop off our ballots downtown. In the approximately two minutes that we were there, we and three other couples dropped off ballots. That's one every thirty seconds on a Sunday afternoon with nobody out.

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I had a ton of schoolwork to do today, so I spent 5 hours at school, but I brought my bike and gear with me, y'know, just in case. Checked with Taylor @tbarnesarc to see if he was up for a lap in his backyard. Turns out he had just installed some new-to-him Zee brakes and wanted to give them a try. So I alighted on his doorstep at 4:30 and we rode from there. Up a tough long fireroad climb (Dartmoor?) to the intersection of Bommer Ridge and Laguna Ridge (T and A). But we turned left and took a run down Old Emerald and back up first. THEN we hit Taylor's fave - T and A. I was impressed with how much faster and more confident Taylor has gotten in the past year or so, He's a different rider. I've known him for over ten years, but it's been since he quit smoking 2 years ago and reduced beer consumption that his riding really took off. I used to just leave him in the dust on any descent, and most climbs, but not anymore. I've rolled off the throttle a little, but he's cranked it up a lot! Right on my wheel all the way today. :cool:

Popped open a cold one and watched his video footage on his big screen immediately following.

8.5 miles 1500' Bikes are fun and evening rides with a good friend even better! :thumbsup:
 
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herzalot said:
Holy double double negative! Impressive!

Impressive ride too, especially given that our ride yesterday was not nothing! Sorry to hear that it was a form of misery, but you know I get that.
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Yeah, in general I'm a flagrant offender of the double negative rule, and I stand by my implementation :cool:.

All in all, it was a good weekend on the bike. Super fun day yesterday, and a character builder today. Actually the first 2/3 of today were fun too, and I think any time you clear the mental hurdle of doing something you're compelled to do, but don't exactly WANT to do, is its own kind of victory.
 
Old&InTheWay said:
View attachment 69850

&https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/sbnf/home/?cid=fseprd82296

Wanted to do a Loch Leven P.O. loop tomorrow, not so sure about that now:(
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Loch Leven is open. Middle Control to Glass is open.

Ride option: Park at SART trailhead halfway down MCR. Do an out and back to Glass and keep going towards Southfork until you feel tired!. Or for a nice loop, drive down to the bridge at Seven Oaks, ride up Seven Oaks Rd. to Southfork, then ride SART back to MCR and drop down to the car parked by the bridge.

Report back with your findings!
 
buggravy said:
It was a slog, and halfway through the climb up to the water tower before the first switchbacks I had reached the point where I was simply no longer having any semblance of fun. Weird day. It wasn't that my legs, or even my lungs gave out. That all felt better than the last 30+ I did, but I just couldn't get comfortable on the bike by the end. A$$ hurt, neck was stiff, and I felt like I couldn't move the way I wanted. Started getting sloppy, and making dumb mistakes.
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This is like anything....you get used to it. The more you do it, the less you get this feeling. Also, if you are not used to 6000' day following a strenuous 3000' day, it can be demoralizing. Had you done them in reverse order, you'd probably say the same thing about the 3000' ride today.

But like Tom says, it's easier when you have someone with you to take your mind off the suffering.

Don't give up just yet.
 
buggravy said:
Yeah, in general I'm a flagrant offender of the double negative rule, and I stand by my implementation :cool:.

All in all, it was a good weekend on the bike. Super fun day yesterday, and a character builder today. Actually the first 2/3 of today were fun too, and I think any time you clear the mental hurdle of doing something you're compelled to do, but don't exactly WANT to do, is its own kind of victory.
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I'm really disappointed that you didn't say "I'm not an infrequent user of the double negative..." :(
 
mtnbikej said:
This is like anything....you get used to it. The more you do it, the less you get this feeling. Also, if you are not used to 6000' day following a strenuous 3000' day, it can be demoralizing. Had you done them in reverse order, you'd probably say the same thing about the 3000' ride today.

But like Tom says, it's easier when you have someone with you to take your mind off the suffering.

Don't give up just yet.
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Thanks, I appreciate the encouragement.
 
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