I Rode My Bike Today...

Three-ride Thursday... and I'm paying for it today! Started off riding with my son to school (I'm on spring break), then hitting the trails. Ended up pulling a good couple hours of riding, and only bypassed one section of dirt I wasn't really feeling.
Got back, quick shower, and rode over to my mom's house as she wanted to take me out to lunch. That was short and on my SS roadie.
Back from that, throw the bikes in the car, pick up my son, and off to HS MTB practice. I was pretty done by then, but put in another hour of riding on a glorious afternoon prior to the Santa Anas kicking up. A great, but tiring day. Real lazy today, just want to hang out without much motivation, so am paying the price a bit. Nice lunch out with the Mrs. though, so things are okay!
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I FLooped.
11 miles.
1,006 feet.

Sylvan singletrack on some extra credit
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Mustard going crazy on the FLoop.
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Fun times!
 
Took the loaner JET out for a quick shakedown at Oaks this morning. I got the stink eye from the wife as I was getting ready and telling her I'd only be gone 45 minutes (we have a lot going on today, Easter bunny kinda stuff) so I only went up to Yucca, down to BB from there and out Mountain Goat. 7.9mi and 775' up

First impressions of the Jet were mixed, mostly due to me just being so used to my RIP and the components on it. The Jet has a Fox 34 which felt different than my Pike and even though the HT angle is actually slacker on the Jet I didn't feel as confident on it going down (again, this may just be a familiarity thing, tires, cockpit etc). The dropper that's on it doesn't go down as far as mine on my RIP so that felt a little weird too. Climbing while seated felt similar to my bike but standing and mashing felt better on the Jet.

Hoping to get a 20+ mile ride in tomorrow to really get a feel for it. Have a few adjustments to make today so I am glad I was able to sneak a quick ride in today.

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I rode yesterday... A spinny out and back on the Bell Trail to the end. The mustard is growing over the trail from both sides, which is pretty crazy considering that the "trail" is 10 feet wide in most spots. :confused: This should be about the greenest and wettest Rwanda ride ever. :thumbsup:

17 miles and 1800 feet.

Anyone know a good mustard greens recipe?
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From the end of the extra credit...
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Super techy dodging strollers and leashes at the lake...
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And then I rode today... Black Star to Motorway. This was probably the last time for this loop before Vision Quest. There were 12,000 hikers headed to the falls. Past the falls turnoff, I saw maybe ten riders on Black Star. Past Beeks, I saw one guy. The temps were great, but the wind was kicking up pretty good the entire ride...

I did see a few hikers coming down Motorway, but they all jumped off the side of the trail in fear with my freight train brakes. Note to self... Don't buy cheap pads from Performance. I actually had hikers thank me for being so loud. :cautious: The Shimanos will be here today. They are immediately going on. The others may go in the trash. :thumbsup:

25 miles and 4300 feet...

Even though I started at the tree farm, I didn't start the Garmin until the Black Star gate. I wanted to see times for each section... And it's easier to not have to subtract 4:40. :D

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Cornholio said:
Took the loaner JET out for a quick shakedown at Oaks this morning. I got the stink eye from the wife as I was getting ready and telling her I'd only be gone 45 minutes (we have a lot going on today, Easter bunny kinda stuff) so I only went up to Yucca, down to BB from there and out Mountain Goat. 7.9mi and 775' up

First impressions of the Jet were mixed, mostly due to me just being so used to my RIP and the components on it. The Jet has a Fox 34 which felt different than my Pike and even though the HT angle is actually slacker on the Jet I didn't feel as confident on it going down (again, this may just be a familiarity thing, tires, cockpit etc). The dropper that's on it doesn't go down as far as mine on my RIP so that felt a little weird too. Climbing while seated felt similar to my bike but standing and mashing felt better on the Jet.

Hoping to get a 20+ mile ride in tomorrow to really get a feel for it. Have a few adjustments to make today so I am glad I was able to sneak a quick ride in today.

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They've got the wrong sized dropper on there unless there is only a shallow distance inside the seat tube that would block a longer dropper from fitting?

The Fox fork is squishier, no doubt. I prefer that squishiness, personally. But then again. as you have already stated, things are different on that rig compared to yours. The question is, is there enough of a possibility to consider it as a replacement? It would certainly feel better once your tires were on at your preferred pressure were on and everything was dialed in. If it felt better mashing, I'd say that a is huge plus.
 
So I actually made good on my threat in the "I'm gonna ride somewhere..." thread. I met up with @Cougar and a guy named Alex for a two-park chunk fest. Up to and down 5-Oaks, up Cholla, met up with @tbarnesarc Taylor, dropped Stair Steps, crossed to LCWP, climbed Willow, traversed Bommer Ridge, Dropped T and A, crossed the Canyon, said Bye to Taylor who lives in Laguna and had parked in the canyon, then rode/pushed up Stair Steps. Craig was on a schedule, so he hit Lynx and skedaddled back to his car. Alex and I opted for a hiker-infested run down Car Wreck. SHEESH was it crowded with bipeds. My jingle bell helped a little, but it gets real tight by the wrecked car, where hikers stop to ogle. I opted to tip over rather than risk hitting a hiker.

It was a really fun day, and good company. 2900' 16 miles. Sunny and mild, with a light breeze.

I am steaming mad about trail destruction and sanitizing that is spreading throughout the area. See my rant on the T and A thread - complete with photos.

And here we are at the top of T and A (Laguna Ridge):

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Taylor, Chris, Craig, Alex
 
Like @herzalot said above, we did a thing.

I haven't been on the bike as much this year, and haven't been able to ride since Utah, so I wasn't sure how I'd do today, but my boy didn't have his baseball game and I wanted to do some tech. So off we went.

I hadn't done TnA before, so I was really looking forward to finally getting around to that trail. I wasn't sure what to expect with the sanitation efforts up there compared with how hard I heard it was. I didn't have any stellar times on the climbs, but I wasn't doing too bad. I was mentally soft at the top of Cholla thinking that I didn't want to hold up the group and maybe I should bail, but I never voiced those concerns and just kept on keeping on.

I had an okay run down Stairsteps, Alex and I sessioned the Waterfall until we both cleaned it. Alex had a good run down after that, whereas I used all my mental juju there and ended up too slow and tripodded a bunch after that which I've cleaned before. nbd, it was a good success to clean the waterfall (right side).

Go to TnA, took some pictures, got a heads up on what to expect from Taylor and away we went. I did okay on TnA, the big rock section where there are multiple approaches I pulled up short and looked/walked, the rest I cleaned. I enjoyed the trail. Not knowing what I'm missing from the top rework, the new top is actually pretty fun. I liked the techy sections, and it is an overall fun trail. Need to somehow work that into the normal rotation a bit more.

Once we HAB up stairs, I bid the guys adieu and headed for a Lynx run. I felt like it was a really strong run, but I missed my PR by a larger margin than I expected. Probably because I didn't have Chris in front of me to chase :) But hey, I was solo at that point and being safe was a concern.

It was a fun loop!

12 mi, ~2500' of gain. Fun times, good riding buddies!

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Jeff (@Sirius stargazer) and I rode from my place in Yorba Linda to Sierra Peak today (actually Saturday). The Yorba Linda horse trails provided the dirt to get us to the bottom of the canyon and the SART took us up to Coal Canyon and the start of our climb. Less than a mile into the climb it was apparent that the gnats were not going to leave us alone at the (slow) speeds that I was capable of going up that hill, so I broke out the bug nets that I’ve been carrying in my pack for well over a year now. The nets may look a little goofy but, “What a relief!” The first thing I noticed was that I could breathe much better with the net on and not having to worry about inhaling bugs. Soon after this we were joined by another rider, “Steve”, who says that he rides this trail almost every weekend (I’m lucky to make it up once a year). Other than the gnats, trail conditions were the best that I’ve seen. The road has recently been graded, but long enough ago that it is mostly hard packed again. After the long ride up, the descent seemed too short (fun, but short). My legs were tired so I chose to skip the horse trails home and to ride an easier bike trail that parallels Imperial. There are a couple of dirt “diversions” along this route to break up the monotony. After one of these diversions I noticed that Jeff was no longer following. I rode back and found that he had gone OTB and something was seriously wrong with his shoulder. After a few phone calls and much discussion it was decided that it was actually faster for me to ride home and come back with a car than any other option, so I did just that and drove straight to the ER. The diagnosis is “Separated Clavicle”. Not a good way to end an otherwise great ride.

Steve and Jeff at the top
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39.2 miles
3635 feet
4:56 moving time
 
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After hardly sleeping from 1am on last night I forced myself out to Black Star for a ride. My plan was to try and hit Motorway but a teething toddler had it in for me last night and I just felt like garbage out there. So I only went to the Doppler ball and back down BS.

On my way up I saw some guys dropping in on Booby Trap so I took it on the way down. It is overgrown and rutted, just as I suspected. The loaner JET did not feel good and almost sent me OTB a couple times. I did not like riding the JET today, it just didn't feel good at all. It's sketchy compared to my RIP so I am not making the switch to a JET with my replacement frame, going RIP.

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I had big plans today... but then I woke up and decided to be lazy.

Then @herzalot pinged me a bit before 10 and offered himself up for a quicky. And who can refuse a Herzy quicky?

So we met at MILF, dropped 5 Oaks, climbed Cholla, and finished off with dropping Rock-It. Pretty good run for an hour.

It's the first time I've done 5 Oaks on back to back days, and breaking my PR by 30s shows that to have been really beneficial. I have really been having trouble with that first drop up top (not being able to see the bottom really messes with my head), but today I kept my speed up and rolled it without trouble. Felt good :)

6.4, ~1100' First back to back day riding for me this calendar year. Been too long since I did that.
 
BeckTrex said:
Jeff (@Sirius stargazer) and I rode from my place in Yorba Linda to Sierra Peak today (actually Saturday). The Yorba Linda horse trails provided the dirt to get us to the bottom of the canyon and the SART took us up to Coal Canyon and the start of our climb. Less than a mile into the climb it was apparent that the gnats were not going to leave us alone at the (slow) speeds that I was capable of going up that hill, so I broke out the bug nets that I’ve been carrying in my pack for well over a year now. The nets may look a little goofy but, “What a relief!” The first thing I noticed was that I could breathe much better with the net on and not having to worry about inhaling bugs. Soon after this we were joined by another rider, “Steve”, who says that he rides this trail almost every weekend (I’m lucky to make it up once a year). Other than the gnats, trail conditions were the best that I’ve seen. The road has recently been graded, but long enough ago that it is mostly hard packed again. After the long ride up, the descent seemed too short (fun, but short). My legs were tired so I chose to skip the horse trails home and to ride an easier bike trail that parallels Imperial. There are a couple of dirt “diversions” along this route to break up the monotony. After one of these diversions I noticed that Jeff was no longer following. I rode back and found that he had gone OTB and something was seriously wrong with his shoulder. After a few phone calls and much discussion it was decided that it was actually faster for me to ride home and come back with a car than any other option, so I did just that and drove straight to the ER. The diagnosis is “Separated Clavicle”. Not a good way to end an otherwise great ride.

Steve and Jeff are the top
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39.2 miles
3635 feet
4:56 moving time
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Healing vibes for Jeff... :thumbsdown:
 
I played an April Fool trick on myself yesterday and got myself lost a couple times on my ride. I intended to do Cheseboro with some extra credit into Las Virgenes.
Well what had happened was...
I set out on the Cheseboro loop, and I was in the zone, took some detours to ride some fun bits, and when I got back to climbing the Palo Comado trail I took it beyond the loop. No big deal just a little bonus ride through China Flats and I would climb Albertson Fire road to Las Virgenes. When I got to Las Virgenes is when my ego got the best of me. I wanted to check out the Tecate trail. Shouldn't have, it was 1.5mi of guessing where the trail was through grass, rocky riverbed, and rocky HAB climbs. Then I went all the way down Virgenes when I should have made my way back into the Cheseboro loop. This was my intended extra credit.
So I had to climb out of Virgenes to get back to the Cheseboro via the Edison Road. I am pretty tired when I get up to the Cheseboro ridge trail but I am feeling confident that I was done and put in extra credit + bonus extra credit.
There was one last climb on the Cheseboro ridge that I was not stoked about. I saw to the left a single track I've never been on. I assumed it would drop me into the Cheseboro valley between the parking lot and the homes. What's one more bad decision I'll try it. It was fun flowy with low grass I was slashing through. It was fun, but it was another f@cking wrong turn:bang: it dropped me back onto the Virgenes canyon half a mile down the road from where I just climbed out :mad:. I was out of water and calories to burn so I took the streets to my car and stopped at 7/11
My electronics died so I do not have an accurate account of mi/gain. But my legs today are telling me it was at least 25mi/4,000'
 
ebenke said:
I rode Laguna Canyon yesterday. Perfect day. Trails are in great shape.

I attempted Art School. It was pretty fun until we hit the drops. The steep terrain prevailed and I walked a couple of hundred feet, no blood, just a bit humbled. All good, I love to ride another day.
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One of my favorites, even though I've only ridden it once. It is the upper end of my comfort zone, but I found it more fun and more satisfying than say (other "illegal" trails). I need to add a few more to my rotation, and do them more often. I won't do those trails alone, and those who do those trails more frequently are more hardcore than I am, so I can't keep up with the group.
 
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Hooked up with @Luis and some of the OTB crew for a great ride. Space Mountain to Sycamore Canyon and back. I had to be home by one so I broke off at the bottom of Backbone and headed back while the rest headed to the beach. Beautiful weather and a little warm but still a great day.

32.2 miles and 4269'.

I guess that qualifies for a big-ish ride.
 
UPSed said:
Hooked up with @Luis and some of the OTB crew for a great ride. Space Mountain to Sycamore Canyon and back. I had to be home by one so I broke off at the bottom of Backbone and headed back while the rest headed to the beach. Beautiful weather and a little warm but still a great day.

32.2 miles and 4269'.

I guess that qualifies for a big-ish ride.
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It does in my book. :thumbsup:
 
Solo mission in the Santa Anas today:

Up Holy Jim/Main Divide to Upper Joplin
Down UJ/Joplin/STT
Up Mojeska Cyn/Harding/Main Divide to near Santiago summit
Down Main Divide Holy Jim

Humans seen before STT: 0
Overall ride time: 8:50
Cheese sandwiches consumed: 2
3X miles
9,XXX'
Liters of liquid consumed: 5.5
Ticks, big ones: 4
Electrified contraption posing as bicycle piloted by inept rider crashes observed near Santiago summit: 1
En route safety inspections: 3
Vehicle traffic jams on Main Divide circumnavigated: 1
Dabs on Joplin: 2
Corn doggings: 0
SNPAs consumed since completion: 1

Bikes R fun! :)
 
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mike said:
Solo mission in the Santa Anas today:

Up Holy Jim/Main Divide to Upper Joplin
Down UJ/Joplin/STT
Up Mojeska Cyn/Harding/Main Divide to near Santiago summit
Down Main Divide Holy Jim

Humans seen before STT: 0
Overall ride time: 8:50
Cheese sandwiches consumed: 2
3X miles
9,XXX'
Liters of liquid consumed: 5.5
Ticks, big ones: 4
Electrified contraption posing as bicycle piloted by inept rider crashes observed near Santiago summit: 1
En route safety inspections: 3
Vehicle traffic jams on Main Divide circumnavigated: 1
Dabs on Joplin: 2
Corn doggings: 0
SNPAs consumed since completion: 1

Bikes R fun! :)
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Mike did his own Vision Quest. Who needs organized races?!#$ :thumbsup:
 
SingleTrackJB said:
But those trails are not sanctioned. Perhaps i am naive, but people at the Nix Center i spoke to said that the riding of such trails makes opening new sanctioned ones, like Lizard, very hard in future. Plus it may even put general access at risk.
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There are several schools of thought about the challenging off-menu trails. One is as you say. But if the trade off is "don't ride (secret trail) if you want more trails like Lizard," the local talent will scoff and take that trade all day long. The general access part is scary. If the powers that be are thinking "If they don't stop riding the illegal trails, we will ban all mt. bikes." well, that will be an interesting battle with Troy Lee, Crank Bros, Intense, Fox, Oakley, Bike Co, Laguna Cyclery, Shimano, etc.

Another perspective is the "don't ask, don't tell" fight club rules which have dominated the area for the past 20 years. This arrangement allows expert riders a place to go to keep them out of the way of the general public. And since those trails are maintained by said riders, they tend to stay in good shape. Enforcement is problematic, since the trails cross several jurisdictions. Every once in a while, there is an increase in enforcement including steep fines and occasional bike confiscation.

With the increase in the number of riders on highly capable bikes, I am seeing the inevitable widening of the off menu trails from the increased traffic with decreased skill.

I do 99.5% of my local riding on the legal trails, but it looks like there is a movement to take away the challenging legal trails and replace them with low-gradient trails so that every ability can ride them. But that's another thread entirely.
 
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