I Rode My Bike Today...

I rode my bike today. Actually I rode my bike yesterday as well. Yesterday's ride was a road ride with Jennifer. 31 miles and about 1500 feet of climbing. Her first relatively long distance on the road after the accident.

Today I rode the MTB. Woke up early this morning and it was pouring outside. Checked the radar and it showed it was just some passing showers. After having a couple of pumpkin cinnamon rolls I had Jennifer drop me off at my usual starting point. I started climbing Albertson and saw that rain was coming so I was still undecided on which route I would take.
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Climbing Albertson I got sprinkled on a couple of times but it wasn't bad. When I got to the top I decided to chance it and go down Suicide.
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Got to the bottom and as I was pedaling over to my regular connector trail back to Simi Valley I decided to try another route which would be less pavement but a couple of HAB sections. Turned out to be pretty nice. From there I hit my last descent where I would cut across and being the lazy person I am have Jennifer pick me up. Now I am home enjoying one of our favorite lunches after a cold ride.
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And I'd like to give a special thanks to DW. I lowered my seat an extra cm before I descended Suicide and had a lot more control.
 
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Chasing 2000'.........Small Ride Sunday (an Homage to mtnbikeJ's last thread)

The weather looked less-than promising this morning, and NOAA's prediction said 90% chance of heavy rain. This is SoCal, so why not try anyway. Met up with N8Ag who is now riding a team turquoise SB6c instead of his SB-66. Nice bike - Pike, Float X rear shock, Ibis 741 rims, Enve Hbar and stem... but I digress.

The skies started sprinkling as we started riding. Oh well - maybe we can get to Wood Canyon before we have to turn back. It rained steadily for about 15 minutes, then let up. We kept going under threatening skies. Coyote. Cholla. Lynx. Coyote - still not really raining - hero dirt, easy temps and NO PEOPLE! Up Mathis, over to Rock-It, fast drop - back through Coyote and back to the cars. YAY Weather! Just short of 2000' of climbing and Great Fun!!!!! Bikes are cool... :thumbsup:

PS - You will all be pleased to know that my new (in July) Marzocchi 350 and Cane Creek Inline are both FRIGGIN" AWESOME!!!!!
 
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On STR I started a Ride Cholla in over 7 min. club. The rules were, you had to keep riding, couldn't stop or walk, and you had to be actually trying to get up the hill as quickly as you can. The slower the better. I thought I was doing well in that competition, until you posted 11 mins. I am guessing you violated at least one of the rules.

So, here's where we rank on Strava, well, except Herzalot. BTW, Brian Lopes is KOM at 2:34. I'm not sure I could do that on my KTM........
 
My son and I rode the :poop: out of our bikes today in B.B. Skyline was perfect, cold with a light drizzle til just about Knickerbocker climb then it dumped on us. Had the place to ourselves. This was his 1st full loop on it. He even had a smile when it was done rare for a teenage boy. I have been under the weather the last week or so, so most pedal strokes were painful. Man it is fun riding with him. 24/3000 ish
 
Almost didn't ride today cause I believed the weather forecast. First we went for a monster walk with Rusty that was uphill both ways and dodged the rain so I decided to try my luck and ride. My go to stuff at Tapia usually resembles a slurpy machine after a rain so I opted to play it safe and just pedal some other fire roads & blacktop. Rained for about 3 minutes and was a perfect 60°. After the ride it was time to drink beer and unclog drains. Should have just stayed out riding cause I don't like working on plumbing.
 
I rode my bike today. Since I can get there from my garage the standard loop is Tapia, 2 miles to dirt and 6 miles to the towers. From Copperhill dr it's up Tesoro where you turn on to dirt and up to San Fran fire road.
Then drop in where kona and burn victim meet and head up kona to the towers. Went out and back on sidewinder and down g out to charlie cyn then back up to the towers. Down burn victim and back up san fran fire road. Finish up with a little ridge line trail called copper dust that drops out in a catch basin in a gated community off Copperhill dr. Pedal the streets back home ends up being a little shy of 18 miles. Hoped to maybe find some leftover hero dirt but it was already dry, though not very dusty

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Almost didn't ride today cause I believed the weather forecast. First we went for a monster walk with Rusty that was uphill both ways and dodged the rain so I decided to try my luck and ride. My go to stuff at Tapia usually resembles a slurpy machine after a rain so I opted to play it safe and just pedal some other fire roads & blacktop. Rained for about 3 minutes and was a perfect 60°. After the ride it was time to drink beer and unclog drains. Should have just stayed out riding cause I don't like working on plumbing.
Besides I gotta wait for my fingers to thaw out :giggle:
 
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He told his wife that if he ever rides again he wants to get a mountain bike cause a mountain biker was the only one nice enough to stop for him.

Edit: Not trying to dig into the age old mountain/roadie, us/them wars. It's a generalization of course but mountain bikers for the most part seem like they're out to enjoy the ride. Road riders seem like they're there to accomplish something.

Obviously enough in both groups doing otherwise to make this an over-generalization, but I think it holds up for a lot of people.
 
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So I just got a heart rate monitor and thought Harding would be a good place to check it out. My max heart rate should be about 169 according to the Internet ( yes I said Internet) well I pretty much blew that up. My monitor said my Max was 183 and avg was 163. Was pushing a 26x36, a bailout 42 would have been nice. So anyways... I got a late start at 9:30 cause my son works at Tucker at that time so I drop him off and took off. I was a little worried about the heat and flies but it turned out to be pretty good weather and the flies wer'nt so bad.
The few shaded areas up at the top brought some nice relief.

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Looking back down the trail, Laurel Springs offshoot trail down on right side.

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Water box???

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Four Corners, turn around point for me.

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Coming down, had to stop a few times to rest, yes It's a long way down.

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Looking down on the trail.
 
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It was 51.7 degrees at 4 Corners at the top of Harding today... at 1PM! What a difference a week makes. To say it was "brisk" would be an understatement, particularly when a few rain drops started to fall. Nothing up there but me and the deer; I was leaving fresh tracks from mile 5.5 on up. No jacket, just a damp polypro short-sleeve t-shirt, so I couldn't loiter. Looked for a grizzly to attack me, but I didn't see any, so it was a pretty mild ride :)

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The requisite bike shot at 4C

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Sunday brought me that chance to match J's epic 10K ride. Somehow a kids ride broke out. The sprinkles kept about 1/2 of the kids at home but the those showing up had a great ride on the single track around Irvine Regional. Thanks to SHARE and Non Dot for taking over the reigns for this fantastic "Ride Like a Kid" Day.

Stats - nothing recorded but I'd say a very healthy 2hr ride, 5 miles with 400'; a few mechanicals and one poor lass who lost traction and slid into a road post.


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Sunday brought me that chance to match J's epic 10K ride. Somehow a kids ride broke out. The sprinkles kept about 1/2 of the kids at home but the those showing up had a great ride on the single track around Irvine Regional. Thanks to SHARE and Non Dot for taking over the reigns for this fantastic "Ride Like a Kid" Day.

Stats - nothing recorded but I'd say a very healthy 2hr ride, 5 miles with 400'; a few mechanicals and one poor lass who lost traction and slid into a road post.

I love seeing this... Awesome! I wish I had gotten back into biking while mine were still little. What a blast!

I'll probably be in that exact same spot tomorrow and I may even have a bike to get around the cross country course... Watching my oldest run one of his last high school races. :thumbsup:
 
Sunday brought me that chance to match J's epic 10K ride. Somehow a kids ride broke out. The sprinkles kept about 1/2 of the kids at home but the those showing up had a great ride on the single track around Irvine Regional. Thanks to SHARE and Non Dot for taking over the reigns for this fantastic "Ride Like a Kid" Day.

Stats - nothing recorded but I'd say a very healthy 2hr ride, 5 miles with 400'; a few mechanicals and one poor lass who lost traction and slid into a road post.
I love this! This good stuff!
 
I love seeing this... Awesome! I wish I had gotten back into biking while mine were still little. What a blast!

I'll probably be in that exact same spot tomorrow and I may even have a bike to get around the cross country course... Watching my oldest run one of his last high school races. :thumbsup:

We are watching are son run his last few races of High School also. Kind of sad for us, but he can't wait til its over.
 
Bnut Thanks for the correction, I'll have to check it out next time I'm up there.

If you do, leave your bike on Harding and walk down. It isn't really a bike trail... doesn't go anywhere and is in poor condition. There used to be a sign on Harding pointing to the Spring, but it lasted only about a season.
 
If you do, leave your bike on Harding and walk down. It isn't really a bike trail... doesn't go anywhere and is in poor condition. There used to be a sign on Harding pointing to the Spring, but it lasted only about a season.

There is a trail post/marker at the top of the trail....it is just hard to see.
 
There is a trail post/marker at the top of the trail....it is just hard to see.

I know the marker that USED to be there. It is gone. First the sign went missing, then the post. If there is anything there now, it certainly isn't very visible from Harding, because I looked yesterday (I've been up that section of Harding four times in the last four weeks). I think one of the reasons tortoise might have gotten confused is that someone has marked the Forest service clearing with yellow Police tape - both where the short service road meets Harding and up at the clearing, so if you don't know what you are looking for you see the tape and assume that's Laurel Spring...

What we really need is for someone to drive up Harding with one of the welded steel trail post signs, and sink it in 1000 lbs of concrete.
 
I know the marker that USED to be there. It is gone. First the sign went missing, then the post. If there is anything there now, it certainly isn't very visible from Harding, because I looked yesterday (I've been up that section of Harding four times in the last four weeks). I think one of the reasons tortoise might have gotten confused is that someone has marked the Forest service clearing with yellow Police tape - both where the short service road meets Harding and up at the clearing, so if you don't know what you are looking for you see the tape and assume that's Laurel Spring...

What we really need is for someone to drive up Harding with one of the welded steel trail post signs, and sink it in 1000 lbs of concrete.

That's weid....it was there a few weeks ago when Faust and I went through....I even pointed it out to him. Brown Welded Post with yellow writing indicating Laurel Springs.
 
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