Emigrant Trail

Emigrant Trail.

Well, Monday was a day off the bike. Headed to Reno to hit up the dodge dealer. The truck was telling me an oil change was required despite only having been 2700 miles at that point since the last oil change. I suspect the techs that did the last one didn’t reset the computer for the duty cycle determination of when a change is required. So, to be safe, I headed for a dealer to get I changed out and confirm my suspicion that indeed, it has to be manually reset each time the oil is changed. My suspicion was correct.

Next, I headed back towards Truckee. Just north of Truckee off Hwy 89 is the Commemorative Emigrant Trail. I had heard about that one and wanted to ride it. So, I looked for a place to camp. Along the trail, part way in and at one end are two reservoirs that have campgrounds. So, I headed out to check them out. Stampede Reservoir, the one at the end of the trail, was bigger and had better camp facilities. There were also many OHV trails/roads in the area, according to the map at least.

I thought I could score a free campsite off of one of the OHV trails…many of which went right to the edge of the reservoir. Nope. The entrance at each one of the trails had a “day use only, no camping” sign posted. Damn. It would have been nice to have my own little spot right on a beach. So, I head to the big campground…logger something.

Got up early Tuesday and was riding by 7:15. It was chilly. Since Hannah took one pair of my arm warmers and I couldn’t find the other pair, I had to start with a long sleeved jersey and had to wear that for about the first 45 minuets or so. The trail was fun. Little sustained climbing, a few rocky sections thrown in here and there, and some super fast, carve it up type of singletrack.

I had set out early because I wanted to ride the entire trail and checkout time at the campground was 2pm. Looking at the map and reading other users reviews of the trail, I was expecting about and 11-12 mile trail as an out an back. Totaling maybe 22 miles. Well, most folks don’t ride the section west of Hwy 89. What a shame. That was a nice section…thought that is where most of my climbing came from. Lots of water crossing, a fair amount of rocks, but even the climb to the southwestern end of the trail was fun. I should mention the first water crossing after leaving Donner Camp and crossing over Hwy 89. I think I crossed another road after that, but it was still the first water crossing after Donner Camp.

It looked like a pretty big pool of water…maybe damned up by beavers. As I was still climbing at that point, I was going slow enough to notice a ride around to avoid the deep pool. Well, on the way back, I was going quite a bit faster and had lost track of all of the water crossing. I came up on it thinking that I’ll just speed right through it like all the others. The faster I get through it, the drier I’ll stay. Nope. I rode in and suddenly the front wheel DROPPED! Into what felt like a very deep section. My worst fear might be coming true…hitting a suddenly deep pool of water at a high rate of speed. In most cases, the large increase in resistance to continued forward motion of the bike would send you over the handlebars instantly. And in this case, off the bike and completely into the water. Well somehow, I stayed upright and moving through the water. I did however create enough of a bow wave to send water completely up and over my head. My entire body was soaked.

Which probably turned out to be a good thing. It was getting warm and I was going to be worn out by the time I made it back to the camper.

Thus far, I hadn’t had an off the bike incident. Turns out, I got stung AGAIN! This time I think it was a bee and it was on my face, right at the jaw joint. I think I managed to sho the bee away quick enough that it wasn’t a full sting. It still smarted and I think I was a bit distracted as I came in way too fast on a rising left hand 90 degree turn that had a drop off on the right hand side. Well, to much speed and I was either going down, or riding right off the ledge. Down it is. I low sided going into the turn. Used my helmet as a skid plate of sorts. But, I got up with little to no damage to myself (slight scrape on the inside of my left leg…probably from the bike) and no damage to the bike. Up and back at it…as I still had 12 or so more miles to go at that point and it was getting hotter by the minute.

It turned out that from the campground, I had ridden 17 or so miles to the end of the trail. It was going to be a long day. Turned out to be about 4 hours of riding time and 34 miles. Somehow, gradually I suppose, I accumulated 2300 feet of climbing, never decnding less than 6k feet or ascending above 6.8k feet. I ran out of water just as the trail ended and I had about 1.5 miles of pavement to hit the camper. Overall the trail was just pure and simple fun. I got back to the camper, grabbed an accelerade, my Keva sandals with the cycling cleats in them and headed for the reservoir. It felt so good to take a dip after that ride!

D-ville....the begining...

Where to start? Well, I rolled out of Monterey at about 9:30am on Thursday the 19^th of June. Made it up to Auburn in pretty decent time, and with what appeared to be good fuel economy with the truck camper on. Overhead display was reading 14.9, doing mostly 60-65. Haven’t hand calculated yet, but, it is usually within 0.7.

Picked up Steve from mtbr.com in Auburn and made it up to the campground for the Downieville Summer kick-off by about 4:30 in the afternoon. Being that downieville is shuttle intensive…I booked a shuttle for Friday at what I thought was 11 am. So, I left camp and did the climb to where the shuttles drop you off.

I had no idea really what to expect. Just went off the verbal directions of a couple of other folks and set out by myself.

Man did it SUCK! Camp was at about 6000 feet of elevation. Ended up climbing up to 7000 feet in about 2.6 miles. It was all paved, but there were some super steep pitches and my heart rate was well into the 180’s for most of the climb. Luckily, at an intersection, I saw some guys shuttling up in trucks…so that kept me from going the wrong direction at the intersection.

I caught up to the same folks at the shuttle drop off and tagged along with them for the first ride of the day. Bunch of pretty cool guys from Orange County. We did Sunrise, butcher, 3^rd divide and 1^st divide. There were some sections that my hands went numb from holding on to the brakes and bars too hard. It was a good run…4000 feet of descent in about 15 miles?

I checked in at the shuttle company and they told me I had a spot at 12 instead of 11, so I grabbed some food in town and hung out on a park bench for a while. This was right next to the river, which runs through the center of town. Anyway, I managed to score another shuttle run at 4 pm (both shuttle companies were virtually booked the entire weekend).

So, leaving about noonish from downiville, the shuttle dropped us off at pack saddle to start another ride. I hit sunrise and then before hitting butcher, I stopped to adjust my rear hub. I just did the complete overhaul on it Wednesday night, and it had started to loosen up from the intial preload set up after the overhaul. Then, I ended up hooking up with a couple of guys…all from SoCal. One from Kernville, and a couple near LA. Actually, I think one guy might have been NorCal. Anyway, this time we decided to hit 2^nd divide instead of 3^rd. Good call. It was fun, yet different. Added 2 more miles to the ride, was more rolling/flowy, and seemed to have a bit more exposure. Also more sun, and it was getting warm. I ran out of water (despite starting with a full 3 liters) before we hit 1^st divide on the way back into town.

Caught another shuttle back up to the campground, grabbed some dinner, a few well deserved beers, a shower in the camper, and hit the sack.

Saturday, I rode with Erwin, one of the SoCal guys from the second run of the day on Friday. We decided to do the Big Boulder trail. Ended up hooking up with two guys, Mack and Mike from the bay area-ish that wanted to do Big Boulder as well. So, at the bottom of Sunrise, we headed off on fire roads to find the top of Big Boulder. Hit some really fun fast rocky sections that reminded me a lot of the wide rock strewn sections coming down from the viewpoint at Porcupine Rim in Moab. It was SWEET! Then, the climb up to the top of Big Boulder. There is a great viewpoint up there, again to rival the magnitude of the view from Porcupine Rim in Moab.

The view was well worth it. However, I was stung by a wasp on the back of the knee while up there. By the time Saturday night rolled around, I couldn’t bend my knee.

Riding down Big Boulder was pretty damn sweet too. FAST, flowy, at times less than 12” wide single track on a semi-buffed, semi-loomy surface. It was a great ride down, and fast too! From there we intersected 3^rd divide, I think. Rode back up it a short ways to hit 2^nd divide and then down to First. I ran out of water again, about 2/3 of the way down 2^nd. It was pretty damn warm too…the warmest it has been on my trip. Made it to town and caught a shuttle back up. 27 or so miles for the day, and despite being a shuttle served ride…I think something like 2300 feet of climbing….most of it while in the neighborhood of 6000 feet of elevation (Monterey on the other hand is sea level…so the altitude was really hurting).

Saturday night, the raffle/swag giveaway from the organizers of the gathering was pretty entertaining. Beer chug races and an inner tube blow up race for nice components like X0 and XTR shifters/derailleurs. I think there was 1 beer chug contest for a Fox 29er fork. Then, there was bike sumo for a Fox TALAS 32 fork. That was entertaining as hell. 2 guys on kids bmx bikes trying to knock each other off the bike without removing a hand from the handlebar or putting a foot down. Turns out Erwin, a guy I rode with twice already, won the bike sumo and the TALAS. After taking a benadryl for the wasp sting, I slept like a rock.

Sunday, I ended up riding with Erwin again and we did Sunrise-Butcher-3^rd-1^st. The was sting still bothered my knee a bit, and the sking was still hot to the touch. But, there was riding to do.

Got back into town, caught the shuttle back up to camp, broke camp and headed out of town. Overall, Downieville was a great place to ride, lots of good folks riding out there. Kind of like a smaller version of Moab in that regard. But, the town is SO small it is a bit ridiculous. I couldn’t even get a cell phone signal in town. My only regret is not spending more time in town after each ride to lounge in the river a bit…though I did take a dip in Packer Lake after Saturday’s and Sunday’s ride.

Burn out...

Yep, I think I am just a little bit burned out from riding. Today's ride was at Toro park, with the 1800 foot climb in about 4.5 miles or so. That kind of elevation gain over that distance shouldn't be too bad, but the softness of the soil over good portions of the climb just make that much worse.

I was just all kinds of off today. Felt like crap climbing. Sweating like crazy even though temps were in the 60's. Had some rare high humidity though as it was foggy at the start. Riding down the backside of the 1800 foot hill, I had to slow down. I was on the XC bike, so it wasn't as smooth, but I had a pounding headache that the high speed bumps wasn't helping. Once we got into the canyon, it was better, but I was having all kinds of bike handling problems.

Further evidence that I was a bit off today was that I thought, "it is only a 1.5 hour ride, I don't need 3 liters of water and a water bottle. I'll just go with just a little over 2 liters of water, and also go without electrolyte pills." Well, after about 50 mins of climbing (a little bit of pushing), I made it to the top having consumed at least 1.5 liters of water.


I just didn't have it today, whatever "it" is. But, I think today put me close to a total of 200 mtb miles in two weeks time. It will also likely be my last ride until I get to Downieville and start doing some shuttle served runs at altitude. Hopefully, the replacement bearing for the rear CK hub on the big bike gets to me before I head out of town. I can always scavenege parts from the XC bike as the wheel set on there has the same hub and is burly enough to handle some All Mountain riding. Looking forward to it.

Mileage

Mileage means more than just one thing to me lately. Since the freight train truck I have maybe averages 15 mpg in mixed city/hwy driving and diesel here has been at 4.99 or higher since before labor day (and well over 4.60 for at least 5 weeks), I have been riding to the trailhead instead of driving. Just doesn't seem worth it to drive 6 miles then hit the trailhead and drive back. I thought to myself, " I could be getting more ride time in by riding out." So, that is what I have been doing.

I did however drive to the trailhead once this week(Thursday). But, that is because I was taking Hannah for a ride...which turned out to be her 4th time hitting the trails with me. Being her 4th ride...she still isn't quite up to being able to ride to the trail and then ride trails and ride back.

This time she was riding an Airborne Liberator (I think that is the model...it is an aluminum framed Ariborne hardtail) that I borrowed from Chris V. At 5'3...he is actually an inch shorter than Hannah, and thus his bikes fit her a LOT better than my bikes do. She really liked it. And had fun. I think I pushed her just a bit further and we did 9.5 miles total, but she wanted to ride again the next day!

Not to sure that was a good idea for her (even with padded shorts, it takes a while for the but to get used to sitting on a saddle for more than just a few mins), I offered to ride down to Ol'Factory later to grab a lat lunch after I got done with my morning ride. So, I knocked out 29.5 miles in a route pretty similar to the ride that marked my first post of the blog. Showered up and then we jumped on the bikes and rode the 1.6 miles to Ol'Factory where I had a beer and Fish Tacos for a much deserved lunch. She needed some supplies at the art supply store, so we stopped by there afterward and then we stopped at the bike shop so that I could get some supplies myself.

Today (Saturday) MORCA (monterey off road cycling association) was putting on a wildcat race, but on the trails here at Fort Ord. I was going to go out and man a checkpoint so that someone else could ride it. Again, not wanting to drive out...I rode the bike out. Turns out that Jason, who I was going to man the checkpoint didn't really want to ride. His main ride was in the shop getting the fork serviced when they banged up the stanchions. So, he had his clunker bike and some beer. So, I ended up riding the race. I didn't really ride it as a race and ended up picking up a couple of newbies. I figured I could make sure they find their way and don't get too lost trying to go from checkpoint to checkpoint. The route for the wildcat turned out to be a long one for me. 28 or so miles. By they time I finished the wildcat, I had 35 miles and change on the odometer.

Hmmm...I could claim 40 MTB miles in one day. So, with that goal in mind, I skipped the post wildcat bar-b-q and rode on home despite several offers of catching a ride back. And so I did it. Turned out to be 41.5 miles. So, with Tuesday at about 29.5, Thursday at 9.5, Friday at 29.5 and today at 41.5....that is....110 MTB miles this week. I think that is probably a personal best for me.

Hopefully all of this mileage will pay off. about another 12 days and I should be starting a two week trip in pursuit of some of northern California's finest singletrack.