Jan's B-Log

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

A week of mountain biking at Whiskeytown - Weaverville

There were several reasons for this trip, whose primary purpose was a relaxing vacation, not a strenuous mountain biking: getting sick of this year's cold summer (a fter all, having sun in summer months is the reason we DON'T live in San Francisco!), desire to get away from people and all the Bay Area BS, have a chance to swim in water without a wetsuit, and finally the rich mountain biking history of the area.

For a few weeks before going on this trip, I read ride descriptions in Max Walter's book North State Singletrack and I got excited: lots of singletrack, steep hills, remote creeks and waterfalls, the famous Lemurian race course etc etc.
It all proved true, I found the ride descriptions very accurate and directions easy to understand. Two things were a bit off in my opinion: warnings about technical difficulty usually turned out to be a little exaggerated (or has my 8 years of mountain biking in New England made me a very skilled rider? I don't think so...), and warnings about how steep the climbs were going to be proved a little too mild. For the Boulder Creek Falls ride the book says: "Top of the climb! You've GOT to be glad that is behind you". Well, I ended up pushing my bike for a mile up steep, dusty fire road in 100F heat, hating myself for being such a sissy and not being able to spin my granny gear up the hill. But I couldn't, every time I tried, my heart rate spiked to 1000 bpm and the liters of electrolyte water sloshing in my stomach wanted to depart me. But the falls were pretty and the downhill from there back to the lake was fun.

The following rides (The Chimney, Weaverville trails and the Whiskeytown Lemurian) went much better, mainly due to proper pacing myself at the early parts of the rides and perhaps me getting used to the hot weather.
One of the highlights of these rides were the Rich Gulch Trail, where the locals must have spent countless hours shaping the jumps and berms. It was more sandy that I am used to but a super nicely flowing downhill trail. Another gem is the whole Weaverville Basin Trail system with all kinds of trails, super smooth winding singletrack, rocky trails, beautiful forest scenery and the La Grange mine ditch trail, which was something completely new to me.

With the exception of the first Sunday ride, I have not met another mountain biker on these trails during 4 days, 65 miles and 10 hours of riding. In fact, I saw perhaps 3 people alltogether on trails, two equestrians and one lady picking blackberries. Those were the best trailside refreshments (blackberries, not the ladies) and beat the GU gels any time!

The Garmin tracks, elevation and all the other info for these rides is here:

Boulder Creek Falls

The Chimney

Weaverville Trails

Whiskeytown Lake Lemurian

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Skeggs MTB Ride Sunday 7/25

It has probably been a year since I rode at El Corte De Madera Open Space preserve. This place is really great, offering technical riding so sparse on the Peninsula. I like the combination of singletrack downhills, fire road climbs, rutted manzanita sandstone trails (shown above on Resolution Trail) and redwood needle covered trails.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Kings-84-Water Dog

Kings-84-Water Dog by jan.r.berka at Garmin Connect - Details

Bombing at Wilder Ranch SP

Weather forecast said less foggy, so I decided to head down to Santa Cruz coast to ride at Wilder Ranch. I like the variety of terrain and natural environments here. After climbing the gradual doubletrack and riding into the warmer air away from the ocean, a quick look back to the coast.

I rode the usual Wild Boar and Old Cabin singletracks up to Chinquapin trail. This time, I went to explore the Woodcutter trail which I never tried before. It was a nice 1.9mi downhill, finishing at a fern and redwood grove.

The climb back up was not bad. Then it was Chinquapin back and a fast Eucalyptus Loop trail descent to the Enchanted Loop. The singletrack portion of Enchanted Loop was fun, I was glad I climbed up the redwoods section, since the drops caused by the tree roots would probably be too technical to descend.

Back at the top of the loop, I found a ranger truck parked across the trail and a park ranger taping the trail entrances with a red tape. He was just closing off a good portion of the park due to a bomb threat! A google search on Monday revealed that somebody dumped a box labeled Explosives with tile grout powder in a nearby garbage dump, causing evacuation of locals and rerouting the rest of my ride to the coast. The 7mi Ohlone Bluffs trail had fantastic views of the ocean. I would have never rode here, thinking this would be a boring, flat, coastal trail. Thanks to the terrorist threat, I saw this part of the coast: