Today Joel, Danny, Steve, and I shuttled Anderson TT in Alpine. It was my first time out there, and after hearing about it quite a bit from Danny, I was excited to see if it would live up to the hype. For the most part, it did.
Some people I know think shuttling is an affront to the hobby of mountainbiking. Those same people actually like to do long, arduous climbs. I am not one of those people. And after going down the trail, I'm pretty happy we didn't try to climb it first.
For the most part it was banzi downhill. We didn't go crazy, but we definitely got up some real speed in parts, and I was impressed by Joel and Steve, who both did the ride on hard tails. I was also impressed by Danny, who definitely let it all hang out in spots. He's more of a DH rider than an XC rider apparently.
Some sections were extremely rutted and treacherous. Other sections were sweeping singletrack that were a blast. There were a couple of opportunities for huge jumps and boulder drops, each of which I avoided. No sense starting 2008 off in the ER. But I would really, really like to get to a point someday where I could clear some of the spots we saw today. As it was, I did make it over a fairly small boulder.
It was a gorgeous day, with views of El Capitan Reservoir and all of east county.
The day was not a complete success, however, as I took a pretty nasty digger and endoed about 2/3 of the way through the ride. I actually ended up going OTB into a pile of grass, which was nice, and it didn't hurt at all. But my bike was a different story. The endo planted the front shifters into the ground, breaking the right shifter to the rear gears. And because I was going downhill at the time of the crash, I was in the hardest gear to pedal. Broken shifter = stuck in gear. So I had to ride the rest of the way to the car, 80% of which was uphill, in the hardest gear to pedal. It was brutal, and put a small damper on what would have been an almost perfect ride.
Ah well, at least I can upgrade to XT shifters now...
Final Stats:
Total Distance: 6.62 miles
Total Time: 1:16:29
Ascent: 583 feet
Average Speed: 5.2 mph
Top Speed: 28.9 mph
Route Map: Click here for Google Map
Bike: Specialized FSR XC Pro
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