RR: Lake Calavera

Today I had an opportunity to ride another of my 2008 Ride List trails: Lake Calavera. The circumstances behind how I came to ride this particular trail are kind of neat, so I'll go into it a little here.

I spend some time virtually every day on the socaltrailriders web site and message board. Its a neat place to find out what rides people are doing, hear about new trails, and learn more about the hobby that I've come to love. It's also apparently a great place to meet new people.

It was on that site that I saw a post last week from Craig, who was looking for someone with a GPS to help him map some of his local trails at Lake Calavera. Since I have a GPS, and wanted to ride Calavera, I posted a reply to the message board and we started trading emails. After getting our schedules figured out, we settled on this afternoon for our ride.

I asked Sean to come along with me, and Craig brought a couple of friends, Scott and Shane, along as well. The five of us met at the trailhead near the pump station in Carlsbad, and after getting acquainted for a few minutes, we were off.

I honestly had no idea what to expect from this ride. I had visited Mountainbikebill's entry on Calavera a few months ago, but hadn't made time to check it out recently, and was totally relying on my new friends to show us around.

We started off down a rutted, gravel road that was pretty steep and had places where I had to bunny hop over bigger ruts that ran perpendicular to the road. It wasn't too bad, but it did give me a moment's pause about what I had gotten myself in to. From there we pedaled up a minor grade, cut through a construction site, and started up the main trail around the lake.

Craig had expressed interest in using the GPS to create a geoladders entry, so we stopped pretty often during the first few miles to take pictures at each fork in the trail so that we could re-create the route later. The frequent stops made riding easier for me, and overall I was doing OK for the first couple of miles anyway. The trails were relatively flat or had only a medium uphill slope, and I was feeling pretty good.

That changed rather quickly, however.

About two miles in, after some pretty fun singletrack, we reached our first sustained climb. I struggled a little at the outset of the first steep section, but wasn't too worried at that point. I hiked a bike up that first section, jumped back on, and rounded the corner to see the next climb that awaited. That was where the real trouble began for me.

I bonked almost immediately, am not sure why. I've documented in detail here most of my climbing struggles, but this was worse than usual. The trail was steep, no doubt, and on my best day I would have had to hike some of it. But I ran out of energy very, very quickly and had to HAB almost all of it. Slowly. With some short breaks.

Frankly, I was embarrassed. The guys I was riding with were extraordinarily gracious, and never left me behind or even got more than 100 yards or so ahead. But I was battling. Maybe it was the Silent Ride earlier in the day. (I doubt that, though, since the Silent Ride was 6.5 miles on flat pavement.) Maybe it was the club sandwich I ate right before the ride. Maybe it was the fact that I hadn't been on the trainer in the last two weeks, and the only exercise I had was my weekend rides, which had been on largely flat trails. In any event, I sucked.

I finally made it to the top of the hill, and everyone continued their sensitivity to my plight by killing another 10 minutes up there waiting for me to recover. They didn't say anything about my lagging, just made general conversation and gave me a chance to rally a little. I can't say enough about their gracious attitude and temperament.
From there we were rewarded with a fun, sketchy downhill section that was among the most difficult I've ridden. It was steep, rutted, and had several rocky technical sections. I actually cleaned the first long section without dabbing at all, which was pretty good for me.

Here's what it looked like from the bottom:
After a brief regroup, we continued through another tricky downhill section that was not as good to me. Objectively, the second section was actually easier, but I let my speed get a little ahead of me, and was unable to avoid a giant rut that came out of nowhere around a bend. I biffed it pretty good, and went down hard on my right side. As has happened a few times in the past, my left foot did not come unclipped, resulting in a painful bruise on the inside of my left knee where it banged against the frame of the bike as I lay on the ground. I was a little scratched up but generally OK, and I jumped back on to finish the section.

A couple hundred yards later I went down again, this time because of the combination of a tricky corner, too much speed, and too much front brake. I escaped with some new scratches and bruises, but no real injuries other than my already battered pride.

I completed the rest of that downhill without further incident, and from there we had another relatively short climb ahead. My fatigue once again manifest itself early, and I found myself HABing another hill that I would normally have been able to ride. Also, at the beginning of that climb, I found that my rear dérailleur wouldn't shift. I hiked to the top of the hill, where Craig and Sean were waiting for me. I explained my shifting plight, and Craig looked at it for a minute. He made some tweaks, but the problem persisted. Scott and Shane were up the trail a little ways, and I rode as far as I could to toward them and then hiked the bike the rest of the way.

Scott spent a few minutes trying to diagnose the problem, and with a few tweaks got the rear dérailleur to shift, but it was still skipping gears and acting wonky. It was then that Shane made the diagnosis of the day. Apparently, at the Sycamore ride with Joel a few weeks ago, when my chain had broken, I had threaded the chain the wrong way through the dérailleur after fixing it. I had been riding all of the times since then with it threaded wrong, resulting in additional resistance while pedaling and problems shifting. I am an idiot. Fortunately, those who I ride with usually are not.

So Scott popped off the chain using the powerlink, threaded it properly, and we were back underway. I was once again humbled and extremely appreciative for my riding companions.

The next section of trail was a fun, twisty section of single track that wound both uphill and down. I was able to ride it all and mostly keep up, possibly due to my newly fixed chain. From there it was a short, easy climb to the next part of the route, which included a fireroad descent and subsequent short, steep climb. Again, while I wasn't setting any speed records, I didn't have to hike at all, which I considered a small victory. From the fireroad we rode uphill to a narrow singletrack section that I wouldn't have even noticed if I hadn't been following the rest of the guys because of the grass and weeds that had grown along the side of the trail.

We crested that hill and after a short break, descended into probably the most fun section of the entire trail. It was a great singletrack trail, with tight turns and some short, intermediate rocky sections thrown in. It lasted a mile or so, and then it was back to another medium doubletrack climb.

At the top of that climb we came upon a couple of teenagers who had wrangled a rattlesnake and were observing it in the middle of the trail. It was a beautiful creature, and the kids knew quite a lot about it, including its approximate age, Latin name, and specific sub-species (none of which I remember). They are apparently out there quite a bit, studying the snakes and documenting them for their own research. It was neat to see.

After a few minutes checking out the snake, we re-mounted and began making our way back towards home. If I had been able to hang, we would have taken a different route up to the water tower, and then another advanced technical trail back down the other side. I knew that I wasn't up for it today, and everyone was cool with that. (I still suck.)

We took a different route back to the main trail, which included some neat sandstone sections and one particularly steep downhill whoop that I came upon too quickly to stop for. I made it through fine, but my heart was in my throat for a minute as I shot down the steep slope.

From there we hooked back up with the singletrack that led us to the main trailhead, then back through the construction site, and over a dirt road. I was concerned that we would have to climb back up that rutted gravel road we had ridden down at the beginning, but Scott assured me that he had a better way home, which he did. We cut through a neighborhood and did three quarters of a mile or so of pavement riding to get back to the parking lot where started.

I was absolutely wiped out by the time we made it back to the car. Again, I don't know what to attribute my excessive fatigue to, but regardless, I was not pleased with my performance. I know Craig had hoped to map the entire trail system out there today, and I was only able to hang for about half of it. Even so, no one made me feel bad about myself, and everyone was encouraging and upbeat without exception. I didn't even catch so much as an exasperated sigh or gesture at my ineptitude.

We pledged to go back out and finish the mapping, which I sincerely hope to do. I also am committed to be on the trainer every night this week, in an effort to get my conditioning back up to where I'd like it to be.

Overall, I actually enjoyed myself. I wish I had performed better, but I met some extremely nice people, saw a new and interesting trail, and enjoyed a beautiful day experiencing God's creation.

Here are the stats:
Total Distance: 8.51 miles
Total Time: 2:13:02
Ascent: 1599 feet
Average Speed: 3.8 mph
Top Speed: 23.6 mph
Bike: Specialized FSR XC Pro
Map:

View Larger Map