RR: San Juan Trail

With Rachel out of town this weekend I knew I wanted to do a big Saturday ride, but didn't know where to go. I debated about doing Aliso, Noble, or the San Clemente singletracks, but after a call from Nate Friday afternoon, my fate was sealed: We were finally riding San Juan.

The circumstances were perfect: Billy was out with the flu or else he would have vetoed San Juan (he hates it after a bad experience in July), Nate had been there so he knew the trail, and I had the whole day free. Awesome.

Nate picked me up at a park and ride in RB at 6:30, and we made it to the trailhead by about 7:45. The morning was flawless; cool and crisp but not cold, and the temperatures were ideal for climbing. Which we would be doing a lot of on this trail.

After a short warm-up pedaling in circles in the parking lot, we started up the famed San Juan Trail. The first set of switchbacks came up right away, and I found myself breathing hard from the get-go. Despite how good I felt riding last weekend, I hadn't been on the stationary bike all week, and it appeared that I was going to pay for that.

I made a couple of the early switchbacks, especially those that turned to the left. The right turns were more of a problem for me, and I found myself dabbing fairly often.

The trail was in good condition overall, and wasn't loose, but it was rutted, and I found myself having some balance issues climbing while in the deep ruts in the middle of the trail. I handled the climb OK for the first section, and Nate was nice enough to wait up if he found himself getting too far out in front.

There were a couple of spots fairly early on where the trail had eroded, leaving a narrow space with significant exposure off to the side. I walked two of those sections but sacked up and rode a couple others.

As the climb continued there were a couple of really tough, rocky switchbacks that I also had to hike, and eventually fatigue set in and I found myself HABing sections of ridable trail because I was simply tired.

At one point I fell farther behind than usual, and Nate came back to ride with me. I rallied a little at that point, and rode fairly strongly for a bit before fatigue once again reared its ugly head. Eventually I was riding again, and made it to the top of the main portion of the climb. At that point I enjoyed a really fun flowy section of singletrack that undulated and wound through some scrub bushes. After that it was more climbing, and then suddenly we were at Cocktail Rock. We had hit Cocktail at exactly the two hour mark of the ride, which I realize isn't great, but didn't feel terrible either. On a better climbing day fitness wise, I could have shaved at least a half-hour off that time. Nate could have done it solo in an hour.

Spent a few minutes at Cocktail, and asked some guys there if they knew about the upper loop that Nate had never ridden. They suggested we ride all the way to Blue Jay, which I wasn't sure about, but we decided to go for it. They were riding towards Blue Jay, but planned to split off to go ride Los Pinos and offered to show us where to go as far as they could. We left Cocktail as part of their group, rode down a fun downhill section, through some meadows, and then started climbing again. The trail at that point reminded me a lot of Noble, with brush and trees along the trail and fun rocky singletrack as the main feature.

I began to really feel the effects of the climbing about halfway to Blue Jay, and was getting a little concerned about bonking. After one particularly long climb I caught up to Nate, who told me that the rest of the group had split off to go ride Los Pinos, and had given him directions to Blue Jay. We rested for a minute there, and Nate helped me try to fix my pedals, which had been giving me problems. After a short rest and some bike repair, we started out to complete the last leg of our trip to Blue Jay.

The next section of trail did have some climbing, but was mostly manageable and I was able to stay on the bike and ride the whole thing. After just a short while we found ourselves standing at the Blue Jay campground, tired but pleased with our achievement.

After a short rest, we started back the way we came, eager to enjoy the fruit of our labor from all the climbing we had done. The downhill from Blue Jay to the base of the hill we had descended earlier was a blast, and it was over far to quickly. We then had a fairly lengthy HAB up the steep downhill we had ridden after Cocktail, and once we reached the top we were excited and ready for some sustained downhill as we descended San Juan.

The descent was fun and fast, though I did have a problem descending a couple of the upper switchbacks. On one of them I turned too tight and started to tip, and my left shoe would not come unclipped. As a result I capsized, landing painfully on my left knee and shin, still clipped in. I actually lay there for a minute or two, stuck, until I was able to wrench my cleat free from the pedal. I really want new pedals. I had some scrapes and bruises from the fall, but no serious injuries, and re-mounted the bike and pedaled on.

After that mishap I was a little tentative descending some of the other techy switchbacks, but did manage to clean a couple. We bombed the rest of the downhill in no time, and were back at the car quicker than I expected.

It was a fun ride, and one I'd actually do again. I wish I had been more faithful on the stationary bike in the week leading up to it so my conditioning had been a little better, but as it was I wasn't terrible. I'm very happy we decided to go all the way to Blue Jay. Even though the extra climbing was rough, I finished the day feeling pretty good, and had plenty left in the tank. I hear there is a "lollipop loop" after Cocktail that I'm sorry we missed, since our entire ride was an out and back.

Nate was an excellent ride leader, and provided me with several helpful tips during the climb that helped me pedal more efficiently, take the switchbacks better, and ride in and above ruts more effectively. I appreciated his input tremendously.

We stopped for Mexican on the way home, and then I relaxed and watched college football the rest of the afternoon. Awesome day.

Rachel had the camara for her vacation, and we gave my old one to her sister, so I am without pictures for this entire ride, which is a disappointment. The views from the top of SJT were georgeous, and we could see all the way to Catalina. I won't be without a camara the next time I ride here.

This was also the final "tangible" item on my 2008 Goal List: Do a Ride in the OC. With the completion of this ride, the only item on my List that I haven't crossed off is the "Improve my Climbing and General Fitness goal, which I will evaluate at the end of the year. I was thrilled to get this ride in before the year ended, and will talk more about the goals and my accomplishments in my year-end post that will come in a few weeks.

Here are the stats:

Total Distance: 21.14 miles
Total Time: 4:46:40
Ascent: 4377 feet
Average Speed: 4.4 mph
Top Speed: 19.0 mph
Bike: Intense Spider XVP
Map:

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