RR: 4S/Black Mountain Loop

It was redemption time this afternoon as I was finally able to get in a full ride in what I believe will be my new local route. It was a fun ride with some unexpected twists, but before I do my RR, I need to tie up a loose end from the last ride.

Turns out that I am an idiot. The reason I was miss-shifting and my chain broke on the last ride was none other than my chain was far, far too dry. After Tuesday's debacle, I had Rach stop by Beyond Bikes and pick me up a new chain, as well as a powerlink. I figured I'd replace the broken link on my existing chain with the powerlink, and if that didn't work, I'd use the new one she bought. While that seemed like a good solution, the problem was that Beyond Bikes did not have the Crank Brothers M-19 multi-tool that I needed in stock, so I had no way of getting the broken link off of my old chain.

So I spent about an hour on Thursday night after home group wrestling with the broken link, and eventually, with the help of some pliers, a drill, and a hammer, I was able to get it off. A job that would have taken two minutes with the proper tools took an hour, but whatever. I replaced the (now annihilated) broken link with the powerlink, and tried shifting to see if I was still having problems. I was. The chain still kept slipping off the small ring in the front, and I was worried I would have to have it looked at by someone who knew what they were doing.

Then I decided that maybe, just maybe, I should lube the chain to see if that helped. It did. Completely. Problem solved. See, I had not lubed the chain since I purchased it. I won't be making that mistake again.

So with all of my mechanical issues solved, I was all systems go for a ride this afternoon when Rachel decided to take a nap. I left her a note, telling her that I'd be back around 5:00, and headed out for the route that I had planned to do on Tuesday with Sean.

I made it down the hill and around the pond, and started making my way up Carmel Valley Road. I had eaten Chinese food for lunch around 11:30, and as I climbed the hill, I realized that I didn't have a lot of fuel to burn. So I stopped at the top of Carmel Valley Road and sucked down an Accel Gel. I love those things.

As I stood there, draining the last minute traces of gel from the pouch, a Honda Ridgeline truck pulled over to the side of the road about 10 yards in front of me. Since the road is narrow there, and there was no reason for someone to pull over that I could tell, I wondered if I knew the person or if maybe they were lost and needed directions. The driver, who I couldn't see, didn't get out of the truck right away because traffic was continuing to speed by. I waited for a few more seconds, and finally the driver emerged. It was Sean!

He began yelling at me, asking why I hadn't waited for him and generally seemed a little pissed. I was taken completely off guard. First of all, whose truck was Sean driving? Second, what are the chances he would drive by right now, as I happened to be riding? And shouldn't he have been at work?

Eventually, I discovered that Sean had bought a new truck yesterday (SWEET!), was on his way home from work, and had gotten off at three. He wasn't really pissed, but I could tell he was bummed that I hadn't called or waited for him. But I thought he was working, and I only had a small window of time before Rachel woke up, so it was nothing personal. I would always prefer to ride with someone rather than solo, but I rarely have a chance to plan my rides out in advance, so finding a partner is not always feasible.

Anyway, we decided on a plan. Sean would drive home, grab his bike, and drive back to the middle school at the bottom of the hill where he would meet me. Then we could do the rest of my ride from there, which worked out perfectly.

I killed about 15 minutes waiting for him by exploring some of the dirt trails just to the west of Carmel Valley road, and then we met up and were on our way. We climbed back up Carmel Valley road and then up the road to the Black Mountain trailhead. I warned him that there were some tricky parts of the Canyon Rim trail that he needed to be aware of, but it was nothing he couldn't handle, and we were off.

I was curious how the Enduro would feel on Canyon Rim. It actually had been more nimble than the FSR at Noble, so I wasn't worried about maneuverability. I attacked the trail, cleaning the section with the bridge and then doing the short HAB up to the section I had worked on during my trailwork a few weeks ago.

From the top of the trail, I made it through all of the tough sections, and did not dab once the entire way down Canyon Rim. It was ridiculous. I felt awesome. The trail was a dusty, rutted mess, with virtual sand pits in some of the tight corners, and ruts that guided my wheels almost off the trail in several spots. But I negotiated it all, and made it to the bottom without my feet hitting the ground once. I was pretty stoked.

Then I thought about Sean. The trail was much tougher this time than it had been a few weeks ago, probably because we haven't had any rain and it had been ridden some, making it looser and more rutted. It was much harder than I had led Sean to believe, and I felt horrible for unintentionally sandbagging him. He made it to the bottom after only having to walk a few sections, and I apologized for underplaying the difficulty. He was appropriately impressed that I had cleaned the whole thing, and then proceeded to regain his manhood by promptly smoking me on the climb back up the hill to the trailhead.

We elected not to do Canyon Rim a second time, and headed over to the trail that goes down Black Mountain to the North. Instead of riding it all the way down to the road, we rode to a connector trail that would cross the meadow and take us over to some singletrack near the pond along Bernardo Center Drive. The ride down the fireroad to the singletrack was pretty nasty, with huge ruts, large rocks, and some really loose sections. I made it down OK and then waited for Sean. He did a nice job making it most of the way, and hiked down the last section in order to make sure he didn't kill himself.

From there we rode across the meadow and decided to take a short detour on a trail that led to the south, toward Black Mountain, to see if it went anywhere interesting. It dead-ended at a gate, which blocked access to a small paved area that seemed strangely out of place with the surrounding brush and dirt. Sean's theory was that it was intended to be a homestead, which seemed plausible. Either way our exploration ended there, and we doubled back to the meadow trail and headed northeast to the singletrack that took us over toward the pond.

I had only ridden that section once before, and like that time, was unable today to clean the climb up the hill along the pond. It's really loose and steep, but someday I'd like to make it. From there the trail has a fun, slightly techy section that goes downhill along the small cluster of homes that was built there in the last two years.

The trail ended right at the intersection of Carmel Valley Road and the middle school where we started, and Sean and I went our separate ways. He got back in his new truck and headed home, and I decided to ride the 4S trails back to the house. I middle ringed it the whole way back up the hill towards home, which felt good, and made it back to my garage just after 5:30.

It was a fun ride, and it was nice to see how the trails around 4S and Black Mountain could be linked up. There is definitely more road riding than I would prefer for my local ride, but there's not much I can do about that. Its still a pretty sweet route to have right out my back door. I wasn't able to get a feel for how long it would take to do just the 4S trail -> Canyon Rim -> Black Mountain Meadow -> Pond trails -> back to 4S trail -> home because of the doubling back and waiting for Sean. I figured that I could probably do the route in about an hour and a half or so if I didn't stop or dawdle, which is a little longish for a local ride but not out of the question.

Rach was up when I got home, and we had a nice dinner and enjoyed the rest of our evening together. Once again I didn't take any pics, which has become an unfortunate habit. I need to break out the camera again; I don't even have any pictures of myself on the new ride yet!

Here are the stats from the ride:

Total Distance: 10.62 miles
Total Time: 2:04:43
Ascent: 1,444 feet
Average Speed: 5.1 mph
Top Speed: 32.6 mph
Bike: Specialized Enduro Elite
Map:

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