Sycamore Canyon/Farmer's Market Trail

This morning brought a fun, invite-only DT ride that started differently than expected, but certainly delivered at the end.

I met up with Sean, Brent, Mark, Ben, and about a dozen other DT folks at the Costco in Poway and we headed out en masse.

We quickly encountered a short steep climb, which I was pleased to clean despite the lack of warm-up.

From there we rode some lunch-ride type singletrack that soon took us to Sycamore Canyon Road.

We climbed the road up to the Martha's Grove trailhead.

Where we shed some layers and started up. I cleaned both the entire climb and descent, which felt good and is never a given.

After the fun section out of Martha's we regrouped briefly and headed out into Sycamore Canyon. We rode south through the canyon all the way to the powerline towers, and then climbed up the switchbacks headed back north.

Fun singletrack in the canyon:

Getting ready to head up the switchbacks:

Heading up:

Still climbing in formation:

At least you can see where the trail is headed:

And then the payoff begins:

I actually felt pretty strong all the way up the switchbacks, and even passed a few riders on the way up. Descending felt good as well, as I cleaned all of the downhill switches without dabbing and concentrated on carrying a little more speed than usual.

At the bottom of switchbacks we headed back the way we came through the canyon toward Gooden Ranch House. Once there, we regrouped, rested, and observed the shenanigans:

We then headed back out for more action. I was surprised we hadn't ridden any of Sean's secret Farmer's Market Trail yet, since that was billed as the point of the ride. But I was riding well and having fun, so I was happy to blindly follow along and just try to enjoy the ride and the company.

Leaving the ranch house, we briefly hit a little more singletrack as we headed north:

And then it was time for Cardiac. I had heard about Cardiac, but never ridden it before. It was almost as bad as advertised, and despite riding strong for the first part of the ride, quickly got shot out the back as the goaters flew up the steep grade.

I wasn't last, and didn't have to HAB any of the climb, so I'll take that as a victory. I also enjoyed chatting with Sean during the second half of the climb up, which made it more bearable.

At the top of cardiac, we headed north along the fire road towards the upper Sycamore singletrack. After a few laps around the fun singletrack up top...

...we finally headed over to Farmer's Market. Before heading down Sean and Brent's masterpiece, Sean said a few words:

The trail was obviously a labor of love for him and Brent, and they did an excellent job creating something awesome out of nothing.

I was a little worked by that point, and had some trouble with the early technical sections, going off trail a few times and feeling like a moron. Ironically, once I got control of myself I was able to clean a really fun and challenging rocky section toward the bottom of the trail that several people weren't able to do. Evan was also able to make it, and Sean made this neat sequence shot:

At the end of Farmer's Market, we rode some more fun singletrack that took us under Scripps Poway Parkway and along some bonus trail on the north side of SPP.

We regrouped under the overpass for Sycamore Canyon Road, and several of us decided to take the road back due to time constraints.

It was an awesome ride, and I'm really glad I was able to see Sean and Brent's creation. I met some new DT folks, caught up with several old friends, and rode pretty well overall. Definitely a good day. It was also my first ride with Garmin Edge 705, so now I can include heart rate and accurate elevation figures in my stats postscripts here.

Stats:

Total Distance: 24.38 miles
Total Time: 4:31:19
Elevation gain: 3700 feet
Elevation loss: 3723 feet
Average Speed: 5.4 mph
Top Speed: 26.1 mph
Avg HR: 157
Max HR: 191
Bike: Intense Spider XVP

Garmin Training Center Log

LPQ Night Ride

My first MTB ride of the new year ended up being an LPQ night ride. Original plans on DT scheduled the ride to start at 7PM, but that was a little late for both Mark and me, so we made plans on the side to start a little earlier and get in some time before meeting up with the rest of the group at 7.

I arrived at the trailhead woefully under prepared because I got out of work late, but after 15 minutes of lubing my rusted chain and pumping up my nearly flat tires, I eventually was good to go. (As an aside, I used my new Thule T2 rack for the first time, and loved how convenient it was getting the bike on and off.)

Mark and I put in an hour of fun riding and then met up with the rest of the group. It was great to see Evan, Joaquin, Mike, Jacek, and Dennis again after not doing a DT ride for a while. Mark and I rode with them for another hour and then headed back to the cars. Before splitting up I did have a mishap where my bar end caught a low hanging branch, spilling me into some trailside bushes. No harm done though.

I didn't take any pictures because it was a night ride, but that's something I'll remedy in the future. All in all it was just a easy ride over some fun trails with great company, which always makes for a fun time.

Total Distance: 10.40 miles
Total Time: 1:52:54
Ascent: 703 feet
Average Speed: 5.5 mph
Top Speed: 22.7 mph
Bike: Intense Spider XVP

RR: Cuyamaca Oakzanita

Fun ride today on new dirt. Met up with Barcy, Ali, Billy, Eric, Jose, Arturo, and several others for a ride up at Oakzanita Peak in Cuyamaca.

We started from a trailhead I'd never been to, and climbed for a while up fire road. We lingered a bit a couple of times for regroups, and enjoyed the temperatures.




After the regroup we forged on to the Peak, and I was glad to see the fire road give way to singletrack. We had a couple of detours around downed trees, but the trail was largely clear and in good shape even after some recent snow.

Once at the Peak, we lingered for a while, catching up and enjoying the views.


It took some longer than others to make the summit. I guess Barcy has an excuse, as this was his first ride back after breaking his collarbone at Noble several weeks earlier.

His triumphant returned coincided with the purchase of one of the most blingy bikes I've ever seen.

Our bikes enjoyed the rest at the top of Oakzanita Peak, but before long it was time to enjoy the downhill that we had worked to earn.




At the bottom of the hill we traversed some new trails, regrouping every so often.

Eventually the group split, and a couple of us took an alternate route back to the cars.


The route Eric, Billy, and I took involved some awesome singletrack, but it was on the west side of a mountain and was still pretty muddy. If it had been dry it would have been amazing, and as it was we still enjoyed it.

At the end of the day, though, I paid for my fun singletrack option with some required clean up.

Total Distance: 12.85 miles
Total Time: 3:13:17
Ascent: 2304 feet
Average Speed: 4.0 mph
Top Speed: 19.5 mph
Bike: Intense Spider XVP
Map: Click here.

Idyllwild Trails

Fun day in Idyllwild today. Carpooled up in Sean's uber-van with a big group of folks from DT.com. Met some new folks that I'd seen on the board and had a tremendous ride.

We rode it as a point to point, so after dropping a car at the Hurkey Creek campground, we took the van up to Idyllwild proper and rode the Ernie Maxwell Trail. I'm not exaggerating when I say that trail is one of the most fun that I've ever ridden. Swoopy, a little technical but not too much, it was awesome.









After Ernie Maxwell we had a fairly brutal paved road climb for a while, and then it was time for seemingly endless singletrack. We looped around all over, crossing back every once and a while to a central hub. The trails were a ton of fun, mostly cross country with just enough technical features to keep things interesting.








After we'd had our fill of singletrack we headed down Exfoliator and Tunnel of Love back toward the campground at Hurkey Creek. I had some cramping issues during the final climb, but Brian was generous enough to give me some mustard packets which helped considerably. After a quick regroup we rallied down the paved road to the finish.

During the drive home we were stuck behind a roll-over fatality which closed the freeway, so we ended up taking the scenic route back home through Santa Ysabel.

Total Distance: 18.86 miles
Total Time: 5:41:58
Ascent: 1,711 feet
Average Speed: 3.3 mph
Top Speed: 22.1 mph
Bike: Intense Spider XVP
Map:

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