 Home |
About |
Local |
Events |
Pictures |
Scraps |
Archive |
June 29
Rides for this weekend
Rides are already starting to shape up. Dennis and Fred appear to be haded for an early Sunday ride at Hogan while I'm heading to SF to do some road riding in the cool air.
It has cooled down a bit but I'm still looking forward to getting away from the valley.
.
Cool water in a hot summer.
I've repeated this a couple of times but it bears repeating in the summer.
If you're road riding up Del Puerto Canyon, there is cool clean water available up there. The park has spigots, but there labled with signs that say not to drink them. As I understand, it's the same water that we've been drinking for years so I really doubt that it's unsafe but there is ANOTHER SOURCE.
Just past the 18 mile mark you will see a white arrow on the canyon wall. Follow the arrow and take the short driveway to the large white collumn with two water spigots sticking out of it. Fill up with all the cold water you want.
After that, the next easily available water is at the juncition higher up the canyon.
.
TdF
It's almost Tour time. Keep up with all the latest Tour de France news.
Vino wants to race
Jan is clear to race
All the doping allegations you want.
Tour Contenders
.
June 25
Oh God it was fricken HOT.
So fricken HOT, but it had to be explored and I'm glad we did.
Trail 7 is pretty good trail. Not nearly as technical as Pinball or Crandall Peak, the only problem is getting back to the lake once you're at the bottom.
There were 4 of us who started out at the Lyon's Dam. We had stopped by the ranger station and picked up the same map of the Crandall OHV area I posted a few days ago.
We crossed the dam jumped on the singletrack and onto 4N02 that follows the lake. Instead of heading west along the lake, we turned uphill to the intersection near the base of Trail 19 and took the fireroad to where Trails 19, 15, and 17 all intersect.
Trail 15 is an old narrow gauge railroad grade and is pretty flat. It's grown in quite a bit and should be considred singletrack most of the way. We reached trail 16 rather quickly and decided to start the exploration. The sign earlier said to take Trail 16 to 3N58 which took us to where we wanted to go.
Trail 16 is a screamer. It's steep and loose, but it gets the job done. There are a couple other trails that get you down to 3N58 but I'd guess they're just as steep and loose.
Once on 3N58, it's an easy fireroad that narrows to wide trail in spots. It finally becomes a nice wide fireroad and then takes a wide hairpin and you see the start of the single track.
Trail 7 is what we were looking for and what I really enjoyed.
It's not a hart trail to follow. Ot one point the trail forked without any signs and we were not sure which way to go, we headed right a while and the trail turned up hill quite steeply, then we decided to go back down and take the left fork. That ran down to the creek to a staging area. Opps. We went back up the trail to where Trail 8 intesects and we keep clinbing up and around.
The trail eventually turns back down the hill and keeps going and going. You'll know you're at the end when you reaching another bigger staging area and Itallian Bar Rd.
We took a break.
It was hot, and after the break, we started the climb up the ridge. It's not a steep climb, but it was hot that day and I didn't have any sunscreen. And somewhere along the way, my extra water bottle had fallen out. My bottle cage had snapped and I was short 24oz of water. Plus, the extra water bottle had gatorade in it. I would need the electrolytes on a hot day like this.
We climbed 2n63 to 4N16, then 3N63 and finally 3N44. 3N63 has a series of single track trails that parallel the fireroad we took a couple and they were easily ridable but usually short. They pretty much follow the ridge up and up. We could see the gargoyles along pinball to the west of us.
3N44 ends and Fred recognized where he was. He mentioned that Lenny and he had ridden hear last year. We had reached the other end of the railroad grade we had started on. I was short on water and I was tired so told Fred I was heading back. Dave went with me and we took the railroad grade back toward the lake.
It was a lot longer than I expected and we had to cross two washouts. The railroad tressels had fallen down into the canyon so we had to get our bikes to portage across the gaps. Even this relatively flat trail was taking it out of me.
Soon we popped back on the fireroad where Trail 19 starts. We decided to bail on 19 and just take the fireroad back home. It was a wide open cruise and soon we were back at the dam looking forward to getting out of the sun and resting up.
There are some good trails out there.
June 19
More Maps
Crandall OHV Area (.jpeg) - includes the numbered OHV trails
Crandall and More (.pdf) - has every trail but format is horrible
Thanks Brian.
Another one goes down
Francios, aka the Ultralord from www.mtbr.com took a header in Demo on Saturday. It was a pretty serious crash, damage to his face, knocked out teeth. Fred went for help and Francios was eventually helo'd out of there and seems to be ok.
hey guys, my body is broke but my heart is full. thank you for your help on the trail and thank you for your support.
i wanted to bring everyone together at demo since that is my vision for mtbr
- bring riders together. and despite of the unfortunate incident, we've come to realize how close we are. heck even the rangers/foresters are our buds now. i could not have had a better set friends with me at the accident.
i've gone off that log a hundred times. there were too many folks though and my pace and line was off. my wheel fell off to the left and it was over. i've never been hurt before in a dozen years of riding. this is bad but it could have been worse. my neck and back are fine. my hands hurt like a mofo and it's a balancing act of painkillers and dizzines. oh mucho dental work is in my future.
friends and family all tell me i'm looking great. every time my 3-year old daughter sees me though she runs and cries. kids speak the truth and she says i look like an alien with hair!
anyway thank you again. peace and love to all.
francis aka francois
Trogs send out get well vibes to the Ultralord.
Pictures from the same ride.
June 10
I'm a little late on this
Long time rider and one of -the DelPerutoCanyon.org group took a pretty hard crash coming down from the County Line last week. Sanford went down when his front tire blew out going about 30mph.
The details from Doc....
Well, I guess we should have ridden back from the Junction with Marc and Roger. Sanford and I rode up to the top of the hill on the way to Livermore. About 1.4 miles below the county line, just below a steep drop but actually on a fairly level (3-4%) spot, Sanford blew a front tire going 30 something mph. He rolled several times, hit his face, chest, elbows, knees, hip and ended up unconscious on his side at the side of the road a few feet from his bike. He gradually came around, but it seemed like forever until a couple of motorcyclists came by and sent the fire truck down from the Junction Station. A Fire Dept pickup came up from Patterson and carried Sanford strapped to a backboard, and his bike, down to the Frank Raines helipad where they loaded him into the copter and flew him to Memorial Hospital in Modesto. By the time I got back to Wendy’s in the FD truck with our bikes, he was already in the hospital.
He had 40 stitches to his face, and despite Morphine, he has to remain absolutely still to keep from hurting all over. Things started to go black when he tried to go home after the stitches, so he’s in the hospital for the night. His initial CAT scans and xrays of everything were negative, and there were no fractures or brain injury seen.
I checked the road where he went down, and it was pretty smooth where he went down. He could have hit a rock that got squirted off the road by the time I slammed on the brakes and got to him. The scary part is that I just can’t see what he did wrong or could have done differently.
He should be OK, but think good thoughts.
doc
The Trogs send out their best wishes too. As of yesterday, he was still in the hospital but doing better. They're waiting for full test reports and expect that he'd be going soon.
.
Bruce Rides 100 miles
Bruce stopped by my house today after having just finished the Canyon Classic. For some reason, Bruce decided to try the century all by himself. Good job Bruce. He rode his first century and gives me hope that I'll make it all the way for the century I'm riding July 15th.
.
The Road to Demo is open
Well, it's not officially open, but it's drivable. You can see a lot of slide damage along Highland road, and the road is only one lane wide in spots, but it looks perfectly safe to drive. We had to pull to the side of the road to let a few big trucks pass. So if you've been wanting to ride Demo, go for it.
.
Highway 108 Exploration
Each week a different group of Trogs has been expanding the knowledge of the trails around 108. We've been focusing on the Crandall Peak area, the Strawberry/Frasier Flat area, and tomorrow, Dennis and Fred are going to go for Milo's run in an attempt to connect Milo's run with Hammel Canyon. I'll post reports when they get to me.
.
June 4
Only a month and a half left.
The Fall River Century is July 15th. I'm supposed to ride that with some old friends. I hope I can finish the century.
Adventure Racing
Also on July 15th is a beginners adventure race. The Gold Rush Summer Challange is being hosted by Team Karma. I've thought about trying one of these races but this one is bad timing for me.
