Going the Distance, Going for Speed
Since all true Velo-lemurs value bike riding above family, friends, god, country, etc..., we took advantage of memorial day to schedule a big, fat ride. We originally were thinking about going to Downieville. Unfortunately, memorial day is 4 weeks before the start of summer. What that seems to mean this year is snowstorms, tornados, rain, hail, advancing glaciers and the thread of polar bears. Since the big rides in downieville all go pretty high, we decided to opt for a lower elevation ride, and settled on Nevada City again. Nevada City is pretty much the only place we don't ride all the time which isn't still buried under a deep snowpack.
It rained the night before, and it was about 40 degrees when we met in Auburn to carpool. Nonetheless, I was surprised at the small cadre of riders that showed up. Maybe everyone else has learned not to ride with me. Anyway, the group consisted of me (mark weaver), Dan Sovereign, Keith and Steve. We moaned a little about the cold and wet, but the weather report said widely scattered showers was the worst we could expect, and it wasn't actively raining at the time, so off we went. We were planning a fat long ride, so I took the Assmaster (my proflex 857) instead of my light, sweet handling fisher race bike.
We parked at the former site of Coyote cycles in nevada city. I don't know what happened to those guys. They were in business the last time I was in town. Fortunately they left their hose so we could fill camelbaks and stuff. My camelbak seemes suspiciously light when I pulled it out. I knew I had specifically filled it up the night before so as to have less to do in the morning. Also, my knee-warmers felt suspiciously damp. I put 2 and 2 together and figured out that my pak had a small leak. Just what you want on a 40 degree day, a constant source of cold water dripping on your butt. Fortunately, there were spare bottles, so i put one on my bike and stuffed one into the space in my pak which was vacated by the leaky bladder. I knew of 2 spots during the ride to refill, so I wasn't worried about frying in the burning sun like those 2 goofballs from utah on the white rim (check out their story for a real epic).
We rode on the pavement up N bloomfield rd, to lake vera rd, to rock creek rd to the round mountain trail. It only takes about 15-20 mins from downtown nevada city to be cruising on the dirt. The round mtn trail is a kick-ass downhill, with switchbacks, poison oak, logs and good times. It's not unusual to see people hiking it, so keep your speed under control if you go there. We had to watch out for wet slippery spots and overhanging wet shrubbery, so we went fairly slowly anyway. At the bottom, we were treated to some sunshine and a significant warming compared to the earlier temperatures. Whenever I leave the house prepared for miserable conditions and I'm treated to anything else, I always feel like I'm getting away with something. It's much more fun to ride under threat of rain and snow and have sun instead than it is to just go for a ride on a beautiful day. It was starting to look like the losers that bagged on the ride were going to get their just punishment, i.e., missing a kick-ass epic adventure. By the way, some goofball on the wreck.bicycles.off-road newsgroup tried to use the South Yuba as an example of mtb-ers causing trail damage. I can vouch for the fact that this ain't the case. Rarely have I seen such a buffed-out trail. The soil in most of the area is pretty gravelly, which makes for excellent drainage and low mud factor. Plus, the trail seems to be well designed enough to reduce the likelihood of accidental skidding by those who are too uncoordinated to control their brakes.
Maybe we don't live in Siberia after all. It started to get reasonably warm and we started to peel off layers of clothing, bit by bit. As we headed up the South Yuba trail, I took the lead, which meant that I got to use my clothing as a towel to dry off every overhanging shrub or bush. Since it had rained much of the previous night, the lush tropical foliage was resplendent with moisture. My 3 compadres were grateful for my sacrifice.
We reached the bridge at Edwards Crossing after about 1 1/2 hrs. There, we stopped for a quick snack before starting up the dirt road climb to the continuation of the trail. We also got to listen to Steve whine for a while about how crappy and sick he felt. This was pretty redundant, since anyone could tell by the snail's pace at which he climbed that he was at death's door.
The south yuba trail runs along the canyon carved by the (duh) south yuba river. After Edwards Crossing (and the dirt road climb that follows) the trail takes a general downward trend for several miles until it crosses Humbug Creek. This downward section is awfully fun. It contains one of my favorite 200 yard sections of singletrack anywhere, 2 tight switchbacks followed by a rainforest-esque waterfall and creek crossing. There are places where you can go way too fast, tho on memorial day weekend we kept our speed in check anywhere that didn't have sufficient sight distance. We only came across 3 hikers on this section, but we managed to avoid crashing into all three of them. By the time we got to Humbug Creek, we had been riding for about 3 hrs. We stopped for some quick snackages and marveled at the quantity of scary orange-brown water coming out of humbug creek and mixing with the normal runoff colored water in the rest of the river.
After Humbug Creek there's a short hike a bike along the river's edge to the South Yuba primitive camp. After that, it's more singletrack, if you can believe it. Fortunately, the fun is broken up by a vicious granny-gear climb of a couple miles. Most everyone made most all the switchbacks, but I think each of us flailed on at least one. The climb was followed by a cool roller-coaster switchback downhill. On the occasional water bar i'd launch as much air as seemed sensible, given the steep exposure on the right side of the trail. By this point we were down to jerseys shorts and legwarmers, and we were feeling like kids playing hooky from school. Nyah, nyah mister big bad el nino, can't catch us!
After 4.5 hrs of riding almost constant singletrack, we popped out at the upstream trailhead of the south yuba trail. From there, it's another mile or 2 by dirt (mud) road into the remote town of Washington. Some happy drunk white-trash dork yelled "hey, do those helmets make you go faster?" I thought, but didn't yell back "hey, does fucking your sister make her more desirable to her customers?" Is it some cruel joke god plays on us to fill all these picturesque towns in the hills with budweiser-swilling hillbillies?
Besides serving as the local capital for incest and drunkenness, Washington also gets some tourism based on fishing, gold-panning and stuff, so it's blessed with an actual store. I couldn't believe that none of the other guys brought any money to buy me stuff. I rummaged through my pack for some change so I could get something a little more appetizing than vo2 max bars and Gu, and finally came up with 60 cents. I splurged on 6 pieces each of black and red licorice. It's amazing what eating "energy bars" will do to your taste buds. As we started up Alpha road (the dirt way to climb up to Hwy 20) I was in high spirits due to my delicious sugar fix.
Alpha road climbs pretty much straight freakin' up for an infinite distance. About this point Steve finally came to life and started riding faster than he could walk. The law of conservation of energy dictated that this friskiness come from somewhere, and the victim appeared to be keith. About halfway up, we stopped to wait for him, to make sure he didn't miss the turn. We waited... and waited.... I whipped out my slide rule, and figured for keith to be going that slowly he'd have to be turning 14 rpm in his smallest gear. Finally, he showed up. The rest of us were freezing by then, so we hopped right back onto our bikes and took off.
The higher we went, the colder it got. We climbed somewhere around 3000 feet, and dropped 20 degrees at least. We expected to see snow any second, but it had apparently melted the day before. At long last we popped out onto Hwy 20. While we waited for keith, who wasn't that far back this time, I crossed the road in hopes of scouting out the Pioneer Trail. As luck would have it, the trail was about 20 feet the other side of the road.
The pioneer trail traces an old wagon route down into the valley. In places, you can still see the ruts made by countless wagon wheels. Fortunately MTB wheels are easier on the earth, because the trail gets a fair amount of bike traffic now. It's about 90% singletrack, and in the down direction (which we were going) is pretty dang fun. Even after 6 hrs of riding we started to feel frisky again. There was plenty of mud, which made for exciting cornering. We'd go zoom zoom zooming down through the twisties until we came to a short uphill section. Then we'd pretty much come to a complete stop and grind up in slow motion in our granny gears. Then zoom zoom zoom again. About halfway back to nevada city we came across a guy in jeans riding a cannondale (what else). He musta thought he was one bad dude as he dropped us easily.
As you get closer to the end of the trail, it crosses the hwy and stays pretty close to the road. This is where the trail starts to get pretty moto. There's lots of very fast singletrack to be had here, interspersed with big ol' whoops from time to time. Luckily I had on a shiny new pair of Nike Air Lemurs (velosapiens signature model), the recommended shoe for catching fat monkey air on a mountain bike. Steve and I put them to their best advantage, trying our darnedest to get killed. The Assmaster did its job, cushioning my landings without breaking a sweat.
After a few more miles of the same ol' rippin' singletrack, we emerged on the road for the last 3 miles of paved descent into nevada city. If anyone knows of a good way to bypass this section and stay on the dirt for longer, please let me know. We weren't exactly complaining about the pavement that particular day tho. We arrived back in town after 8 hrs of backcountry adventure with big grins on our faces. Too bad for the guys that missed it. The ride pretty much kicked more ass than any other ride in the last 4 weeks (i.e., since moab). I had so much fun i didn't even feel like taunting the guys who no-showed. Hell isn't a place for punishment and taunting, but rather a separation from kick-ass trails.
more epics? check out the epic archive.