And I set off, in high spirits and with plenty of food (leftover indian from the night before). I stopped at the Armstrong Woods visitor center and picked up a couple topo maps to guide me in my adventures. The paved climb up through Armstrong Woods is a real back-breaker on a tandem, but it's not bad at all on a mountain bike. I was at the top in no time and sailed off down the main fire road, only poaching a tiny section of singletrack from the overlook parking lot down to the fire road.
Over the top and about 3/4 way down the other side I came to the park boundary, and continued for a bit longer until I crossed a creek and popped out on a nicely groomed dirt road. Consulting my map, I turned right and pretty quickly came up on a big chainlink fence and gate. I could see a tractor or something parked a little ways beyond. Lacking any scouting reports as to the likelihood of interception, I opted to just go back the way I came. Wimpy, I know, but after getting almost arrested twice in 2 weeks this year, I'm more cautious than I used to be.
At the creek crossing, I noticed a little path to the left that paralleled the creek. I wasn't all that interested in wading across the creek for a 2nd time, only to have to wade back across a mile further down where the fire road crossed again, so I headed out on the path. It appeared to be a former flume, or teeny train track or something. There were in many places, railroad-tie like objects across the trail. Here and there it deteriorated and I had to hike into a gully and back. Just when I was getting tired of getting on an off, the trail opened out into a semblance of another doubletrack, so i knew I was getting close to the other crossing. As I looped around a little log, I bumped it slightly with the rear of my bike, and heard a crunchy sound.
Armed with my trusty chain tool, i quickly rigged a 1-speed, but since my bike has vertical dropouts, I had to experiment a little to find a gear combo that wasn't too loose. Even then, I found that I had to be exceptionally careful over rough ground, because the chain would happily derail in one direction or the other. When it went to a smaller cog, it was no big deal, because I could just stop and put it back on. A couple times I even nudged it back up with my toe without stopping. When it went to a bigger cog, though, I would get about 1/2 a pedal revolution, then the chain would snap taught and stop utterly and completely. Not fun.
So there I was, in a 32 x 16, with a relatively gruesome climb awaiting me. I grunted and groaned up it, only walking in 2 spots, then coasted down the pavement and pedaled leisurely up the road to my house and called it a day. That night, I dug around in my box o' crap until I came up with a Shimano XT derailleur and a Sachs 8-spd shifter, which I then installed. I also scrounged up a few new chain links to resurrect my chain.
It took about 90 mins to get up, and about 15 mins to get down. Then we went into Calistoga for a mediocre mexican lunch. After that, I sent the girl home, and set off for some more adventure. The Oat Hill Mine trail leaves from just outside of town, so I went to check it out. At the bottom, it's sort of rutty and has a few rocks here and there, but nothing major. As you go up, there are lots of hikers, and occasional semi-technical rocky sections, and also some nice views of the northern napa valley. Around this point, I met a nice young stoned hippie GT-riding freak, complete with long-travel fork and baggy shorts. He was riding about the same pace I was, so we naturally struck up a conversation as we continued.
The further you go, the more technical the trail gets, until it just turns into a psycho, slabby, rocky, ledgy, superduper fun, technical adventure. The whole thing is rideable, but just barely (at least for me), so we both dabbed several times, and re-rode difficult sections a couple times. The trail runs right under a big rock ridge (i think it's called the Palisades), and then ends at China Camp, where chinese mercury miners lived back in the day. You can still see their tables and stairs cut into the stone and so forth. At the top, Morgan (the stoned freak) and I were pretty worked, and pretty stoked to have ridden as much we did on the uphill. He invited me to join him on the secret "Picket Connector" trail, as an alternate downhill, which we could access after only a little bit more grim climbing.
A few minutes later, we came out in someone's front yard, rode down their driveway, and returned to the Silverado trail (which is really a paved road). 10 minutes later we parted ways in Calistoga, with him seeking medical attention and me riding back over the hill towards my house. There's a steep-ass hill just out of Calistoga going west, and I was just about crawling up it, even with my road tires. Thankfully, I didn't have that far to go, because my lovely wife met me on the other side just before dark and gave me a ride home. The next day, I went to true my rear wheel, and found that the locknut had come loose, and the drive side cone had screwed itself down tight enough to almost completely lock the rear wheel. Doh! No wonder that hill was so steep.
All in all, it was much better than any lame-ass epic road ride.
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