19 posts tagged “mountain biking”

Last weekend I convinced N that I was mentally ready to tackle a longer mountain bike ride, one that he'd done a few times in the past, and one that I really wanted to try. For someone of my fitness level, this sort of ride requires the comfort of a geared, full-suspension bike, so I traded up from my single-speed for the day.

Our route started at the Tahoe Rim Trail Kingsbury - Big Meadow segment at the Stagecoach Lodge parking lot, and ended up at our house.  In between we rode 41 miles, with 5,100 feet of climbing and 6,200 feet of descent.  For the statisticians out there, the ride can be broken down into the following summary:

• Number of wildflowers seen = a bazillion
• Number of llamas seen = 2  
• Number of calories burned = over 3,000
• Number of rounds of applause I received = 1 (by a group towards the last descent who learned how far we'd ridden)

Overall it was a spectacular day, and was made much more pleasant by the moderate temps and blooming wildflowers. While it's likely not going to be a weekly ride for me, I'm definitely planning on doing more 30+ mile rides in the future.  With or without the llama sightings.

So it wasn't much - just the trail I've been riding regularly on the SS, but yesterday's climbing and pedal stroke felt right, and I aggressed the short hill climbs before they bit me in the arse.  Talking about technique (yes, there is some with one-gear riding) with N helped as well, and while I'm not yet ready to take on the 2,000 foot climb of Armstrong pass, I am thinking I might be ready to try one of the lower trails in the same area.

I figure if I keep this up and work real hard, at some point I'll be able to pass somebody, even if it's only the wacky old lady in the sunhat I occasionally see riding her cruiser on the trails.

I am the recent owner of a single speed hardtail mountain bike.  While those non-cyclists may not understand the allure of riding with only ONE gear, I really like the simplicity, weight (light) and fact that I cannot dog it, as there's no granny gear to run to.

However, if one (read: me) is not feeling all that fresh due to a crappy night's sleep, an excess of pollen in the lungs and a 6 am riding start time, the single speed is not as fun as it usually is.  I did my regular route (the only marginally hilly trail I feel comfortable on at this point) and it took a lot more effort to keep the pedals moving.   Put simply, it was an ugly thing to watch, and I returned home exhausted and with lots more greenish yellow pollen in my mouth, nose and lungs.

I'm hoping that more sleep and some rain helps me do my new bike justice later this week.

The tree pollen has landed.  Literally.  Within the past few days, every pine tree in the region appears to be dropping its pollen simultaneously, leaving cars, driveways and sleeping dogs covered in a pale green film.  If a breeze kicks up it means green clouds in the street, which is fun to watch if you're in the confines of a car or house with closed window.  Less so if you're riding your bike through it.

On top of this pollen, a heat wave of sorts has hit South Lake Tahoe, with temps well into the 80s.  With few homes in the area with air conditioning, this means that keeping the windows closed to keep the pollen out is simply not an option.   Pollen vs. heat - it's really a case of the lesser of two evils.  So I keep the windows open and accept that I'm miserable and can't breathe.

Yesterday I tried to beat the ridiculous heat and left the house early to ride uphill. While I felt pretty feeble and slow on the climb, I did have the satisfaction of passing 2 guys (one my age) on the ride down.  Admittedly they appeared to be more of the roadie types (local road cycling club spandex tops, obvious discomfort on the sandy bits), but still - I passed them and made them eat my dust!!

I may suck horribly riding uphill, but my downhill skills have to be improving. Think of the possibilities once the pollen goes away!

So with the regular mountain biking I've been doing, I was feeling pretty good about my ability to keep up with others.  Until this evening.  I was invited to ride up Roundabout, a beginner trail at Heavenly with a neighbor and some of her friends to see the sunset.  It's a standing Friday night ride, and everyone rides at their own pace up the sandy fireroad to the top of Heavenly's Groove chair.  It's a little over 1,700 feet of climbing from the Heavenly parking lot within a few painfully long miles.  The views at the top are stunning.  But the slog to get to it is akin to carrying stones up steep, sandy hills with every step forward resulting in two steps back.  And it didn't help that every single person in tonight's ride is a ski instructor (at Heavenly, natch), which gives them magical powers riding up this grunt of a hill - I swear none of the broke a sweat and they were all singing the entire way up.  I was dead last within 15 seconds, and I was definitely one of the youngest riders.

Truth be told the views on the climb up are breathtaking too, with more of Lake Tahoe visible around every switchback.  The problem for me was that I was sweating so hard that I was essentially blinded for most of it.  To top it off, I realized 3/4 of the way up that my hamstrings were screaming because I'd not extended my seat all the way - which for non-cyclists, is a sure way to crippling yourself. 

The views at the top were lovely, and the descent was a fast fireroad of sand and hard switchbacks (yes, I was last on the downhill too.  Call it a well-honed sense of self preservation, and a long-standing love affair with my brakes).  But I realized that I am a singletrack aficionado, and while I'd climb that same elevation in a heartbeat on well-cut singletrack, I'm not so sure I'll ride Roundabout again anytime soon.  But that might just be my sour grapes talking, seeing how I got smoked by a posse of ski instructors tonight.

This afternoon N and I hit the trails near our house for a head clearing mountain bike ride.  At this time of year it's rare that we encounter other riders, as the days are shorter and even with the current warm spell you still need long sleeves.   It's usually the diehard riders we see, and even those are few and far between.

So when I saw a rider coming down the trail I was climbing up, I was mildly surprised.  That surprise turned to near shock as it got closer, for it was an old woman on what looked to be a commuter bike with fat tires.  She wore no helmet, but instead had a wide-brimmed fabric sunhat, whose brim flopped behind her like the Flying Nun, and sported nothing resembling technical gear, just keds on her feet, said sunhat and some pretty strong perfume.  The old gal was hauling, and either was truly fearless or did not remember where her brakes were, as she did not slow down a whit as she passed me.

On our ride back on this same trail we came across her again, and again she whizzed by with such reckless speed that she forced N off the trail.  If it were any other person I think he would have said something, but the shock of seeing a speeding granny on a mountain bike trail slowed his reaction time. 

I have to admit I was impressed.  I can only hope that I'm still riding bikes with that much speed and abandon when I get to be her age.  Though I might concede to wearing a helmet.  And less perfume.

While gas prices have dropped substantially in the past few weeks, I'm still embracing the mindset of minimizing driving wherever possible, especially for non-necessary (read: fun) things.  N too.  Thus we've begun to look at mountain bike trails that don't require us to drive to a trailhead, which is a seeming contradiction of terms, but was something we used to do more regularly.

Lucky for us, there's an enormous network of access trails that lead to some of the rides we used to drive to.  So it's very easy for us to do a 3+ hour ride from our house, with minimal time on the pavement.  Like this weekend's adventure.  N even did it on his single speed 29er hardtail, which still means he's waiting for me, but now he actually *needs* to catch his breath.  But he's still core enough to ride a log.  And jump whatever other rocks are in or near the trail.

My sense of self-preservation is stronger than his.  And my balance far worse.

While I'm hoping that the snow comes soon enough to make these lower-elevation trails unrideable, I think we'll have a few more weeks of access.  

I love gravity sports such as skiing and mountain biking because I love the thrill of going downhill fast.  However, every now and then I'm reminded that with gravity and speed comes the risk of pain and injury.  This weekend I had not one but two wipeouts, and the second one was the doozy, launching me off my bike with a resounding thud.  Luckily neither were near the large granite boulders we tend to ride over and around, so it's primarily a few scrapes coupled with a bruised body and ego.  And some dusty-as bike clothing.

This has been my summer of badly timed leg wounds, as I'm leaving today for a tourism conference in Santa Rosa.  Since it's going to be warm I had initially planned to bring a few skirts, but that strategy was revised last night as I realized explaining the wounds on my leg wasn't something I really wanted to do.  So long pants it is, and I'm hoping for air conditioning.

It's been a smoky summer at Lake Tahoe, and the shifting winds and haze have made planning playtime a bit of a challenge.  So when we saw that the weather was slated to be clear last weekend we agreed a longish mountain bike ride was in order.  Since I'm not feeling all that bike-fit these days, N suggested a ride he termed as non-epic - ride the Tahoe Rim Trail from Stagecoach Lodge at Heavenly south west to Armstrong Pass and then head down to the lake and ride home - entirely on trails.  The views are spectacular, with sweeping panoramas of Nevada at the beginning...

to wildflowers, gnarled juniper and murky lakes as we got farther along.  As riding goes, it's not all that technical, just a lot of sand and quite a bit of elevation gain.

It ended up being around 28 miles with a mere 2,500 or so of climbing (this is not my definition of a non-epic ride).  And while I surprised myself on all the climbs, by the time we hit mile 21 I realized that I was spent.  And not all that interested in being in a bike saddle anymore, having spent nearly 6 hours in said seat.  Let me tell you, getting off the bike when we reached the house was nearly as awesome as the hot shower right afterward.  Nearly.

With the torrential rains finally subsiding and the sun making a long-awaited reappearance, we decided to head east to find some mountain biking trails.  Nearer to Queenstown, our mountain biking experiences had been more akin to agricultural cyclo-cross, riding through and past cows and their manure, carrying the bike over numerous gates, and veering around bogged out parts of the trail.  That's not my favorite kind of riding, so we thought the drier parts of the Otaga region (not unlike the Eastern Sierra) would provide fewer opportunities to walk through mud...and around cows blocking the trail.

Near the town of Cromwell (40 minutes away from Queenstown), we found a wilderness area (called Department of Conservation here) with a trail that climbed up towards a few peaks.  While the guide book described the climb as 'gnarly', we didn't realize quite how steep the kiwi's build their 4WD roads. Suffice to say there was a lot of pushing the bike up. While the views of nearby Lake Dunston and the higher (still snow-capped) peaks were gorgeous (and admiring them allowed us to catch our breath), by the time we ascended 1700 feet we realized the trail wasn't really going to flatten out.  So down we went, and the trail was quite fun, even though it wasn't the singletrack we love.

  
Since this anaerobic jaunt finished so early, the next stop was the town of Alexandra (Alex) another 30 km southwest. Lake Dunston is a long dammed affair, and the road follows it to the town of Clyde where it ends abruptly in an enormous hydroelectric dam.  The valley widens, and it's apparent you've arrived in wine country without even consulting the wine trail map. 

In Alex, we found a local bike shop (LBS), and the guys there gave us some useful information on where singletrack trails were.  Since I was still skeptical that smooth, fun, fast trails with flow even existed here, N suggested we try the River trail that followed the Clutha River up to Clyde.  I'm glad we did, as it was a 12 km trail that had banked turns and fun bits, all under a canopy of willows. 

It was nice to see that flowy singletrack does exist here.  And apparently there's more of that to be found near Alex.  Can't wait!