keep it simple

I'm sitting in the airport in Charlotte, North Carolina right now waiting to board a plane back to California. I've been out here all week for work, and managed to squeeze in a mountain bike ride on Tuesday.

I rode with a guy I know who lives here. Turns out my timing was perfect, because for the last 15 years or so, he's been organizing a Tuesday night ride with his friends. One of the guys owns a local bike shop and hooked me up with a bike - the Kona Hei Hei.

This bike, in many important ways, is the exact opposite of my mountain bike at home. This bike is full suspension - mine is a hardtail. This bike has gears - mine has but one. Needless to say, it took me a while to settle into it.

The group turned out to be a big one - larger than I have ever ridden with - 14 guys. There were a few guys named John, so by about the middle of the ride I was calling everybody John. They didn't care, and in return they called me the "new guy." During the ride we lost three Johns, because one of the Johns crashed real good and it took two other Johns to get him out.

We rode a great trail at the National Whitewater Center.

I was impressed with a couple of things on this ride. First, this group hammered the entire time. We started off fast with few stops and never slowed down. In an hour-and-a-half of riding, we stopped less than five times to regroup. That's rare in a group ride this big, and due to the fact that they ride so often together, I reckon. I was also impressed with the quality of the trails we were riding. Fifteen miles of singletrack with lots of climbing and tight turns. Didn't hurt that it was also a full moon that night.

So now the big question...do I want to go back to a geared, full suspension bike? The answer is a solid "no", and that makes me happy. Keep it simple.

Saturday mountain bike ride

One of the many great things about living in Felton is that I am so close to epic mountain bike trails. This really sunk home a few weekends ago when I drove for an hour and half, round trip, to ride Ft. Ord. I don't regret the ride, but it reminded me that I've got is so good at home!

So on Saturday morning, under the cover of rain clouds and fog, I rode down Hwy 9 towards the Rincon parking lot. Normally, I'm riding down Hwy 9 at 6am on my commuting bike, going to work. Riding a different bike, my single-speed 29'er, made it feel new.

After a 30 minute spin on asphalt, about 4 miles, I reached the trailhead and started the long, steep climb to the top of UCSC (see the profile below at mile 4). I played around on the intricate trail system for about an hour and a half - mostly just re-riding a short loop section, working on some technical skills. I also mapped a lot of trailheads on my GPS so I could find them later.

Fort Ord - misery on a single-speed mountain bike

On Saturday morning, I drove about 30 miles south of Santa Cruz to explore the trails of a place I have heard a lot about, but never ridden - Ft. Ord.

Ft. Ord, an infantry training center for the first 80 years of the 20th century, is now de-activated for military training and is open to the public. The Bureau of Land Management has created a network of multi-use trails that are free to the public.

It took about 45 minutes to get to the trailhead. As I was driving south on Hwy 1, I was excited about the prospect of riding in a place that warned of mountain lions, rattlesnakes, and live explosives in public areas!

An excerpt from one of Ft. Ord's websites:

>Explosives at former Fort Ord

While every effort has and is being made to clear dangerous materials, 60 years of military occupation make it possible that live rounds and explosives may remain in public areas as well as posted areas.

DO NOT TOUCH unfamiliar objects, especially metal. Instead, MARK THE LOCATION and CALL THE FEDERAL POLICE at (831) 242-7851 or (831) 242-7924.

After a little exploring, I found the trailhead parking lot nestled between a residential community and some strawberry fields. I grabbed a trail map and plotted a course that would satisfy my two objectives - keep me on as much singletrack as possible AND get me close to the yellow "DO NOT ENTER" section (see map below - I had to cut the map in half to post it here...so imagine that the bottom half is attached to the left of the top half.) For reference, I started my ride at the intersection of G17 (Reservation Road) and Hwy 67.

Less than a mile into my ride, I noticed three ways that Ft. Ord vastly different than the riding do on my local trails.

First, the trails are heavily signed. I couldn't ride for more than a half mile without having to stop to consult the map to see which trail to connect with. In general, I appreciate this because it makes it makes the outdoors accessible to more people, but I found that I could never settle in enough to enjoy the riding. And yeah, I know that I had an agenda for this ride (get to the yellow zone!), so that had a lot to do with it, too.

Second, the terrain was much different. Most of the riding I do is under the canopy of redwoods where I am the smallest thing on the trail. I ride on well-packed, cool soil with rocks and roots to navigate. This day, I found myself the tallest thing on the trail - I was fully exposed to the sun as I rode next to low scrub brush and madrone trees. The trail was sand - loose and deep in many spots. The riding here, unlike at home, did not require strong technical skills - only an ability to muscle through deep sand.
In my head, I started playing a game to minimize the suffering of riding in sand. I pretended that there were unexploded land mines all around me and that I couldn't put my foot down in or I would get blown up. That game ended when I realized that I had to put my foot down in order to stop to check the map to see which connecting trail to take. Aaargh.

The third way that Ft. Ord is different than riding at home is that it was H-O-T. Great for training military troops maybe, but not so good for riding bikes. Less than two miles into the ride, I had salt streaks on my sunglasses and my hands were slipping from the grips. It did feel good to sweat, though, and riding here reminded me that as much physical exercise as I do, I just don't sweat enough. Those people reading this who don't live in Central California may be rolling their eyes right now.

All was fine until about mile six. Like an animal that gets distracted by a shiny trinket, I got distracted from my goal of getting to the yellow zone. What distracted me was a named trail - called Lookout Ridge. I figured the views would be great, so I headed in that direction. And that took everything out of me - a 7% climb for just over a mile on a single-speed in the blazing sun. But at least I was on hard-packed soil instead of loose sand. If you check out the profile, you can see the climb at mile six.

After the blood drained from my eyes, I ate two melted Snickers bars while crouching under a madrone tree. Turns out madrone trees don't provide much shade, so I scarfed and barfed in order to get back on the bike and start suffering, I mean riding, again.

I started climbing again to meet up with more singletrack and work my way towards that ever-elusive yellow zone, but quickly bonked. It was just too hot and I was running out of liquids, even though I had started with a 100 oz. Camelbak with water and two water bottles full of electrolyte fluid. Also, my paper map was disintegrating from being stored in my jersey pocket which was soaked with sweat. So I turned around and enjoyed the downhill to get back on the asphalt and head back to the parking area.

As I was driving home I realized that this is the second time in a row that I didn't perform well on my single-speed mountain bike. It reminded me that I haven't spent enough time on it recently. So I need to do more of that.