Rather than joining in the Black Friday fray last weekend, the wife and I set off on a three-day bike camping adventure. Here’s the route. Friday morning, still slow and groggy from the Thanksgiving festivities the night before, we loaded up our bikes with camping gear and headed east through the SGV to the San Gabriel River, where we followed it north to its east fork. At the end of the road, we reached the Sheep Mountain Wilderness and the trailhead for the Bridge to Nowhere hike, arriving near dusk after riding 40 or so miles. About a half mile past the gated entrance is the Heaton Flat campground where we set up our tent. A dinner of spaghetti and mushroom marinara sauce was cooked on the Trangia West Wind stove I picked up from Rivendell earlier in the year, and a Sigg bottle full of wine was enjoyed to help keep us warm before bed.
We woke up with the sunrise the next morning and put together a breakfast of coffee and oatmeal with dried berries. While my wife cleaned the dishes and filled our hydration packs with pump-filtered water from the river (delicious, by the way), I hopped back on the bike to ride out to the trailhead so that I could meet up with a friend who was planning on joining us for the hike. He was a bit late, but since neither of us were getting cell reception we couldn’t contact each other. I headed back after waiting a bit, and of course he arrived minutes after I left. Fortunately my wife and I still needed to finish putting together our daypacks and our friend managed to catch up with us back at camp.
The Bridge to Nowhere hike is a moderately difficult 9-mile out-and-back (4.5 miles each way) that follows the San Gabriel river’s east fork to a fantastic bridge that is literally in the middle of nowhere. There used to be a road leading out there, but that got washed out long ago due to flooding and yet the bridge remains. Evidence of the former road can be seen along the way with stretches of broken pavement after decades of neglect. Arriving at the bridge, we stopped to watch bungee jumpers launch themselves off the side. Next time I think I’ll have to join in.
It’s a great hike, one every outdoors-inclined Southern Californian should do, and words don’t do it justice, so here’s a few photos.
Rest stop.
The bridge.
Me and the wifey.
This trail used to be pavement.
We returned to camp around 4pm or so, bid farewell to our friend, cooked dinner, played cards, and were asleep probably around 7pm. Ah, short winter days. It rained at some point during the night, though we stayed perfectly dry inside the tent. We left the rainfly off the night before, but put it on that night for warmth more than anything, not expecting any of the wet stuff to actually come down.
Sunday morning we had oatmeal and coffee once again, though both were served only lukewarm as we ran out of fuel for the stove. My camera’s battery died, so here’s the only decent photo I got of the campground.
It was very cold.
We packed up and were out of the campground by 9am. Rather than ride along the San Gabriel river, we rode up the Glendora Mountain Road. At a fairly constant 6% grade for five miles it was a helluva a way to wake up and shake off the morning chills, though coming back down on the other side of the mountain us all over again. Back in the SGV we rode west in what would’ve been perfect weather if it weren’t for the headwind that fought us the entire way.
We made a few stops. First we grabbed some donuts and coffee in Duarte. Then we stopped at the Arcadia REI to pick up a larger fuel bottle for future adventures. In Pasadena, we ate lunch at the lovely Café Verde. As if to taunt us, the wind died down while we ate, only to pick back up again when we remounted our bikes. The next stop we made was at the Flying Pigeon bike shop in Highland Park.
My wife wanted to check out some clothing made by Shifty which the shop carries. She liked what she saw, but didn’t pick up anything that day. She did, however, snag a Po Campo bike purse for the days when she doesn’t want to lug around an entire set of panniers. The shop employees, Josef and John, snapped a photo of us, with Bronwyn proudly sporting her new bag… on top of other bags.
I won't deny it. We look pretty nerdy.
Finally, within two mile from home, I got a flat. The source of the flat is still a mystery to me as I never found anything inside the casing and the rim strip was completely fine. I replaced the tube only to find, after remounting the tire, that my replacement tube had a couple holes in it already. So I patched the old tube and we were on our way, but not without me cursing the fact that we could’ve been home already.
All in all a great weekend and another successful bike camping trip that, as an added bonus, burned off all our Thanksgiving calories leaving us ravenously hungry on Monday.
Great video here on the push for helmet use and the culture of fear.
I’ve said before that I like helmets just fine, but I am thoroughly against mandating helmet use. Sure, helmets are great and can possibly provide a degree of head protection in the event of a crash, but I don’t think anyone should be forced to where one, or feel compelled to based on hyperbolic or anecdotal evidence when hard numbers show one is far more likely to be injured or killed walking down the street (source).
Recently, I’ve made it a point to, more often than not, ride sans helmet for my daily commutes for the very reasons described in the video. It’s an act of defiance against the fear and perceived danger involved with riding a bicycle, and a demonstration to others that riding a bike is a safe activity. It’s a small act, and I’m just one person, but like riding a bike in Los Angeles to show that *gasp* such a thing is possible, small acts and individuals add up.
This isn’t to say that I advocate going without helmets. Ride with one if you want to. I don’t look down on that in the least. What I like is choice and rationality, and what I despise is fear.
As I mentioned in my last post, I did my first cyclocross race on the first Saturday in November. I had still wanted to do an S24O that weekend, so after my race, my wife and I headed back home for a quick lunch before setting off again.
Our ultimate destination was the Musch trail camp in Topanga Canyon. The mixed-terrain route we took involved heading out to Cahuenga pass and hopping onto Mulholland Drive, continuing west on to Dirt Mulholland, and taking fire roads to Trippet Ranch where it was a short distance to the campground.
The wifey, Bronwyn, rode her Rivendell Betty Foy, while I decided to take my mountain bike, a fully rigid titanium GT Lightning that I recently converted to 650b. While I’d ridden these fire roads on smaller-tired bikes, including my 28mm shod Rambouillet, I wanted to see how the GT handled a light overnight camping load, and I wanted to give these 650b wheels a good shakedown.
My wife on her Betty was actually easily outdoing me on the climbs on road Mulholland. Maybe it was the difference in tires (her Pari-Motos versus my Quasi-Motos), or that I was tired from the morning races, or maybe she was just plain outdoing me (probably the case). Regardless, I could quickly catch up on the descents as she’s not a fan of going fast downhill. At any rate, it was a lovely ride and we made good time.
We stopped at the Nike missile silo near the beginning of Dirt Mulholland, arriving around late afternoon, to rest and refill our water. Oh, and we also stretched as we both were starting to cramp up at this point. I practically never stretch, which is probably a bad idea and I think I need to do more of it.
Riding along the fire roads was a bit of a challenge. The sun was low in the sky and shining directly into our eyes, making discerning road conditions a bit tricky. Still, I was riding the mountain bike so I was confident my bike would be able to handle anything it came upon. The new 650b wheels did make rolling over obstacles and maintaining momentum easier. Nothing too dramatic, but definitely an improvement. Where I really noticed the wheels rolling better than the previous 26″ set was on the pavement where the help in momentum made the ride much nicer.
Bronwyn went a bit slower on the fire roads. While nothing was really technical, this was her first foray into gravel grinding, and, again, she doesn’t like going fast downhill. Later she confessed to me that she hated this part. She would rather have continued riding uphill than take on any of the descents as those freaked her out way too much. Alas, I suppose it’s not for everyone.
We continued along Dirt Mulholland to the Temescal Canyon Fire Road, taking that south to the Hub. There we veered west on to the Eagle Springs Fire Road to Eagle Junction. At that point, if we were hiking, we could have taken a trail and walked a mile west to arrive at the campground. Unfortunately, no bikes are allowed on that stretch so we had to take a six-mile detour to come around and approach the campground from the other side. I wonder if we could have just walked the bikes that distance, or if that’s still technically against park rules.
The detour took us to Trippet Ranch where, to Bronwyn’s great relief, we returned to blessed pavement. From here we made our way down to Topanga Canyon Blvd. and headed north. The road where we needed to turn off wasn’t very well marked in our map and we mistakenly headed up one dark dead end. A friendly local dressed in a tie dye shirt (gotta love Topanga, aka Hippy Hollow) gave us some directions, and we stopped by a restaurant to further clarify that we were going the right way.
In case anyone else is trying to figure out how to get to this campground, heading north on Topanga you take a right when you see Froggy’s Fish Market on to Hillside Dr., go up a hill, take another right to continue along Hillside. This section is incredibly, painfully, ridiculously steep. We were walking our bikes here. Keep an eye on the left side of the road for a state park gate. It should be pretty obvious. Head past the gate and keep on climbing. This entire stretch was the hardest part of the entire ride, and the fact that it was dark and we were tired and hungry didn’t help, but it’s not that long. It just FEELS that way.
At last we reached the campground. There’s a nice bathroom with running water and several hike-in or bike-in sites. Not too much of note happened then. Set up, make dinner, and go to sleep.
The next day we woke up with the sunrise. Made breakfast and broke down the tent. Still a bit hungry, after packing up we found a cafe in Topanga for coffee, a bagel, and a cinammon roll.
Our return route took us south on Topanga Canyon Blvd to the PCH. From there we rode south to Santa Monica and turned east on Santa Monica Blvd. We grabbed lunch at my absolute favorite restaurant in L.A., The Kitchen, and returned home to finish our trip.
We had left on Saturday at around 2pm, and returned on Sunday at around 1pm. This was the daylight savings time change weekend, so all told the trip out and back was 24 hours. S24O accomplished.
The beauty of this kind of a trip is we still had the rest of the day to enjoy. We decided to head back to the second day of cyclocross racing to watch the pros, bringing our weekend around full circle.
It was another awesome weekend on the bike. I found out late Thursday night that SoCalCross was having a weekend of cyclocross racing practically in my backyard. Their UCI Weekend #2 event was happening in Griffith Park next to the Greek Theater, the first officially sanctioned bike racing event held there since… ever?
I had planned to do an S24O with the wifey for the weekend, but having always been curious about cross and wanting to support local events like this, I had to participate, and not just as a spectator but as a racer. So bike camping or cross racing? No reason I couldn’t do both.
I’d never raced cyclocross, nor really done any racing that would require a license, so waking up bright and early Saturday morning I headed up to Griffith Park not knowing what to expect, looking only to have fun. For casual folks like myself who just want to try cross out, one-day racing licenses can be purchased for $10, and they even had rental bikes available. I chose to bring my Junqapillar, removing the bottle cages and switching to clipless pedals to put it in “racing form.”
My Cat. 4 race started at 11:15am. After a warm up lap, I rolled up to the back of the pack when staging was called. There was no need to fool myself here; I’ve never raced before and while I’m certainly a spirited rider I had done no training for this and was looking to just have fun so the back was fine with me. My first lap actually went fairly well. I managed to work my way forward once the group had dispersed a bit. I felt pretty good and managed at least semi-graceful dismounts and remounts for the obstacles (which is to say I didn’t fall on my face).
Then came the next lap, and the next. Whatever ground I had gained was quickly lost as folks passed me by. I just don’t have much in the way of a pain threshold and am not very good at pushing myself. A slow and easy spin for a 300km brevet, or grinding up a mountain with a touring load? Sure, that I can do. Willpower I’ve got. But when it comes to intense physical exertion… ha. Not my bag, apparently. But hey, I was still having fun. As fatigue took over, my bike handling got sloppy causing me to wash out on more than a few corners. Picking my bike up for the sixth time, I couldn’t help but laugh at what a sorry sight I must have been. Still fun!
At any rate, I eventually finished before the 45-minute time limit was up, for which I’m proud. I don’t know where I ended in the standings. It wasn’t DFL, though that’s almost a shame as there’s a twisted sense of glory in the title, but it also wasn’t DNF.
The night before I had contemplated doing both the Cat. 4 race and the single-speed division that immediately followed (riding my dingle-cogged fixed gear), hauling both the Junqapillar and the fixed up with my Big Dummy. While that would have made for an entertaining sight, and a good warm up, I decided against it the morning of because I still planned to do the S24O and didn’t want to leave too late. Considering how tired I was after the Cat. 4 race, it was probably for the best anyways.
After my event, my wife and I stayed a bit longer to watch the beginning of the single-speed race then headed home for a quick shower and lunch before grabbing our camping gear and heading out once again.
More on that in the next post.
Tags: cyclocross, griffith park, los angeles, racing
My plan for Halloween day was to ride a 100 miles to continue my goal of doing a century a month. That didn’t turn out as expected.
Sunday morning, I hopped on the bike I’ve dubbed my “Junqapillar.”
It’s my poor man’s take on Rivendell’s Hunqapillar. The frame is a Bianchi Project 5, a mid-’90s attempt by Bianchi to introduce 700c wheels to the mountain biking world. One can think of it as a proto-29er, as it was designed to fit 700c x 45mm knobbies, and lacks clearance for the larger-volumed 29er tires common today. Set up with the Salsa Woodchipper dirt drop bars it makes for a pretty fun gravel grinder and comfy all-day road rider. I had done a mixed-terrain century on it earlier this year, riding the entire length of Mulholland from the 101 to Leo Carillo, including the dirt section. Looking forward to more fire road fun, I hoped to repeat the route. Didn’t happen.
Nothing went wrong. It’s just that as I was riding Mulholland Drive, passing Laurel Canyon, I came across Fryman Canyon Park. Impatient to get to the “fun parts” of Mulholland, I decided to make a little detour. Well, that detour became a whole day of playing in the dirt. And rather than doing 100 miles, I did about thirty or forty (here’s an approximate route, but I repeated a lot of sections so the mileage is off).
I hadn’t ridden the single track in Fryman area for a good three years and I was pleased at how much less I suck at mountain biking now (though I still suck pretty bad). The Junqapillar handled the trails wonderfully, reminding me that it is, in fact, a mountain bike despite any attempts to redefine it as a “monster cross” or “all-arounder”. I think I was even more comfortable on it in the dirt than on my “proper” mountain bike. Maybe it’s the dirt drop bars, maybe it’s the 700c tires. I guess I’ll have to do a repeat ride on that bike to contrast and compare.
While I’m falling short of my century-a-month goal, I have no regrets. While it’s great to have goals, riding bikes is about having fun. If I’m going to have more fun spending my day mountain biking so be it. What’s really cool about all this is the fact that I set out to ride a century but instead ended up doing single track on the same bike. Hurray for versatility.
Tags: century a month, los angeles, mountain biking, mulholland
- L.A. Times reports CicLAvia a huge success. Estimated 100,000 turn out. http://lat.ms/9fzbhW #
Tags: twitter
- Great post by Kent Peterson on bike safety and facing fear. http://kentsbike.blogspot.com/2010/10/lifell-kill-ya.html #
Tags: twitter
- Bicycle Film Festival L.A. starts tonight. Get tickets now. First screening of To Live & Ride in L.A. already sold out! http://bit.ly/d5W3iA #
Tags: twitter
Photo by carltonreid
Sent to me by a friend this morning. More info about the artist at Quickrelease.tv.
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