Another Simi Super Mini-Epic

Inspired by my mini-adventure last weekend, I thought that I would take another journey into the outback surrounding our home in Simi Valley.  However, this time I decided to modify my route a bit to make sure that I had enough energy to truly enjoy the experience along the Rocky Peak fireroad.  That did not exactly happen, but it was much less exhausting than my mini-epic last week.  I also had the advantage of being able to trade my custom Specialized S-Works Stumpjumper for the Specialized Hard Rock Sport that I rode last week.  My S-Works has been out of commission since I broke the chain and had to replace the derailleur in a mishap a few weeks ago.  Although I very much like my Hard Rock Sport.  After all, it is the bike that got me back into mountain biking after years away.  However, there is a reason that my endearing name for this red bike is “The Tank”!  The bicycle is solid and reliable, but relatively heavy.  Here is a look inside the turret of The Tank.  It is great to have it as a back up to the B-2 Bomber, my personally built S-Works Stumpjumper.  (Please excuse the quality of some of my camera phone photos) 

The two bikes are good in different situations and I like them on different rides for different reasons.  However, it cannot be denied that the B-2 is much more expensive than the Tank.  The Tank is good on fire roads and fairly flat off-road riding while The B-2 Bomber excels on the ultra-rocky downhills that I encountered on the descent of the Hummingbird trail on this, the second of my Simi Super Mini-Epics! 

This time I started out on the Old Santa Susana Pass Road instead of taking the energy-sapping trip up the small trail through Corriganville.  This part took a while but eventually I arrived back at the entrance to the Rocky Peak fireroad, the scene of my mini-epic of the previous week.  Instead of taking the Rocky Peak fireroad all the way to the Chumash Trail, I thought that I would check out the Hummingbird Trail down from the fireroad.  In theory this was an excellent idea, in practice it was not so hot!

From the top of the Hummingbird Trail, it didn’t look too bad.  It looked like a nice rolling trail down the side of the hill.  Little did I know that just over that rise, the trail becomes much more formidable in its descent down the side of Rocky Peak.  It was a good thing that I was on The B-2 Bomber with dual suspension and not The Tank with a single suspension!  I would have never made it down on The Tank!  The singletrack was littered with foot-deep rutts between large rocks as it snaked in and out of the native sandstone formations that cover the mountain.  The singletrack finally reaches the monolithic sandsone formations that dominate the midpoint of Rocky Peak.  As the trail snaked between and over these formations, sometimes requiring a bit of hike-a-bike, I encountered some impressive scenery that included caves and rock chutes.  As I cleared the stoney midpoint, I began to encounter a little bit more dirt than above as I reached more of the alluvium at the bottom of the hill.

This is not a trek that I would recommend to anyone but experienced mountain bikers.  In my attempt of this trail descent I wore knee and shin guards, elbow pads and a full-face bicycle helmet.  Even with my past experience to guide me I crashed 3 times on my descent.  With the padding I walked away with a few bruises, without the padding who knows what would have happened.  If you have the experience and plan to give this trail a shot be sure to wear at least Leg(shin & knee) guards (I use my old roller hockey shin/knee guards), elbow pads and a full-face helmet.

I hope that you have enjoyed the writeup as much as I enjoyed finishing my Second Simi Super Mini-Epic.  Hopefully you are a little less bruised by the whole journey than me! 

Super Mini Epic

This past weekend, I ended up riding a Mini-Epic mountain bike ride, if you want to call it that.  I originally only wanted to take a ride into Corriganville to see the end of a trail that I had only followed halfway up the hill toward the Old Santa Susana Pass Road. 

 So I headed into Corriganville, crossed the railroad tracks and headed east up the hill on a trail that runs through the cut toward the Old Santa Susanna Pass Road.  Emerging near the top of the the Old Santa Susanna Pass Road, I decided to head up the Rocky Peak Fire Road to see what was up there.  Following the fire road to the top at an altitude of approximately 2,600 ft, I passed the top of the Hummingbird Trail and continued along my way, by this time determined to make it to the Chumash Trail for my return trip home down the mountain. 

Once I got to the top of Rocky Peak, the trail flattened out and gradually began to slope down toward the north.  In this photo, I am looking back up the trail to the south.  The post marking the turnoff at the top of the Chumash Trail appears to have been repeatedly burned and cannot be read.  Luckily I ran into a nice couple that were just exiting the Chumash Trail onto the Rocky Peak fireroad and was able to confirm with them that it was indeed the Chumash Trail.  It was then just a couple mile descent that was rocky in a number of sections that required more than one dismount.  The trail winds down from the Rocky Peak fireroad through some very impressive scenery.

From the bottom of the Chumash Trail it was a ery uneventful descent on roads home.  The grand total of my mini-adventure was ~13 miles, not too bad for this weekend warrior.

Santa Monica Mountain Rides

I thought that I would take the time to write an entry on the riding that I have been doing in the Santa Monica Mountains. All of my family, friends and colleagues have already heard about most of this ad-nauseum, but hey, there are more ears, or rather eyes, out there for me to talk to!

For the last couple of weeks I have been taking rides into the Santa Monica Mountains on the weekends. It is such a great escape from the urban life of Los Angeles. It is really just like being a kid again and going exploring for a few hours on the weekend. It is so close to home but feels so far away! I have previously mentioned some of my journeys in a previous blog entry but now have pictures to show for it. The first batch of pictures is from August 5th and was my first journey up into the Santa Monica Mountains by myself on my mountain bike via Brentwood. They give you a little bit of an idea of what it looks like up there and how quickly you can leave the urban sprawl behind. These photos were taken with my camera phone only about a mile or two into the Santa Monicas from the trailhead. In the first three photos, you are looking west down into Mandeville Canyon. While the fourth shows you a bit of the fireroad that comprises this section of trails and the fifth shows you the entrance to the Whoop-dee-doos just off the fireroad. On this particular day I did not get much further than the Whoop-dee-doos. I was still not used to the steep climbing and was beat by the time that I got a couple miles in.

A week later, on Aug 12, 2006, I decided to give it another go and try to get up to the Nike Missile site on the tip of San Vicente Mountain and back for my weekly ride. There are a few pictures from that trip hidden deep on our personal website. On this particular day I started on the Kenter fireroad and headed up the hill. As you can see in the first three photos, it was sunny but kind of hazy on this particular day. This time I did not stop at the Whoop-dee-doos on the way up the hill, I was on a mission to get to the top! So I proceeded up the fireroad to Canyonback, above the Mountain Gate ritzy housing tract and golfcourse, along the trail to dirt Mulholland and finally made it to the Nike Missile site on the top of San Vicente Mountain. There are some beautiful views from up there. You can see most of the LA Basin on one side and the San Fernando Valley on the other. Underneath you is Mandeville Canyon and off to the west is the Pacific Ocean.

After seeing all of these great sights, I was really hooked (you know fitness coupled with exploration can be an addictive combination!). So after my back had healed (I mentioned that I hurt my back in an earlier blog entry and it took the better part of August to heal), I decided to head back up into the Santa Monica Mountains again on Sept 2nd to see some new sights. Since I am trying to increase my fitness level, I decided that I was going to retrace some of my previous trips to try to meet up with a ride that was organized by the North Ranch Mountain Bikers. The ride was to leave from the south end of Reseda Blvd and precede to the Hub in the middle of the Santa Monicas. The group was supposed to meet at 9:00am at the south end of Reseda. I decided to ride in from the westside and started in from Brentwood a little later than I had anticipated at 8:30am. Needless to say, this didn’t leave me much time to get the 6 miles over the mountain! As you can imagine, I missed the group but kept on going until I reached the intersection of the Temescal Ridge Trail and Dirt Mulholland. At that point it was starting to get a little bit hot and I stopped for a few minutes and talked to a very pleasant man and woman that were also taking a break (it really is amazing how many pleasant people are in the Santa Monica Mountains on any given weekend). After an extended gab session about some idiots that they had run across smoking pot in the Santa Monicas earlier (really a stupid idea if you know anything about the ecology of Southern California, but then again pot-heads were never known for their brain cells!), I continued on the next 2 miles to the Hub. The Hub is a very interesting place. It is overlooked by a very interesting looking peak and consists of a signboard, a trashcan and a Porta-Potty. You can see the signboard behind my bicycle in this photo. At any rate, as I was taking a break in the shade of the signboard (the only shade around) I ran into another guy on a mountain bike and the organizer of the North Ranch ride that I had missed earlier in the morning! I then started the long 11 mile trip for home. I think that I bit off a little more than I could chew a little bit too late in the day because I was so hot and tired by the time that I made it back to the Nike site at the top of San Vicente Mountain that I had to sit down, eat and rehydrate for about 30 minutes before I could even begin to think about starting my trip back to Brentwood. Compounding the problem was the heat. In the Santa Monicas, you notice that there is NOONE left up on the trails after about 11:45am on a summer day. The only ones left up there are the folks like myself whose optimism is only outwieghed by their stupidity! At any rate after soaking my bandana and jersey in water, I made my way down the mountain and home.

I have not yet decided if I am going to repeat the trip a little bit earlier or whether I will try an alternate route. Wish me luck!

New Bike Shop

I threw my back out this past Thursday and could not go for any rides this weekend on the mountain bike. Kind of a bummer for me. I am really getting to like the Santa Monicas! There are so many trails to ride and so many different places to explore.

So instead of going for a ride, I visited a new bike shop here in West LA named Cynergy Cycles. They are located at the corner of 23rd Street and Santa Monica Blvd in Santa Monica near St. John’s Medical Center. The folks in the shop are really nice and took the time to talk to me as a person, something that we don’t see very often this day and age of big box stores. In fact, I have been boycotting Performance Bicycles ever since I was treated so poorly by their staff in the Santa Monica store over the course of a couple of visits. In fact, not only do I not shop there but I let anyone that will listen know that they should not shop there either! I guess when you are one of the largest volume cycling retailers in California, you can pick and choose who you are nice to! This negative criticism does not include all Performance Bicycle Shops. The Performance Bicycle in Ventura has always been great to me every time that I have gone in there.

But anyway, based on my good experience at Cynergy Cycles, if you get a chance, check them out. You might like what you find! I have a tick in my bottom bracket right now on my mountain bike and I think that I will be taking it to Cynergy to get checked out.