This is a continuation of my previous blog entry about this ride, located here, as you might guess by the title. If you are scrolling down the blog you probably want to skip down and read in order. This picks up in the middle of day 1 of a two day ride. This was my route, …
The time had come for another overnighter bikepacking camp trip. I added a day to my Labor Day weekend and made it a Friday/Saturday schedule. There aren’t a lot of options for overnighters in Southern California due to the paucity of campgrounds in this urban sprawl. The local Cleveland National Forest does not allow wild camping, …
On my last overnight tour around Southern California I took the Santa Ana River Trail dirt option. The dirt trail runs along the opposite side of the river as the paved tail for most of the route. I will post a write up of the full trip next, but I first wanted to focus on …
I have been off the bike a while due to an infection (I prefer to skip the details about that, thank you), a twisted ankle, work schedule, wah, wah, wah, I know. So when I was finally able to get back on the bike I did what I usually do. I go too big rather …
One of my favorite stories from my bicycle tours comes from a ride I did circa 2007. My riding buddy Joe (which may or may not be his real name) and I loaded our bikes on the Amtrak train from southern California to Salinas so that we could ride back along Pacific Coast Highway (PCH). We …
In celebration of the longest day of the year I wanted to go big and change things up a little bit from the normal canyon ride I have been doing lately. So rather than leave from my house I drove to a point somewhere along the route, which allowed me to venture farther into other …
It was time for a shakedown ride of a pretty new set of chainrings and chain on my 29 plus. The coast had recently been battered by a big storm, ripping away much of the beach, and in some cases, all the beach and frontage parking lots.
Before I get into the details of this ride I need to talk about mountain biking in the rain in this area because it is easily misunderstood. Nearly all of the local wilderness parks in the area close their trails for a day or two after a rain, and for good reason. They are all …
Here it is late February and I have a few days of downtime as I change jobs. So what should I do? Go riding, of course! President’s Day was unusually warm. We were supposed to be getting slammed by El Nino driven rain storms by now, but they have not materialized yet. El Nino has …
If you have followed my ride reports you may have noticed that I have done a similar loop lately, changing the route a little every time. Today’s change was that I did the loop in reverse, eliminated some climbs and did more mileage instead. The first thing I met of any significance was of GREAT …