Bikepacking and Endurance Mountain Biking

Another great area, Kendall, Gar (K's cousin) and I went for a ride up to Old Alpine. Unlike yesterday's ride that had a forest to meadow combo, the entire ride was under a canopy of trees.





A simple ride: ride up before shooting down.



Gar brough arm/leg warmers. Good move, at times it was a bit cold, especially on the descent. Surprisingly cold for an 8:30am start. The early ride meant beating the rush hour traffic on the trail.

I snapped a few pictures on the climb up...



...before we bolted back down to the trailhead. As we neared the car, about 5-6 mountain bikers were starting to make the ascent. Perfect timing.



and headed to a local breakfast place for some coffee and omelets/hash browns.

The route has no technical sections, just a pretty leisurely ride to the top of the mountain and bike. No GPS, but I would guess about 1800 feet of climbing, 7-8 miles one-way.

This place could be a central hub for epic riding. I could link the ride yesterday to today's, add a little bit road in before doing more riding at the infamous Purisima Creek (perhaps tomorrow's ride).

Some more California riding, this time up in Palo Alto. We headed from the house that we were staying, up Alpine to Arastradero Preserve. Some fun, easy riding that can be done from almost anywhere in Palo Alto.

This route is a combination of double and singletrack, a quick 2.5 hour ride without any driving involved. We headed up a brief section of road before hitting the Alpine trail.



The amount of shaded sections



to unshaded sections was perfect.



To get to the Arastradero Preserve, we had to ride up about 1/2 mile up Arastradero Road. This area seems to be a the mecca for roadies. Nice rolling hills through beautiful meadows and forests....I can see why.

At Arastradero Preserve, we started exploring without a map. Trails zigzagged the mountain, another choose your own adventure type of area. There were some pretty steep hike-a-bike sections past the Bowl ST



and some other steep up sections


I am stunned at the amount of singletrack that is closed to mountain bikers. Few places in Arizona have no biking signs (apart from wilderness areas). In northern California, a distinction is made between hiking trails and biking trails, hundreds of them line the trail. Understandably so give the large amount of people in California.

We ended up doing two big loops while we were there. Here is a good combo of Kendall cleaning a switchback.





Great riding here in Northern California. We saw only a handful of hikers/mtbers on the trail. Weather is perfect, mid 70s.

More riding hopefully in the next few days before flying to Central America.

I had heard that Noble Canyon was touted to be the best trail in SoCal. It has the perfect amount of swoopy, fast sections and technical rock gardens. Couple it with some a nice 20-mile route from Cuyamaca, and you can make this a choose your own adventure loop. You can resupply in Pine Valley, ride more singletrack while in Noble Canyon, take Highway 80 back to your, etc....tons of option. The one-way route is a certified IMBA epic.

If you plan ahead, you can even store some refreshments at the Green Valley Falls (see 2nd to last picture). I stored a few early in the morning before starting the ride. I added in some more Cuyamaca singletrack


to make this an 8 hour ride with a little under 50 miles. Many websites warn against doing this ride in the summer; they are correct. It was 90+ degrees for most of the afternoon, light when you compare it to weather back in AZ.



The route starts on the East Mesa FR before dropping into the Deer Creek ST. Views are plentiful as this is the highest spot on the route.



The first part had a few scorched areas, similar to yesterday's ride. Life always seems to conquer though.


Indian Creek ST (shown here)


to Noble Canyon. Heavenly, I was underneath a thick canopy, weaving between rocks, then flying around well-built, ridable switchbacks, up and over logs....then repeat for about 4-5 miles. Amazing, in fact, I did not even take any pictures of the area I was having so much fun.

Afterwards, I took out the camera as we neared Pine Valley to snap a few pictures





After a quick out-n-back to the General Store at Pine Valley, I continued on finishing the lollipop-style loop by retracing my steps. I almost hit this little guy on the way back.


A quick out-n-back to Oakzanita peak yielded some more nice singletrack and switchbacks







I vividly remember going to the Green Valley Falls when I was a kid. A 10-foot cliff jump was the highlight of the trip. I had planned to make the falls my finishing point since I knew it was going to be a little toasty.

At the end of the loop, I rode down to the GV falls, parked my bike, hiked the 1/4 mile to the swimming hole, jumped in and relaxed. A few of these were waiting for me upstream, hidden from early that morning.




My GPS turned off/on a few times, but here is the basic profile of the route:



I am missing few sections since the GPS turned off, but about 50 miles with 7800 feet of goodness.

This place has some killer potential for bikepacking trips, I will be curious to see this place during the next few months/years.

There is a 'Grand Loop' of the park that many locals do to see the best of Cuyamaca. Its about 20 miles, so I made a few alterations to it by adding in some more singletrack and climbing. I started at noon, unfortunately in the heat. I was surprised by how hot it got considering Descanso and Pine Valley are at 3500 feet.



The area is home of CA's largest man-made fire; its a shame to have to wonder what this place was like before the fire.

There are signs of flowers and small trees returning.



The route passes near Cuyamaca Lake and some nice meadows.



Its a great little introduction to the area. I had some dinner plans at 5pm with my Aunt P, so the loop was perfect. The typical singletrack during the route looked something like this:



This is a great little loop. There are a few miles of forest roads, but DON'T WORRY, nobody is going to get pass the gates that they have there. Count the number of locks on those FR gates!


I managed to ride some of the California Riding and Hiking Trail that really caught my attention.


It seems as though San Diego County has a Trans County Trail and a Sea to Sea Trail (they are one in the same, just the later goes longer). The S2S Trail goes from Del Mar to Scanton Sea. Click here to view the map. The bad news is that it is not done yet, but I sent them an email to try to get the GPX file; it could be a new bikepacking trip in the works!

At mid peek, the dirt became a more red-tint.


The profile of the ride, 27 miles with 4087 feet of climbing


If you are ever in the area, I'd recommend a 2-day ride session here, this being Day 1 and the Cuyamaca-Noble Canyon Day 2.