Particle
06-20-2006, 12:11 AM
As a farewell to Cali, I busted out a biggie long Sierra ride on Sunday (yesterday) morning, 6/18. Started pedaling about 9:15am, and got back to Fresno around 2pm. If I hadn't had responsibilities back home, I would have stayed on trail longer and completed a 40+ miler. I don't have an odometer, but as best I could tell, I still worked out a solid 35-ish mile ride...which would make it the longest ride I've ever done. Although not as hard/painful as the 31-mile Porcupine loop from Sand Flats...
Anyway I failed in my photographic duties but here are a few shots to make up for it from some of my past rides.
The trail starts just south of Bass Lake, in the Sierra foothills. Basically the bottom 10 miles or so of road (Central Camp Road) criss-crosses a singletrack called 007, where they used to hold a pretty cool race, but not this year sadly:
http://www.trailheadcyclery.com/Racing/BassLake04/
a shot I took of the trail, and posted here last fall, of the lower road climb:
http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=14154&stc=1&d=1150783295
I was going to just go and ride the road and then hit 007, but for some reason I just wanted to be out in the mountains longer than that. A lot of the riders out in the central Sierra are into these big, super long rides, and while not technical, are pretty cool adventuring so figured I'd give it a shot. If you keep going above 007, you can connect the road to a jeep trail that continues up to Shuteye Peak. I did it last year to the summit, but I drove up to a higher campground that's about 13 miles up the road. It's a looong ways off when viewed from the lower road:
http://www.dangabbard.com/trails/goat_mt/goat_mt_shuteye.jpg
I finally passed the point I'd started at on my ride last year to get to the summit, and by then I was pretty worked. I was a solid 15 miles into the ride - long, constant uphill spinning. I could've kept going but I was starting to fatigue and frankly I was getting a little bored with the constant dirt road climb. Stopped for some lunch and forced myself to go on for a few more miles, thinking maybe I'd make it at least to a view around Shuteye Pass:
http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=14155&stc=1&d=1150783755
...but figured I didn't have it in me to make it up the steep loose jeep road to the top:
http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=14153&stc=1&d=1150782953
So I found a nice water cascade sheeting evenly down this massive granite face, called it a good stopping point, doused my head in the cold runoff, and turned around. Whew. Still a lot of pedaling ahead to get down (it wasn't all that steep of a road). I turned off on another road searching for an elusive upper, upper entrance to 007 but there was a lot of logging going on and I couldn't tell if what I thought was the trail was in fact it, and didn't want to get myself in trouble and/or lost being alone and all. That added a solid 3 miles to my trip hunting around for that thing. Ah well...back the way I'd come and quickly found the middle upper entrance to 007 and ripped the rest of the way down. The singletrack swoopy fast goodness was a welcome respite from the endless miles of fire road...
And today I'm in surprisingly little pain. Getting back into biking shape roolz. Plus this year I feel like I'm getting pretty decent at being a good all-rounder: DH, DJ, and XC are all feeling pretty damn good. Although I haven't done as much true DH as I'd like... :FIREdevil
Anyway I failed in my photographic duties but here are a few shots to make up for it from some of my past rides.
The trail starts just south of Bass Lake, in the Sierra foothills. Basically the bottom 10 miles or so of road (Central Camp Road) criss-crosses a singletrack called 007, where they used to hold a pretty cool race, but not this year sadly:
http://www.trailheadcyclery.com/Racing/BassLake04/
a shot I took of the trail, and posted here last fall, of the lower road climb:
http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=14154&stc=1&d=1150783295
I was going to just go and ride the road and then hit 007, but for some reason I just wanted to be out in the mountains longer than that. A lot of the riders out in the central Sierra are into these big, super long rides, and while not technical, are pretty cool adventuring so figured I'd give it a shot. If you keep going above 007, you can connect the road to a jeep trail that continues up to Shuteye Peak. I did it last year to the summit, but I drove up to a higher campground that's about 13 miles up the road. It's a looong ways off when viewed from the lower road:
http://www.dangabbard.com/trails/goat_mt/goat_mt_shuteye.jpg
I finally passed the point I'd started at on my ride last year to get to the summit, and by then I was pretty worked. I was a solid 15 miles into the ride - long, constant uphill spinning. I could've kept going but I was starting to fatigue and frankly I was getting a little bored with the constant dirt road climb. Stopped for some lunch and forced myself to go on for a few more miles, thinking maybe I'd make it at least to a view around Shuteye Pass:
http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=14155&stc=1&d=1150783755
...but figured I didn't have it in me to make it up the steep loose jeep road to the top:
http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=14153&stc=1&d=1150782953
So I found a nice water cascade sheeting evenly down this massive granite face, called it a good stopping point, doused my head in the cold runoff, and turned around. Whew. Still a lot of pedaling ahead to get down (it wasn't all that steep of a road). I turned off on another road searching for an elusive upper, upper entrance to 007 but there was a lot of logging going on and I couldn't tell if what I thought was the trail was in fact it, and didn't want to get myself in trouble and/or lost being alone and all. That added a solid 3 miles to my trip hunting around for that thing. Ah well...back the way I'd come and quickly found the middle upper entrance to 007 and ripped the rest of the way down. The singletrack swoopy fast goodness was a welcome respite from the endless miles of fire road...
And today I'm in surprisingly little pain. Getting back into biking shape roolz. Plus this year I feel like I'm getting pretty decent at being a good all-rounder: DH, DJ, and XC are all feeling pretty damn good. Although I haven't done as much true DH as I'd like... :FIREdevil