Santa Ana Trail

Cody and I recently made our ultimate epic ride-- the Santa Ana trail up in the mountains of Southern California. The trail was very unique, offering a wide array of technical, steep, and adventurous riding. For the most part the trail wasn't very busy, considering the holiday weekend. We enjoyed riding through pines, to granite slopes, and marshy ravines.

At one point we stopped for lunch at the base of a small waterfall, where we enjoyed cooling our feet in the mountainous stream. Additionally we were both intrigued by a small and hard ball of tree sap that made a creative structure in Cody's leg hair-- very similar to the space needle.

Despite three endos and a little "natural" riding, the experience was well worth it. We enjoyed the rolling hills, and with a few exceptions, didn't have too much climbing over all. The trail ends at the valley base, after we dropped several thousand feet across rocky slopes. The occassional small stream on the mountain face was extremely welcome, especially once our water was warm.

After Cody hitchiked back up to the car and I cooled off in the river, we returned 9 hours later, with over 27 miles under our belt.

JEM, Hurricane, UT, April 28, 2006

JEM Trail near Hurricane UT. Filmed on April 28, 2006.

Gneiss Ride at Blackhawk

Today I rode a 12 miles on the first half of the Blackhawk trail up Payson canyon. The trail was a mix of everything possible—mud bogs, rocks, logs, and rutted horse tracks. Despite the obstacles that tended to slow you down (and definitely keep you on your toes!) there were quite a few straights.

The trail was also evenly mixed with even grades, with very few extreme slopes, fairly evenly distributed up and down. Some areas were a little tricky, with a flat and winding trail, often covered by grass. Large rocks (made of gneiss) sporadically appear. While locking out my rear shock with my right hand, I ran into one of these rocks while locking my front wheel. The end result was a more surprising than painful endo, softly landing on the dirt and giving a good head butt to a fallen log (another testimony to wear a helmet!).

The best part of the trail is the awesome views. Frequently I was surprised by the wide openings, where I could see mountains many miles away. However for the future, I think I’ll wait until the end of the summer to ride it again, to let the horse tracks smooth out and also let the mud bogs dry up.

Slate Canyon

I have recently been exploring Slate Canyon, with a number of rides. It is located just south of BYU, and it climbs up to the base of Provo Peak. The climb itself is quite intense, with some technical steep rocky climbs that weren’t very easy to top. The trail crosses a large stream that meanders along the canyon bottom.

According to the map (rather than my own exploration of the trail), the trail connects at the bottom of the valley with a trail leading up from Rock Canyon. It will be interesting to see where the valley trail leads too.

The canyon is absolutely gorgeous. In comparison to Rock Canyon, Slate Canyon is much more enjoyable due to less traffic. The technical climbs seem to deter those who can’t fathom what the difference could be between a $150 Costco special and a carbon fiber Specialized Epic.

Here are a just a few photos of the trail. Stay tuned for further explorations!

The Abominable Endo-Man

Today I rode the South Fork loop—3 miles up from the Vivian Park turnoff, in Provo Canyon. The loop has myriad options for single track adventures. I rode the main road up, (advised by some fellow in the parking lot that there can be quite a lot of downhill traffic on the single track, thus making the road a more courteous option) for about 2 miles, with intermittent single track.

My original intent was to ride up to the Great Western Trail, and head south to Windy Pass. Ill-informed, I actually started on the wrong end of the loop, which would force me to ride 75% of the loop, then break off to the GWT, rather than only 25% if I would have started in the right place. So I decided the next best option was to drop into Rock Canyon. Ascending a few hundred more feet, I began the slow climb out of the valley, when I hit the story of my life—snow. Learning my lesson from my Abominable Snowman experience, and not necessarily wanting to repeat it, I opted to turn around.

The downhill single track of South Fork is absolutely one of the best trails I have ridden. The best explanation I can give would be the merger of Tibble Fork (steep parts with some tight hair-pin turns) and Bear Claw Poppy in St. George (very fast, dynamic, with a number of enjoyable launch pads). The trail turned out to be a nice combination to result in my favorite riding—fast and furious.

One more shout out for South Fork: a nice advantage is that the trail head is located at a nice park, and only 2 miles from the Provo river, which makes for a very family-friendly trail. Additionally, the loop can be done in 30 minutes, so a number of loops, while still spending some time with the family intermittently, providing a comfortable balance. Bec said next time, she’d like to relax in the park in a lawn chair while I do a couple loops.

I then rode down the canyon and about 7 miles on the Provo River Parkway trail, when I decided my desire to ride had yet to be satiated. So I rode up my beloved Bonneville Shoreline Trail, on the south side of Provo canyon. The trail is much different than I remember, probably because it was covered in snow last time. The climb is not overwhelming, while very challenging and a nice balance of technical and challenging steep stints up the mountain.

One memorable part left me a little upside down. I’ll call this Endo #1. As can be seen from the pictures, the trail winds over a rocky ditch, from the recent snowmelt. My front tire bounced and slipped over a rock, sending me toward the camera in this picture.

Continuing on, I climbed and decided to break at about 8.5 miles. While enjoying my granola bar, two bikers passed—a couple from Racer’s Bike Shop in Provo. Amazed, (and a little intimidated by the girl’s climbing skills), I thought I would ride after them. As the climb leveled off, the trail follows a series of ravines, making way for a high-speed chase. I rounded a corner too close and hit a large bush root, and I went careening across a lovely patch of sharp shale and granite, that felt like landing on a cheese grater. Fortunately I didn’t break anything, and will end up with some neat scars in the future. Unfortunately, I lost the magnet that clips onto the spoke of my front wheel (and even more unfortunate, I didn’t realize it for a mile or so), so I tracked my time and distance to 9.4 miles. Undefeated, I still tried to catch the couple, but didn’t see them again. (To the right is a photo of the trail for Endo #1, as I came upon it.)

I broke out on Squaw Peak road, a highway leading to the top of Squaw Peak and Hope Campground. Thinking I was only a mile or so away, I decided to climb to the top, and find the trail that drops into Rock Canyon. After an hour, and a number of steep seemingly relentless miles, I gave up. I laid down on the rocks on the side of the road, with really nothing left. Deciding what I should do, I remembered a lesson Dad taught me a number of times—when the going gets tough, (or when the Ford breaks down) the tough hitchhike! The first truck that went by let me throw the bike in the back, and dropped me off at Squaw Peak viewpoint. I assumed it would be a downhill ride from there, I soon found out there was much climbing still to be done. An hour later, and after some grueling uphill climbs (single track this time), I stopped a man coming down, and he told me I still had a few miles to go to get to the downhill, and then it was still a number of miles into and out of a technical Rock Canyon.

Since it was already 5, and my legs had been dead for an hour, I stopped at a nice view point, overlooking the Utah Valley, and called Bec to meet me in the canyon. So I rode for 20 minutes going at least 25-30mph the entire way down the mountain. From the road leg of my ride, I learned (1) road biking really isn’t as adventurous and exhilarating as mountain biking and (2) if you don’t pedal for more than five minutes, and just coast, your feet and hands both go numb. So after 3 ½ hours, I think over 20 miles, and some awesome riding, I made it home, alive, with sore legs and cuts and bruises to make any mountain biker smile.

Southern Utah Fun

To be added later...

2 Sycamore Rides in 3 days- Cody

On Thursday, April 20th, I was able to sneak out of the house for a "short" ride in Sycamore Canyon. I headed out on my normal route, but decided to mix it up a bit. I hit my new technical section I found backwards. It was fun, but it was a pretty easy decent and very difficult ascent back out. I had to walk a section and a couple of other sections gave me a bit of trouble that I had to try them a few times. I like it the other way better.

Once I climbed out that area it was off to the races. I hit the double track that decends from one of the higher points, and pushed it pretty fast. Speed in this section hit around 30 mph. After a brief uphill the trail breaks off into some beautiful singletrack. The trail parallels a small stream and has nice greenery on each side. I'm not sure where the stream comes from, but since the park is surrounded by city, I can only imagine. The trail is fairly flat which allows for a nice cruising speed.

After looping around the stream I headed back on the other side. Again it's a fun trail that somewhat parallels the stream, but this side rolls up and down quite a bit more.

Then it's back to doubletrack that gradually climbs back up to one of the higher points in the canyon. It's not that fun, but after the climb is a smooth decent that I've been maxxing out my speedo on. It only goes up to 37 mph, I think. I'm guessing this, because 2 rides in a row, in this same section I had a max of 37 mph. I've never seen higher.

Right after the doubletrack descent is a quick uphill and a nice singletrack downhill called the Triple R. I started this section and right away hit a little wash and snakebit my rear tube. I had a spare tube, but the pump I had wasn't cooperating. It took all I had to get it pumping. Finally, after several minutes of difficult pumping, it started working well and I was back in business. I had a great downhill ride the rest of the way, with the exception of making one small wrong turn. After the downhill I left the trail on the road and looped around about a mile to my car.


Saturday April 22nd

I got up early Saturday morning to ride Sycamore Canyon again. It was a beautiful day for mountain biking: temperature in the upper 60's, and cloudy. I covered a very similar route to Thursday's but bypassed the technical section on the way up.

After looping around the stream I came across another small stream crossing. Unfortunately this one was a very sludge filled crossing and my tires got covered. Thank goodness for the disc brakes... The mud wasn't too bad until I fast section and immediately the mud (sludge) started flinging off and hitting me all over, including the face and mouth. I kept my lips pierced until it stopped. It ended up all over my shirt and face.

I did the same doubletrack climb but at the top instead of hitting the 37 mph area I turned down a singletrack trail that has a great mix of fast and technical sections (picture at left and video). At the bottom of the descent I found a red-tail hawk warming itself as the sun poked through the clouds.

I hit the other technical section in the better direction and then continued the decent to my car. Overall, great ride. Sycamore offers a number of options that keep me entertained.

Stats on Thursday- Stats on Saturday-
Avg Speed- 8.3 Avg Speed- 8.6
Distance- 9.6 Distance- 11.5
Time- 1:09 Time- 1:20
Top Speed- 37 mph Top Speed- 32.5 mph
Total Ascent- Approx 1200 ft. Total Ascent- Approx 1400 ft.

A Little Faster at Southridge- Cody

Today I had a great ride at the Southridge Park course. The weather was a great with the temperature hovering in the upper 60's or low 70's. The sun was out, the smog wasn't too noticeable. I went directly after work, as was evident by my wearing brown dress socks during my ride since I forgot regular socks.

I had 2 goals in mind on this ride:
1. Ride faster than my last Southridge ride
2. Capture as much video as possible with my new helmet cam mount for my digital camera.

I was successful on both counts. I cut my ride time by 4 minutes while riding a little bit farther due to a course change. At the same time, I cut my total ride duration (including breaks) by about 20 minutes. I felt much better during this ride compared to Slowpoke at Southridge. I compared my results with the race results for those in the final race in March of this year; I would have placed 20th in my heat (beginners), and 5th in my age and class (27-34 beginners).

I was also able to capture quite a bit of video with the helmet camera. It stayed very secure during the entire ride, always pointing in the right direction. An interesting note: to capture video I have to reach up and hit the shutter button every 30 seconds or so. My camera only takes 30 seconds of video at a time. Dad's will take up to 3 minutes. Dad reported that he got seven 3 minute shots during his last ride. I got about the same but had to take 42 shots.

One unfortunate mishap with the helmet cam was that I accidentally zoomed in slightly during the final third of the course. Zooming in caused the video to be jittery and pretty difficult to make out. It was a good lesson learned, even though I lost some great footage of the beautiful green trails strewn with wild flowers I'm enjoying right now (don't worry, they'll turn brown this summer).

Stats-
Distance: 6.9 miles
Average Speed: 7.7 mph
Top speed: 26.4 mph
Trip time: 53:30 minutes
Total ascent: 1028 ft

Slowpoke at Southridge- Cody

I went to Southridge Park and rode on Thursday the 13th. Southridge is where they hold a local race series over the winter and the site of the first NORBA race of the year (national race). It's a pretty fun course and I like the fact that I can compare my lap time to the race results of this year.

I rode the course once before this ride and enjoyed it. It is different than either of my other two rides in the area (Sycamore and Loma Linda), and has a mix of technical, uphill, downhill, etc, as you can see in the elevation graph below.

I started with a goal in mind that I would complete the loop in about 45 minutes. That would have placed me in about 5th place for my age group of the beginner class. During my last ride I seemed to have endless energy so I though that 6.5 miles in 45 minutes wouldn't be too bad. I was wrong...

Ok, here are the excuses: It was pretty hot being in the upper 80's. I ate a little too late in the day. I drank too much water just before riding. I hadn't got enough sleep the previous 2 nights... Or I'm just not in the best shape yet... Whatever the reason, I just felt worn out from the start. I rested in the shade of this water tower (photo at right) after a steep climb and before continuing to climb straight ahead.

The downhills were a lot of fun, but I never really felt like I caught my breath on the downhills even (video to come).

Despite my 56 minute finish time (not counting a few breaks I took), I had a great ride. I really look forward to riding the course again and trying to not stop to compare my time with the race results again.

Stats-
Distance: 6.7 miles
Average Speed: 6.9 mph
Top Speed: 27mph (I think)
Trip time: 56:07 minutes...
Total Ascent: 1028 ft

Abominable Snowman

Well my ride was an experience to say the least. I went back to the Bonneville Shoreline trail, provo section (starting up Provo canyon by the falls). Climbing up out of the canyon, there was partial snow and a little mud, and on the west slopes, the trail was pretty nice and dry. However, as I climbed higher, I got deeper into the trees and ravines. Soon the snow got deeper, but I was able to follow some snow shoe tracks that had melted most of the snow. After three miles, I realized this was the hardest ride I've been on. The tracks stopped, and I blazed my way through 6-8" snow for 3 more miles. I rode through countless icepools-- melted pools with an ice crust on top. A few were so deep my feet went underwater as I pedaled. The times I had to run, the snow was half way up my calf. What was I thinking!? I stopped once, exhausted, and I took a picture of my bike-- still standing where I left it because the snow was deep enough to hold the bike vertical. =) As I made my way out of the canyon, the snow was more melted, which gave for a very muddy ride. I hate horses. Riding through literal streams of mud bouncing in and out of horse tracks for another hour... The downhill coming off the canyon down into Provo was fun. I think I'm definitely sticking to the lower altitude trails for the next month or so. Great workout though! Sometimes, people ask, "Why would you do that? That doesn't sound fun at all!" The best response is often none at all. Understanding why has nothing to do with a logical thought process and everything to do with heartfilled passion. Why do I bike? Am I afraid that the next time I ride with my older (but shorter) brother, he'll beat me? Close, but that's not it. It is about life experience-- I will never look at that mountain side the same way again.
There is a self-motivation that my parents cultivated in each of their children. That self motivation can only be satiated by passion-- be it at work, school, or in recreation. There is a joy that comes from living in your passion (although some may argue joy in ice pools is a sick joy), be it at work, religion or recreation, there has to be a self-motivated passion, or the happiness-- steming from a great balance in life-- is gone. So why ride through 8 miles of deep snow and icewater, mud and horse poop? Because I've got a smile on my face when I get home. It's as simple as that.

Nice long ride today- Cody

Today I was able to go on a nice long ride in Sycamore Canyon area and it was one my favorite rides in a while. The day before yesterday I flipped my stem over to get me over my front tire more on the climbs. I had been feeling like my front tire was lifting and wandering all over the trail when going up hill. Well the flip worked. I felt like I could climb as well as my hard-tail Cannondale.

Back to the ride. I started on Central street and began the 2 mile climb up the hill. It's not super steep the whole way but there are definitely some steep sections. I came to a new trail that I hadn't seen before and rode up it. (As you can see to the left.) It was a really tight singletrack that ended at a park. After snapping these two photos I turned around and headed back down.

My ride continued as normal, just rolling up and down. At about 5 miles I decided to head in a different direction to a really fun downhill I had been on. I knew that once at the bottom it was just a long ride back up to the top, but I was feeling pretty good at this point. As I started towards the downhill I saw a group of 5 or 6 riders dropping down an area I hadn't been. I knew I could hook back into that section on my long ride back up.

The downhill was great and the ride back up was nice. (The picture to the left is the start of my ascent. I have to make it all the way to the highest point you can see). I could see several hawks (red-tail I think) in the canyon. I didn't see the coyote I've see so many times however. Once at the top I hooked in with the singletrack trail I'd seen the other riders on. What a great trail. Somewhat technical but fast. That's two new sections in my last two rides. It pointed me right back in the direction I needed to go, back towards my car. I was already at 8 or 9 miles here with probably 1500 to 2000 ft in ascent.

On the way back I was able to hook into the steep, technical stuff I found on my last ride. With my stem flipped over I flew down into the ravine and climbed right out without much difficulty, except for my legs were starting to feel like jelly; I was at 11 miles or so at this point with a lot of ascent.

After the technical section it was all downhill on the fast singletrack heading back toward Central. What a great ride. My bike is really impressing me and I'm feeling more and more comfortable on it each ride. My front tire (Panaracer Fire XC Pro) has increased my confidence a lot. I'll probably buy another and run them front and back.

Stats-
Distance: 11.6 miles
Average speed: 7.5 mph
Max speed: 37 mph (I know... it was fun...)
Trip time: 1:30

Sycamore Canyon Ride- Cody

My ride on Monday 04/03 was pretty good. I decided to do Sycamore Canyon since it's so much closer to home.

I'm still trying to dial in the new bike and test out my new tires, but it was a great ride.

The best part of the ride was a new section of technical singletrack that I found. If you look closely in the photo here you'll see a nice little trail. I came down that section and then climbed up to where I'm taking the photo from. Then I decided to turn around and do it again the other direction. It was really nice. There doesn't seem to be a lot of technical stuff around here so when I find it I get excited.

You can see from the photo here how nice and green it is here with the rain and warmth, but this photo illustrates how non-technical some of the stuff is.

Stats on this ride (approx. cause my speedo wasn't working):
Distance: 6 mi
Time: 50 minutes
Average: 7 mph?
Max speed: 33 mph

Creation of the Woodshed Mountain Bike Blog

This is the first post of Into the Woods, a blog set up for the Woods boys, their friends or family to post information about our mountain bike rides. I'm setting this up so that we have a common place to come and read and see what we've each been up to as far as riding. I hope that we'll be able to share photos, stats, and stories about the experiences we've had.

In a previous time of our lives we all mountain biked. But it was rarely, if ever, together. Over the years my riding has been sporadic at best, and I think Ty's has been about the same. Dad's has been more consistent and I think we owe a lot of our renewed interest in this to him.

In August of 2005, Ty, Zach and I met up in Utah to ride Tibble Fork, in American Fork Canyon. It is one of the best rides, if not the best, I have been on. We all had a blast (the details of that ride might have to come in a future post). We continued the fun in on the Page loop trail later that week with my dad. Rob was there for a few of the rides. I think we got 3 or 4 rides in that week, about as many as I had done in the previous year. We had a great time riding together.

Then, in October of 2005, Ty, Dad and I (along with our wives and Ethan) met in Steamboat Springs for Justin's wedding.

We brought the bikes and had a very cool ride in the beautiful mountains of Colorado, as you can see here.

From those two experiences we have been riding pretty regularly (with Dad being the most dedicated) and all purchased new bikes. We try to email and call regularly to share our rides with each other and motivate each other. I hope that this might step that motivation up to the next level.

More to come...