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.