Double-double (Or abort, abort, long story, short ride)

I had a strange feeling this was going to be a difficult day, my burning
insides from too many jalapenos the night before sure didn't help reduce the
ominous feeling:

So we're getting settled into our new place and after a few rides through
the neighborhood last week I figure it's time to get up into the high
country. JD calls on Saturday and we set a time on Sunday to get out and
ride somewhere interesting. I had a couple of things in mind, mostly good
but standard rides in the Santa Monicas or in the San Gabriel front range.
Since it was a Sunday I really wanted to do something off the beaten track.
In hindsight, I should have suggested a standard ride as we definitely hit
something that was WAAAAAAAAAAY off the beaten track.

Since I knew JD was bringing his SS I figured I'd find a SS friendly route
profile, and sure enough I did. The only problem was it included 2-3 miles
of a 100 year old telegraph line road in order to stay off of rice rocket
infested Angeles Crest Hwy. We had an excellent start from Redbox heading
backwards on the finish of the classic Strawberry Peak loop. When we had
finally gotten out of range of the crappily amplified Native American music
festival at Redbox the nice trail shot to the left and upwards towards
Strawberry Peak, which JD eagerly started riding up, but I pointed out the
bad news straight ahead. The old line road was a tunnel of chaparral with
patches of yucca on the floor in the most awkward of spots and ZERO bike
tracks. This is where I should have said "this doesn't look good, let's
turn around, blast back down the 1/2 mile of mellow trail back to Hwy 2 and
proceed on to the next trailhead". But promisingly enough there were two
sets
of boot tracks and it appeared that it would be rideable.

Over the next 800 yards or so we were riding a bit and just getting off the
bikes for the occasional downfall or rockslide, talking about how trivial it
would be clear a singletrack, and then things just closed out. It was just
solid chaparral and yucca. At this point we started figuring that our tires
were peppered with yucca and that they'd going flat soon. Sure enough both
of our front tires went flat in the next couple of minutes. Since things
weren't very rideable at this point I suggested that we continue on carrying
the bikes and we'd fix flats when we got to the next road. We crossed a
couple of sketchy rockfalls and kept forging on getting bloodier and
bloodier, and just like our front tires, our rears went flat. Two riders,
two flats, double double. Finally we saw some signs of minimal trail
maintenance coming in from the other end so we knew the worst was behind us.
And, I must say, I've never been so happy to see trail sanitization in my
life, and this was only a couple of choice trimmings of yuccas, and a clip
or two of the chaparral, but it was definitely a sign that someone had been
in from the other end.

When we finally broke out on a closed but grass-covered drivable road we
stopped to assess our flats. Oh, yeah, this was just after I had pushed my
bike right over a big fat gopher snake, he was unharmed due to no weight on
the bike and soft squishy tires. Could have been a bad thing since this is
major rattlesnake area. Back to the flats (at Barley Flats of all places),
we first counted our spares and patches, between the two of us we had 17
patches and two tubes. Since we were only 4 miles and 2 hours into a 15
mile ride JD kept warning me to keep patch management in mind. With that in
mind I started counting thorns in my front tire and I thought I only had 5
so I started patching the tube. We then spent the next 45 minutes getting
all thorns out of our tires and I think we did an excellent job. I finished
patching my front tire and after throwing 8 patches on it it still wouldn't
hold air. My rear tube had over 6 holes in it so I ended up throwing both
tubes in my wheels, and I think JD ended up using 4 patches on his tubes.
So I basically wasted 8 patches on my front, and we were left with 5
glueless patches and no extra tubes. But we were riding.

So we cruise through some creepy old CCC camp at Barley Flats that was being
used for the local small electric utility and drop out onto Hwy 2. I'm
pretty demoralized at this point and was considering calling it a day but
didn't protest when JD suggested we continue on. We cruised a mile up Hwy 2
trying to stay out of the way of the crotch rockets and we came upon the
Shortcut Cyn trailhead. I'd heard negative things about this trail but they
were mostly from people who had ridden it from the opposite direction. I
could see why they complained since we were looking at a 1000 ft drop down
into Shortcut Cyn, and the trail dropped fast, so those negative comments
would have come from riders pushing their bikes up the steep the trail.
There was a short 1/4 mile section at the top between Hwy 2 and where the
trail crossed Shortcut Cyn Rd that had 4 tight switchbacks, I cleaned just
one and just didn't have the heart to wait and watch JD try them as he took
off a minute or so behind me. Interestingly enough all the foot traffic
stayed on the road so it took us a minute or two to find where the trail
dove over the side of the road. And dive it did. Down, down, and down.
Not a biketrack and not even a boot print. But it wasn't as overgrown as the
line road we had been on earlier.

We were having a great time until I lost momentum exiting a left-hander
because of a rock water bar on the exit of the turn. The sudden stop came
right where I had no trail to the left of me, the direction I was a leaning
towards, so when I put my left foot down there was nothing but air.
Thankfully even if there hadn't been a nice soft bush to catch me I wouldn't
have slid more than 8 ft. I was a little wigged after that and when we got
to some very narrow trail with some good exposure I got off and walked for
20 yards. We snapped one picture after that and then, bam, I noticed I had
a rear flat.

Ahead of us we still had 1 to 2 miles of technical descending, and then the
option of a technical ascent or a closed fireroad ascent to the car, we had
5 patches left, and we had already been out for well over 3 1/2 hours. So
at this point we called it a day. And it was then that I really came to
understand the negative info about Shortcut Cyn. It was one steep assed
push back up to Hwy 2, and we hadn't made it all the way down to the canyon
bottom. When we finally got back up to a level area we checked out my rear
tube and discovered I had two new punctures. We used two speed patches
which brought us down to 3 between us but only a 2-3 mile ride back to the
car on Hwy 2, and, ****, since we were on a highway we could have hitched a
ride back to Redbox.

Except for one dickhead in a 'vette the ride back to the car was mellow but
I was beat. JD was fine and holding his line perfectly but I was pretty
wobbly, so thankfully there wasn't much traffic.

Other than my shins being bright red from all the scratches and puncture
wounds, and needing to buy some tubes and patches, I'd say it was a
successful day. At least we now know that that road is unrideable without
alot of work. We'll give Shortcut Cyn another try one of these days.

The Whinge index was quite high on this mostly non-ride. Of my local riding
friends anyone other than JD would have whinged incessantly on this one.

Greg

G.T. wrote:
I had a strange feeling this was going to be a difficult day, my burning
insides from too many jalapenos the night before sure didn't help reduce the
ominous feeling:

SNIP
The Whinge index was quite high on this mostly non-ride. Of my local riding
friends anyone other than JD would have whinged incessantly on this one.

Greg

Bushwhacking 101: A Lesson in Futility

Been there, even in the desert with GeeDub.

A good read none-the-less.

Thanks

--
o-o-o-o Ride-A-Lot o-o-o-o
www.schnauzers.ws

"Ride-A-Lot" wrote in message
...
G.T. wrote:
I had a strange feeling this was going to be a difficult day, my burning
insides from too many jalapenos the night before sure didn't help reduce
the
ominous feeling:

SNIP
The Whinge index was quite high on this mostly non-ride. Of my local
riding
friends anyone other than JD would have whinged incessantly on this one.

Greg

Bushwhacking 101: A Lesson in Futility

Been there, even in the desert with GeeDub.

A good read none-the-less.


Thanks. I've done, and I'm sure JD has also done, as much bushwhacking but
never accompanied by so many punctures, in body and tires. Baby yuccas are
just plain nasty, I had two that I noticed were over 1 1/2 inches deep
before I stopped and backed up to let them withdraw from my flesh.
Thankfully they're not barbed like cholla or other cacti.

Greg