Mountain biking, defined

"RallyWrench" (rndlitebmw) 11/20/2016 at 19:51 • Filed to: None

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A great rainy day ride, a Toyota truck, and beers in the parking lot. Doesn’t get better than that. Well, it does, but this was a pretty solid morning.

AMGtech - now with more recalls! > RallyWrench 11/20/2016 at 20:34

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Is that an ibis?

RallyWrench > AMGtech - now with more recalls! 11/20/2016 at 20:40

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Yep, that one’s mine. Built up from parts on bro-deals.

Chargingstar - E92 M3 pilot > RallyWrench 11/20/2016 at 20:42

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Looks like an excellent day on the trails with friends.

RallyWrench > Chargingstar - E92 M3 pilot 11/20/2016 at 20:46

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It was indeed.

AMGtech - now with more recalls! > RallyWrench 11/20/2016 at 21:04

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Totes jelly. seriously nice bikes. I bet it’s a great ride.

RallyWrench > AMGtech - now with more recalls! 11/20/2016 at 21:53

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It’s pretty good, but man it hates me for riding it in the wet, everything is crunchy. I just put the dropper post on, that’s a game changer. Pretty good bike for the variety of trails we have here.

AMGtech - now with more recalls! > RallyWrench 11/20/2016 at 21:58

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I need a new bike so bad

RallyWrench > AMGtech - now with more recalls! 11/20/2016 at 22:02

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What do you ride?

AMGtech - now with more recalls! > RallyWrench 11/20/2016 at 22:19

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Lol lol lol

*cries a little*

A ten year old trek hardtail with v-brakes.

I’m planning on getting something newer and more modern, but believe it or not I do a pretty good job of keeping up with everyone I ride with. Though I might just rent from here on out until I get something better. I’ve swapped bikes with some buddies a couple times, and they’re absolutely amazed that I can do anything at all on it. It was a decent bike when I bought it, and we’ve been through a lot together, but tech has come a long way.

RallyWrench > AMGtech - now with more recalls! 11/20/2016 at 23:09

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My coworker rides an old v-brake Trek and hauls ass on it, a good bike is a good bike. But you’ll fly when you get on something newer, especially something with discs. Newer hardtails are ridiculous.

I tend to ride stuff until I can’t get important parts for it anymore, and things change so rapidly now that keeping an old rig in top shape is hard. Even that ibis is 7 years old, and most of the local shops don’t even bother to stock much 26" stuff any more.

AMGtech - now with more recalls! > RallyWrench 11/20/2016 at 23:12

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Yeah for sure. I’m one of the fastest when on a nice modern bike.

Luckily my trek is about as tough as the ground it rides over and has only needed brake pads, tire tubes, and chain lube. Could probably use a new chain though...

RallyWrench > AMGtech - now with more recalls! 11/21/2016 at 01:01

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Hey, give it a chain and keep on truckin’. Does it have lugs for disc brake calipers?

AMGtech - now with more recalls! > RallyWrench 11/21/2016 at 01:50

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Good question, but I don’t think so. I’ll check tomorrow.

RallyWrench > AMGtech - now with more recalls! 11/21/2016 at 01:55

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If it does I might be able to scrounge up a set for you, give that bike a new lease on life.

AMGtech - now with more recalls! > RallyWrench 11/21/2016 at 02:52

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That would be cool. I’ll let you know.

Captain Brotatohead > RallyWrench 11/21/2016 at 11:04

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Riding trails in the rain sucks. Surprised they don’t close your trails when they’re wet. After this weekend, it looks like most of my local trails will be closed until they freeze over for the winter.

DynamicWeight > RallyWrench 11/21/2016 at 13:25

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The dropper is critical. Also like your bell haha. Where are you riding? A lot of the trails here are closed for the season. Though the best one is still open. I haven’t ridden it in the rain yet but it’s on my list.

RallyWrench > Captain Brotatohead 11/21/2016 at 13:38

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Only a few get closed locally, and of the ones that don’t, everyone knows which ones turn into mudbogs. I’ve been building and maintaining these trails for years with a local group, and we’re religious about building in good drainage so some actually ride just fine in the rain. This doesn’t get too bad unless it’s really coming down hard because it’s mostly hardpack sand and rock. We didn’t plan to ride in the rain, we tried to sneak one in but got caught out when it started on the climb so we made the top and turned around. It was a blast, but my bike hates me.

RallyWrench > DynamicWeight 11/21/2016 at 14:23

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This was my first ride with a dropper, it’s like having a new bike! Most of our trail systems here are a lot of up & down so it’s magical to be able to stay on the bike. The bell is key here, all our trails are multi-use and bikers, hikers and equestrians get along well.  This ride was at Montaña de Oro state park. Only a few trails in nearby San Luis Obispo get closed when it’s wet, but none elsewhere. I don’t recommend riding in the rain, it’s hard on the trail and on the bike, but we got caught out. Sure was fun though, I love being out in it. Things are pretty loose and dusty here, so when it’s tamped down with a little water this place is all-time good, this park has an amazing network of old trails and new ones we’ve built.

DynamicWeight > RallyWrench 11/21/2016 at 14:49

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Ah nice, I am slightly above you geographically, in the Bay Area. So the trail I can think of that is still open is Demonstration Forest (and skeggs I guess). Which is totally worth the drive if you haven’t been. Yeah, I try to avoid riding in the rain, but it is a whole lot of fun. Good to know Oro is a fun trail. I visit Pismo sometimes and have tried looking at the map to see if it’s worth bringing the bikes out for a ride on the way home. Looks like it is! I’ll have to check it out next time. Is there anything I should know about visiting or should I just ride around exploring the trail system?

RallyWrench > DynamicWeight 11/21/2016 at 16:24

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I’m ashamed to say I’ve never ridden Demo, my buddies go up there pretty regularly. I hope to get up there soon for a day trip, at least. Yeah MDO is amazing, I usually ride out there from my house. Pismo has a new system we just finished building that’s weathering in, called the Pismo Preserve, it’s looking really good but isn’t really technical at all. If you want to check out some detailed local trail maps, check my local club’s site: http://www.cccmb.org/ .

At MDO there are a bunch of trails that are hiking and horse only, but they’d be no good for bike anyway and huge parts of the park are open to bikes. There are pretty much 4 trailheads you can ride in from, and you can do over 20 miles out there without duplication:

-Horse Camp at the entrance to the park that takes about 3 miles of pedaling out a dirt road to get to singletrack and start climbing East Boundary trail. This is usually how I ride in from Los Osos. East Boundary can be connected to the back side of Hazard Peak, Barranca, or Manzanita trail. Manzanita is my favorite way to ride out on the way home, it’s a screaming fast downhill next to a gorge with big-ass waterbars to air. East Boundary basically follows the back fence of the park, and goes up and over another ridge before descending to Islay Creek road. The EB downhill is fast, somewhat technical, and fun. Barranca does the same with an adjacent ridge. The back of EB is one of the areas that turns in to a full-on mudbog when it’s wet though, usually that one needs a week after a rain.

-Hazard Peak trailhead, which is 3 miles and 1000' or so up to the summit, from which point you can go over and descend into the back side of the park or just rip back down (this is what we rode yesterday, just up & back due to weather, super fun coming down that).

-Islay Creek, another 3 miles of fire road climb to the back of the park if you want to punish yourself and climb East Boundary or Barranca trails backwards (both brutal going up) or connect across the creek at Reservoir Flats up to Oates Peak trail on the other side.

-Oates Peak, the newest one, at the back of the campground over Spooners Cove. That is about 5 miles of punchy climbing to the back of the park, and can also be looped with Beebe trail, which is a shortcut by distance but harder to climb. Both are fast and flowy coming back down. The views from anywhere there are great, but in particular at the top of Oates looking up the valley are amazing. The picture I used in the “Things that are better than cars” post is looking South towards Oates from the top of Barranca.

There’s loads of great riding other than MDO too. Check out the Irish Hills system in SLO, or Cerro San Luis (Madonna Mountain) right off 101. The front door of my shop looks right up that, it’s a good little lunch ride. Just north of SLO is killer riding on West Cuesta Ridge too, with a fire road climb from the top of the Grade out to Shooters or Morning Glory trails, which lead down to a little skills area we built on City land in the Eucalyptus grove at the bottom. These are my buddies Devin (top) and Will on build days when we finished these features.

Hit me up if you come through, maybe I could show you around.

DynamicWeight > RallyWrench 11/21/2016 at 16:46

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Wow your user name is no joke! Okay, I’ll have to save this to a word document or something. Yeah, let’s trade contact info and I’ll hit you up if I’m coming down to Pismo and you can hit me up if you want to run Demo or Skeggs. My email address is theanticrust@gmail.com.

RallyWrench > DynamicWeight 11/22/2016 at 02:17

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Haha, I could talk about trails all day. Figured a little local knowledge won’t hurt, the maps only go so far. Thanks man, my email is carsbikesnbeer @ gmail dot com.

AMGtech - now with more recalls! > RallyWrench 11/22/2016 at 23:38

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Nope 

RallyWrench > AMGtech - now with more recalls! 11/22/2016 at 23:42

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Arr, bummer! Well, at least v-brakes are better than cantilevers, and there’s no bleeding.