Month: October 2006

Tahoe Riding at it’s Best

Over the weekend I hooked up for a couple of Tahoe rides and I have to say that as great as Tahoe riding normally is it is even better right now.  The early snow we had followed by a dry weather since has made it sort of a mini spring up there.  Dust is at an all time low and even the ubiquitous sand and pulverized granite seemed much more tame than it usually is.  On Saturday hooked up with my brother from his time-share at Heavenly for a 13 mile out-and-back towards Star Lake along the Tahoe Rim Trail (TRT).  TRT is as always great, this time it was better.  The trail was sticky and much less dusty.  There were some little patches of snow on North facing mountainsides and in a few places on the trail the snow crossed the trail. Generally where it crosses the trail it was thin and melted off but a few places it thawed then refroze into a slippery ice pack.

On Sunday I met up with Gary (Finch Platte) and Johnny (JFR) for a Toads run.  We my favorite Toads route up Oneidas to Armstrong Pass trail then Gary and I took a bit of a detour towards Star Lake and Johnny who’d been chasing us the whole time just kept cruising towards Toads. We hooked back up with Johnny just about in time for the DH. Then it was our turn to try and play keep up with him.

Toads was incredible. I can attest from my position in the rear of the Downhill that Toads was exceptionally dust free. The trail was also super tacky going down Toads. I’ve never bombed down those bermed out sections the way I did Sunday. Sweet!  On a personal note, I rode more of the technical sections that I even have, and I climbed better than ever as well. All in all a personal best performance all around on the climb and on Toads.

If you can get up to the Sierras before it snows… It doesn’t get any better than this.

Busy

Well I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth. I’ve just been swamped with work and other stuff so haven’t had time to post images or anything. I know that’s a lousy excuse for no new posts and no pictures released but that’s all I have. I have been on some rides and tracked down some great new trails though. Unfortunately by the time I write them up the best of them will probably be under snow. Obviously we rode Bear Valley. Small group but it was a blast. I really don’t know any good internet resources on Bear Valley so I guess I’ll have to start working on my own… after the snow melts I imagine.

The other big ride I was on was a 3 day camp-n-ride at Pinecrest Peak. Although I wasn’t surprised this time around at how great Pinecrest Peak was I was floored by some of the other incredible singletrack we found. I’m trying to do one more ride up there before the season is done. We shuttled Pinecrest Peak and Eagle Creek (Pictures) on the first day. Eagle Creek is an incredible downhill run that I’ve ridden as a loop before. It starts out slow but then there is a 2-3 mile section of some incredible technical singletrack that will leave you begging for more. Sunday we started out on Willow Creek trail, then hit Pinecrest Peak and rolled all the way back to Fraser Flat campground (Pictures). Willow Creek trail is a new trail Jeff showed us above Pinecrest Peak. It’s a tight and moderately technical singletrack downhill section that is a great warmup for Pinecrest Peak trail. We added a new section at the end of Pinecrest which I call the Secret Sauce. It’s a relatively hidden trail which I found earlier this summer the suprised even Jeff, our “local knowledge” goto guy. It’s a fun little section where you spend about 4 miles riding as fast as you can on a slight downhill dodging trees as you go. I would love to call it Endor trail after the light cycle scene in Return of the Jedi but that’s been done to death.
This coming weekend however is dedicated to saying goodbye to Tahoe for the season. As a bonus I might… just maybe be able to fly up to Tahoe on this trip. It’s a bit grey fuzzy right now because I need a checkride before hand.

Speaking of flying… I’ve been doing a ton of flying this fall. The biggest trip I’ve been on yet in fact. A co-worker and I flew to Phoenix on a business trip. On the return trip we landed in Henderson Nevada and took a rental car to the strip. We cruised the casinos until 1AM and I wound up ahead by about $100. The next morning we flew from Vegas home. The Sierra Nevada mountains are incredibly beautiful when you are flying through them at 13,500′. The Owl (that’s what we call the Plane) is a great bird to fly and cruises at 150-160 miles per hour. She’s a little thirsty but I can deal with that for all the utility we get from her. I also took my mother and my daughters up to Columbia. Then this last weekend we flew up to Sacramento to give my Gert, Mother-in-law a trip up to Auburn and Grass Valley. Flying is truly addicting… and expensive. Anyhow.