Riding bikes seems to be a forever evolving thing.  You start by learning to ride, then try to acquire some skills to improve your riding experience.  With each skill mastered, comes the need to try to do something harder, more challenging.  Well, how about trying to ride a bicycle built for two?

A few weeks back Ogre and I were allowed to borrow a friend’s mountain tandem to see if we would enjoy the experience.  We had played with the idea of getting one for a while, but I was nervous about the discrepancy in our ride levels.  I had heard that matching your cadence is really important in riding a tandem.  We ended our demo ride with big smiles and a decision that a tandem would be a great addition to our bikes.  Over the following weeks we began looking through ads and discussing what features we thought would be the most important to have on our tandem.  I personally wanted a rear suspension.  The demo bike had a Thudbuster seatpost, but I felt like more suspension would be a better option.  We talked about the tandem for a couple more days and finally decided to plan to get one for our anniversary in July.

Then this past week he comes home with the news that another friend has a mountain tandem that he’s getting ready to put up for sale.  Want to try it out, he asks.  Why not.  He makes the arrangements, we get up Saturday morning, load our gear, and head out.  Morgan has the garage open and is setting up the bike so we can try it as we pull up.  He lives close to Joaquin Miller Park and has an idea of a route we can use to demo the bike.  He rode along with us giving us hints and preparing us for anything tricky up ahead.  The funniest part was him telling us how he rides this section or that one with his son so we should be ok.  We manage to complete the route without any carnage and return to his house again wearing big smiles.  What a blast!

Ogre turns to me with one question, so we doing this?  Oh, yeah!  So now we have our own tandem mountain bike to hit the trails.  It’s going to take a little while to learn how to ride the tandem together.  Other tandem riders we’ve spoken to have given us lots of great advice.  The one thing that keeps coming up is that the captain and stoker must learn some commands.   Everything from which foot to start pedaling with to when to coast have to be communicated back and forth.  It’s going to be interesting learning all new skills, but I definitely think I’m up to the challenge.

Posted in Cycling, Family | 1 Comment »

Riding the Tahoe Rim Trail (TRT) is always a blast. It’s an amazing trail system, probably one of the best in the Nation, possibly in the world. The views are spectacular and the riding is awesome. Over the weekend of the 4th I managed to snag 2 great rides.

On the 4th I met up with rocket scientist and all around great guy Big Larry and another good friend Kathleen who coaches a high school mountain biking team in the Bay Area. We rode the section of the TRT from Mount Rose down to the Tunnel Creek trail. At that point we split up, Fiona rode the Flume Trail while Larry, Kathleen and I rode down to Red Flume Trail then around to the TRT over Marlett Peak. All in all a great ride. The TRT from Rose to Tunnel Creek is a great section of trail for beginning and intermediate riders to get a handle on the decomposed granite and rocky technical riding the characterizes the riding on the east and south shores of Lake Tahoe. Spooner to Red Flume Pictures and Ride Report here.

Saturday I had some slightly more ambitious plans. Last year some of the guys and I pioneered a new (to us) route going from Spooner Summit to Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. It’s brutal 40 mile ride starting on the east side of the lake and going all the way around to Meyers. It includes some brual climbs and a few amazing technical descents. Since this route was based on the classic “Punisher” route we dubbed it the Punsher Plus.

I’ve also rewritten my main Tahoe Rim Trail Guide to include information about more rides in the area, including these two.

Posted in MTB Beginners, MTB Epic Rides | 1 Comment »

There was a 40 acre fire in the Auburn SRA. Here is the story from News 10. From the buzz I’ve heard on MTBR it sounds like the fire started near the OHV/ Mammoth Bar area so likely the Confluence Trail and maybe the Culvert trail are affected.

Update: Sounds like there is a bit of trail damage near the culvert but that most of the trails are Ok and the damage is primarily in and around the OHV area.

Posted in Mountain Biking | No Comments »

If you haven’t noticed yet the Sierra Nevada is open for business. Trails pretty much everywhere are rolling, I’ve ridden Pinecrest Peak and Grouse Ridge. I’ve heard about people riding in Downieville, I think both Butcher and Paulie Creek are open… probably about everything. I’m not sure about Tahoe and Hole in the Ground yet but I think everything below 9000’ or so is probably open unless it has a lot of South facing slopes. So… head east my friends!!

Update: Check the comments below, looks like Toads is mostly open now too!

Update 2: Just heard from someone that Hole in the Ground is still partly covered in snow and tough to ride.

Update 3: Hole in the Ground is Open as is Freel Pass right now… If those trails are open pretty much everthing is.

Posted in Mountain Biking | 2 Comments »

Every year the weekend before Memorial Day there is a gathering of people from the MTBR Norcal Forum called May By the Bay. This year there were 6 rides, with the final three days rides at Annadel Park, Boggs Mountain, and Oathill Mine Trail. It’s an informal gathering with no official sponsors and it’s 100% free, even the camping at Boggs is free.

Fiona and I went to the Annadel ride on Saturday and rode at Boggs Demonstration Forest on Sunday and Monday. Both Boggs and Annadel are amazing mountain bike friendly parks with miles and miles of awesome trails. If you like fast buffed singletrack you can’t go wrong at either place. I’ve been riding at Boggs for 5 years and every year there are more and more trails there.

Posted in MTB Events | 2 Comments »

Here is a pic from doing trail clearing on the Butcher Ranch trail on May 23rd before the shuttles started rolling. Fallen logs were removed and the entire trail was raked of debris. Besides some remaining snow drifts up top, Butcher Ranch Trail is like a magic carpet.

For more info check out the Downieville Outfitters Trail Conditions page.

Posted in Mountain Biking | No Comments »

I don’t race much, the plan is 2 races this year, the Lemurian and this last weekend the Coolest 24. For some reason 24 hour races are a fascination with me. The last few years I’ve done 4 man and 5 man team 24 Hour events. This year I decided to step it up a notch and race on a 2 man team, a big step up actually going from 3 hour breaks between laps to 1 hour and going from 5-6 laps for the race to 9+. At 12+ miles and 1500’ of climbing per lap, that’s a lot of riding. My team mate was a friend of mine I’ve been riding with for about a year now named Seth. I’ve been quite anxious about this race and my personal fitness and weight over the last few months. Not seriously training, just focusing on getting long rides in on the weekends and riding 8 miles to and from work every day.

Seth is faster than me and as such I had him do the first lap. Overall a great choice. Seth managed to be in the top 10 of the team riders out of the gate and then got back in 5th overall at 55 minutes, giving me a traffic free first lap. We managed to stay ahead of most of the traffic, leaving the dust and constant passing to the other teams. My times were about on par with the second place team but Seth continued cranking out amazing lap times, putting 10 minutes per lap on the second place team. By sunset our team was 30 minutes ahead of the second place team. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in MTB Events | 2 Comments »

End of April 2008:
Here are the most recent photos taken 4/26/08. The snowpack is between 2-5ft. depending on sun exposure. This includes from Berger Campground to Butcher trail. Our estimated time for shuttling is still Memorial Day weekend.

For more info check out the Downieville Outfitters Trail Conditions page.

Posted in Mountain Biking | 3 Comments »