Old Man Mountain Bike Trail Reports: "Woulda Coulda Shoulda" - Vander-Blog - 9/17/10

Trail: McGill/Mt Pinos

Riders: Hector, Ron, Scott, Steve, Tim

Length: ~16 miles

Time: 3.5 hrs plus 30 mins of "breaks"

Temp: mid-70s

Humidity: less than 1%

Rating: A-

So Hector had this great idea to drag the crew up to Frazier Park and ride Mt Pinos. We all agreed and the stars aligned on 17 Sep 2010. No easy feat as it's a 1.5 hour ride to the trail head...a relatively unknown trailhead to all of us. We all managed to arrive via three separate cars at the trailhead around 1000..and after properly icing down post-ride beverages we headed up the trail. "Up" being the operative word since this trail is essentially a singletrack trail to the top of a rather tall mountain. The ride starts off nice and pleasant with a limited gradient, yet after 1/2 a mile Tim thinks he feels almost out of breath. Hey Tim, look at all those Pine trees...you're not on the coast anymore, but rather at around 6000 feet. It's also bone dry necessitating use of a camelbak. Fortunately, Hector or Ron keep a pleasant pace so Tim (and Steve) don't blow themselves up.

Eventually, Tim is following Hector and almost follows him right off the trail and onto the ground. Turns out Hector has no rear brakes? At least that's the excuse provided. Apparently this is something he knew about before the ride...but decided that since this was only a 15-18 mile alpine ride well away from civilization...it didn't warrant correction the night before? At this point Tim decides to lead the group (or at least get in front of Hector) until reaching this campground at around 7800 ft for a much needed water and food break.

Funny thing is that it not obvious where the trail continues...so Tim asks ONLY person in campground. Tim makes comment to person about having campground to himself and person responds by saying "yah, I kinda like it that way". Note to Tim - No more questions for "loner man". So the crew makes a judgement call to take the trail to the left. Judgement being severely influenced by exceedingly mild gradient of trail. This turns out to be wrong trail as it dead ends in a descent after 1 mile.

After more trail floundering Steve blows his rear tire and Hector decides to fix his brakes. How many engineers does it take to fix a flat tire? Apparently that answer is three engineers with one loggy wandering about aimlessly. How many Engineers does it take to swap brake pads...Hector would like you all to know that its just one.

After riding back to the campground, the crew takes the steep trail leading to the road and finds the trail on the other side. After another missed trail the final ascent looms...and it turns out to be fairly brutal. One section either due to elevation (~8000 ft or so) and/or gradient is just a killer...but then it's a pleasant ride to a parking lot with a building indicating you've reached the Mt Pinos Nordic Center @ 8300 ft.

For some strange reason Tim (of questionable cardio shape as of late) kills this final ascent and reaches the top first followed by Hector who makes a bee-line for the porta-potty. The crew is very thankful for said porta-potty because the elevation has been causing havoc with Hector's insides all day.

After many photo ops, the crew hits the descent.

Group shot...after 3 tries with the timer!

The elevation becomes immediately apparent to Tim as his suspension does not feel as "plush" as usual...and he knows from 1st hand experience (Hector) NEVER to attempt letting air out of your fork or shock manually. The first part of the descent is fun but then it gets really good after the 7800 campground due to the many "hits" and jumps. Scott has taken an apparent liking to all things jump related and Tim now wonders why he didn't go for "the jump" last week?

Sadly, the descent is over in about 20 minutes. Kinda shocking when one considers it was a 2.5 hour climb plus 30 minutes of trail floundering. There are a few pucker factor moments on the way down...one of those apparently took out Ron who (by the way) is still ailing from his experience with "the jump" from the previous week. Also, sadly, Tim notices upon consulting an Atlas at home that Mt Pinos summit is 8800. This is later confirmed by Steve's GPS which will drive the crew to schedule another attempt.

Happily, everyone has grub at the car. Scott, proving to be a resourceful southern gentleman, has an awesome portable grill, Ron has burgers/buns, Steve has something but I can't remember (OMMB editorial note: Steve brought plenty of ice and some Newcastle (aka "real beer") for those who didn't have to pick up their kids today), Hector has dogs, all the "fixins" and Tim has the uber-iced "bolus o beer"...aka - the Coors Light fridge keg (OMMB editorial note: not "real beer" but very refreshing!).

All in all a fabulous ride that gets an A+ but has been decremented by our poor trail finding skills and lack of making the summit.

- Tim V.