DtEW said:
Well, I think everything in life is relative.
You'll probably be intact at the completion of the ride, but body armour is still probably a good idea.
(Was on the ride with Epic Mtn Biker)
Good equipment choices for the long rides of the area:
* An absolutely dependable lightweight FS XC or FS trailbike.
* Good loose-over-hard tires, factor-in climbing grip and flotation in sand.
* Stan's NoTubes or Slime tubes.
* At least 130 ounces of water. Lots of electrolytes.
* Some sort of shin protection from vegetation. No, the trails were not horribly overgrown. But of what plants there were, they were vicious.
* A GPS might be a good idea, considering the high potential cost of getting lost.
This is what i wrote on socaltrailriders.org about this ride:
First off, i have to say this was by far the hardest and most demanding ride i've had to do. the turnout was outstanding 17 total.
MTB'ers from ocrider.com, teambasso.com along with: Tom C, Tom's friend - Hector, Chris (RidetheRAAM4) & his 2 buddies and myself from socaltrailriders.org all showed up for this truly epic ride.
so we shuttled and started at the top of palm canyon at about 9 am, right off the bat we knew this was not going to be easy, the trails were rocky, narrow and extremely technical, not to mention the thin air. the switchbacks were very fun and steep. we traversed thru many mini canyons & gullies within the main canyon and the group quickly stretched out. twe had some poijnts of regrouping and had a chance to get to meet a great group of riders in the mean time.
the ride was going fine till mile 6, i broke my derailler hangar!! luckily Louie had an extra one and along with the team basso guys i was able to continue on.
Mile 10: my hub broke!! my cassette was freewheeling both ways, pedaling resulted in no forward motion at all, it would just spin. so at this point i figured i could huff and puff it to the the main fireroad which was Dunn Road ( 7 miles away!!!!). i would coast my bike as much as i could and hike a bike the rest which actually resulted in something like 80% hike-a-bike and 20% coasting (too rocky and sandy to actully coast). it was killer. riding the bike with a freewheeling casste made me very sketchy on certain parts and resulted in me breaking one the Ti rails on my saddle!! talk about bad luck.
mile 15: Hector was riding while i hiked my bike along a super long stretch deep sand (the trail was on the actual wash) a few miles to say the least. it was at this point that we by chance stopped to wait for 3 guys from team basso ( they were getting flats like crazy). also keep in mind that we all were the last 5 guys coming down the hill. so we stopped to regroup and take a small breather. so we started chatting and Skip from team basso, noticed something shimmering about 30 yards away. he noticed it was a bike!! we walked over to it and saw that it was a have buried washed out Litespeed! i must have been there for years,rust was all over it. it had a 7 speed cassette, super old-school Scott forks, cantilever brakes (not v-brakes, the older version), and the titanium frame was rusting (not sure why since it was a litespeed frame that said it was Ti, who knows, i'm not a metallergist; but anyhow we unburried it and started to strip it for parts. i was able to take the back wheel and unstck the freewheel action on that wheel and quickly swapped out my wheel for this functiuoning rusted wheel!! i essentially made my bike into a 3 speed, only able to change the front gears. and i had no rear brake capabilities since i have disc brakes. so with this wheel: rusted but functional and true. that part made me feel extremely relieved. i then swapped the saddle. the other guys took the bar ends, front D, H20 cages, and heavy duty tube.
the fact that we stopped there and not 5 feet before or after that spot and we were able to see the washout bike between the bushes for such a distance was trutly a miracle. we could not believe such a thing. i know this sounds wild, but i'm waiting on pix. the pictures will prove it! i truly believe this was some kind of higher power act. if it weren't for that bike i would have been out there till like 10 pm. the terrain was just so rugged and relentless that just doing sections of it walking with the bike was very hard. thankfully a lot of it was on the sandy wash, (walking on MTB shoes, is no joke). today i went to church. i had to, something or someone was looking after me. all the other guys were calling me the luckiest guy alive!
so we marched on 2 more miles on the wash (hike-a-bike,too sandy) to Dunn Road this is a Blvd.-wide fireroad and the only and last bail out of the ride. from there i was able to ride the rolling descent for the next 10 miles, slowly but surely since i only had front brakes and didn't want to pinch flat. the bike worked great, with me only being able to shift between the 3 front gears. going down the fireroad, there were more flats for the other guys one of them had 5 or more flats, not sure but i know it was atleast 5 flats.
so we made it down to to the bottom of Dunn Road, and made our way on to Hwy 111 and went for a mile or so to the main trailhead and meeting place just before dusk (the cars had their headlights on already).
you should have seen the look on people faces when i pulled up with my wheel strapped to my back with tubes, and the story of how everything came about.
this was truly a memorable and miraculous ride. if anything, this experience renewed my faith that there is something out there looking over us. to find that bike the way we did was truly a miracle, half buried and next to a bush abd the only waty we could have seen it was by being in that exact spot can't make me think of any other thing than it being god-sent.
thanx to AK, Skip, Rainey, and Hector for sticking out there with me. i'm truly in debted to you guys.
would i do this ride again? maybe, i'll have to think about it more, but i would do a different version of whats out there since there is a good network of trails up there.
tips for the next ride: keep extra D-Hangar at the ready, 2mm wench, zip-ties, & 4 tubes min. (just incase) other than that, i was self sufficient. oh yeah, i forgot to mention i did have 2 flats, one before the ride even started, and one during the ride.
