Nite Ride at Blackstar to Skyline to Blackstar or whatever "feels" good!

If any of ya'll are interested in an early lap....I'll be riding at 5:15. I'm heading up B-star to Sierra peak and then down coal canyon TT(I live out that way) but ya'll are more than welcome to join me for the climb to Beeks.

 

Howdy pardner but yer too fast...j/k!
How are you Brian?

 

wow i'm a moron, i brought my batteries and chargers, but no lights! i'm out fellers

 

damn, nam!

 

Oh really

 

i bought new gloves for nothin eh... i dunno i still may show... i'll be creepin up on peeps until they start pedaling #-o

at least i don't smoke :lol:

 

I got a better idea, you can bring beer :beer:

 

maybe steven jackson can deliver some post ride pizza and budweiser

 

Sounds like something I would do.

 

Now that's commuting....

....Sorry I missed you guys....I left the shop earlier that I expected and was heading up B-star a bit before 5 o'clock.

Talk about a nice night out there though. Perfect cool temps and no one else out. I didn't see a soul from the time I passed the B-star bottom gate until I hit the 91 freeway at the bottom of Coal Canyon truck trail(which is a really fun decent BTW).

Anywho....maybe I'll see you guys next time.

 

Almost felt like a summer night out there tonight.

I got a jump on the group and started from the Skyline side. I got to the top in record time for me...47 minutes! I was wondering for people who know (Neil?) what' side is harder to climb and harder to do overall? I like the scenery on the OC side, but I like the warmth on the Riverside side.

Like I said I started a little earlier and when I got to the top I realized I had a bunch of time to kill, unless I wanted to ride all the way back down Blackstar....so I decided to check out the Tecate trees and see how all the area was. I got out there and was overwhelmed by the view, Ihad never rode out there at night. From my vantage point I could see all of Riverside to the east and all the way into OC to the beach. Just some awesome scenery. Standing there taking it all in I couldn't but be aware of all the damn noises going on around me. One sounded like a bear crashing through the weeds. I had enough and figured to head back over to Beeks. Still to early, but I did notice a lot of lights coming up. Turned out to Be Ch4os and a crew of guys, some from the Geo site. They were doing my route but in reverse. I talked to them for about 10 minutes and they left. So I looked down the canyon and could see some lights coming up, it was the STR group. I rode down then came back up with the group. It was cooler on this side of the mountain though.

All in all a very fun ride. The dh back on Skyline was very slow though as I still can't see that great even with the HID lights.

 

Excellent Ride! We rolled the first group out at 6:45ish.. at a smoking pace sub-hour to beeks. Talked to Mike for awhile then descended the singletrack it was pretty loose, but always a blast! couple of guys (Doug and Matt) went to Sierra Peak... we came back over, thinking of In-N-Out !! Yumm! Caught a handful on the way back, that went to Beeks...

Skyline's SingleTrack is well worth it! and with more time or sunshine, the trail network is easier to identify all the trail heads, and were they end...

Nice to see everyone out there! See you all next Tuesday!

Maybe HolyJim/Trabuco? or SanJuan?

 

like steve said, it was a fun ride. there was a really big turnout. neil ended up blowing up his hub on his new bike and said if he had his reeboks, he woulda jogged to beeks...so, he and carl turned around and called it a night. i rode with turnerob and nam and then just turnerob the entire way to beeks/the gate. like mike said, perfect temps, a few warm pockets and it was pretty chilly down in hidden valley, but nothing that we couldnt handle. after shooting the sh!t for a few minutes at the gate, we all headed down. it was really cool to see all of the bubbs lights rounding the turns as we all snaked our way down the fireroad. i believe jcampbell ended up flatting and anne and andy waited with him while he fixed it. craig, thanks for giving dale and i the Racer 5 to share after the ride. many of us hit in n out afterwards, tasty times!

holy jim to trabuco would be a burly night ride....im not sure if my light would last at my not so blistering pace, lol.

 

Man, that sounds like a good night ride. I'll be in for that one. What do you figure ride time to be? Looks like it could take a while. I didn't get home till after 10 on just doing Blackstar/Skyline.

 

Mike, Chris aka "slayer" and I did that route Mon during the day and it took us 4 hours with stops and moving 1 downed tree off the trail. I've done it in less than 3 during the Toad Festival. It's 27 miles leaving from the wash parking area on Live Oak/Trabuco Rd.

 

Lights

holy jim to trabuco would be a burly night ride....im not sure if my light would last at my not so blistering pace, lol.

We use the buddy system to be on the safe side. Climbing the swithbacks we take turns leading and only burn one light.

It was super clear last night! We started at 6:00 and saw a bunch of riders on the way down.

This was funny. We were heading down and some riders were coming up with their lights on. As we got close they were also ringing their bells:lol:

 

Thank You Carl!

My "shakedown" ride on the cx ss was exactly that...flat tire not a big deal but shredding the pawls in the rear hub a lame but big deal.
Carl and I were cruising just at the base of the "up" and my rear tire went flat so we fixed that- Thanks Carl! I am picking up that pump today!- and off we went.

This is when I started to feel the 48x17 gearing, that 1st little up was nasty but I got over it then lost all momentum hitting those little washboards. Saw Carl up ahead and was grinding my way up when I stood up to round a corner if felt like my chain dropped- knee to stem#-oexcellent!- and I got off but my chain was still on. Then I figured the lockring had come loose under my massive wattage:lol::lol: j/k

By then Carl had turned around to see what was up-Thanks Carl!- and we tried the caveman style of bike repair by using a multi-tool flathead screwdriver and a rock to tighten the lockring but it was snug.
That was when we realized the freewheel was not engaging, just spinning freely!!

The choice was made to coast back down and walk/jog to the cars. It worked pretty good until we got to the actual pavement and here is where Carl- Thanks Carl!- got his workout. On his SS he offered to tow me- about 260 lbs with bike and gear:bang:- the rest of the way.....thank god he was not running 2:1!
We got back, he was nice enough to offer a ride back my house - Thanks one more time Carl!- where he was rewarded with a ice cold Newkie Brown:beer:!!
Bummed with the fatal mechanical but glad Carl was there, thank you sir!
I am now obsessed with completing this ride so anyone up for next Tuesday??

 

Had a good time last night. I'm working on getting more comfortable in the dark. I'm a big wuss! It is kind of nice not seeing what's ahead as far as climbing goes, kept me going. We had our own electrical light parade climbing up to Beeks. The temps and views were awesome last night.
On the way down, Gabe got a flat in the valley area and we thought we lost everyone but as we were making the final decent there was Andy, Anne and Jeff! I was so happy to see them I didn't see the big hole in the ground and did a slow mo endo! Talk about graceful! Tweaked my left hand a bit but it's fine this morning. After I dusted myself off we took off together but I had lost my light and was going a bit slower, we caught up again when Jeff got a flat.
The entertainment and burgers at In-n-Out were a perfect ending.

 

Haha, no problem Neil. Dude, I don't know how you Dad's pull a kid trailer. That little grade on Blackstar Canyon Road kicked my ass towing you. Though, I don't think they're too many 200lb.plus 4 year olds out there. :lol:

Thank goodness for 33:21 sspeed gearing!

Nam, hope my light didn't cut out on you. But PM me, I need to get that thing back for this weekend.

Sidenote: I did ride enough to try my new FSA cranks. Wholly cow, I should have went to stiffer cranks a long time ago. Huge improvement over my old Octalinks.

Carl

 

Good times last night! Thanks for setting up the ride Neil, and sorry you weren't able to make it all the way with us. I can say one thing though, I'm glad I wasn't Carl last night! :lol: I'd be down for another b-star ride next week. HJ/Trabuco I'd have to pass on though. Trabuco is known to take many tubes/tires out and with a big group I think that ride would just take longer than I'd like it to.

Mike, I'm gonna have to join you going up Skyline sometime so I can end the ride on my side of the mountain.