Riding the Foothills

By Sportsman, on January 21st, 2008

After spending Saturday photoging other racers (instead of racing), this morning I risked exposure to the elements, and bravely pedaled into the calm before the storm. Intrepid adventurers, Alan, Ozzie, and Joe also heard the call and met me for an early morning ride, not 3.5 hours after sunrise; with neither Alan nor Joe recovered from Saturday’s efforts at the Rio Bravo Rumble..

Alan and Ozzie approach the mid-summit flat spot of the fenceline climb (newly dubbed, by yours truly) doubletrack, sort of. Observant readers may notice that it was SoCAl cold. Joe, a little further back, had less skin exposed to the late morning air.

The Bako foothill trails feature many short (and some not so short), steep grunts. After his first race in ten years, Alan was bemused that he was spending so much time in his granny gear.

After they called it a day and headed back to their trucks, I still had enough water to ride three more hours. The foothills are a maze of jeep roads (providing access for oil workers, maintenance crews, and utility trucks) and singletrack (much of it made, and subsequently destroyed, by motos), dropping down into canyons, along canyons, and climbing back to the tops.

If you try, you can gain a lot of vert in just a few miles, with a nice mixture of long, grindy climbs (st and dt), and short, steep, vision obscured by red climbs. As you may guess, when riding alone, I try to climb them all, and Sunday was no exception.

Playing on the berms is always a good time. In this timer picture, I had to pedal and work across the berm; behind the camera is a large steep hill, so typically, I descend the hill with enough speed to fly the berm without the need to pedal. The speed also lets me pick a higher line, and a more horizontal position. Of course, the climb back to the top is sick-sick-sick.