The perks of living in San Francisco and working Cupertino continue to unfold. The amount of quality riding within twenty minutes drive is astounding, and we are often lucky enough to hit it at quite the most beautiful time of day. This one, Saratoga Gap, really took the biscuit – I get to do this after work!
I am quickly learning that, while the US does not have the extensive, endless path and trail network of the UK (and no doubt the rest of Europe), linking towns, cities and villages past and present, it does have an astonishing array of state, regional and national parks, preserves, wildernesses, forests and coasts. Private properties butted against total wilderness, rather than the UK’s funny mixture of farms, pubs and little lanes. I don’t think it’s better or worse per-se, but it is taking some getting used to, knowing it’s usually impossible to actually go anywhere on the trails; just drive in, enjoy it, and drive home (sometimes stopping for In-n-Out Burger).
Grinding upMarc and Dominic head enjoy the downhillThe view northAscending at sunsetThe most astonishing scene
I had a last-minute invite from Maartin & Marieke to join them with their brother Kees in a cabin up in the woods. Just the job to escape the city. A great day of hiking, more than a few beers and hilarious laughter, and the next day a solo ride into the wilderness, somewhere in the hills behind Abe’s family home.
Flotsam & JetsamA walk in the woodsThe NederlandersUp in them thar hills
Downieville lives in mountain biking folklore as home to some of the best riding on the West Coast. Site of the famous Downieville Classic bike race, it’s the spiritual centre of ‘all-mountain riding’; combining cross-country and downhill disciplines into one.
Booking at the last possible minute, we scored accommodation at the delightful Lure Resort – camping, but without the headache of tents.
The riding? Some of the most intense, varied and scenic riding I have ever ridden. And the town was probably the most genuinely friendly places I have been in this mad little country I now call home.
Bikes are loaded up onto the truck – it wasn't all being lazy; it was up in the 90s in the valley, and considerably cooler up in the hills.Insanely, we rode up alongside Paul, from Paul's Components fame … slightly star struck!At the top of the first climb, we topped 2200m … rather tired!Endless single track along the ridgeAnton takes a quick power nap at "A Tree"One of the many stream crossings of the first dayGo too quickly, and you might miss this crucial right-handerFirst of many!Day two, on the Downieville DH course … Anton rips one of the turnsHanging on the bridgeDominic managed four punctures … all by himself!Cooling the legs in the river after the rideThe Lure Lodge – I think I might be back!
I had the pleasure of Sam swinging by for a week of mountain biking and food. Some awesome days in the saddle, hitting up trails in Marin, the Peninsula, and then a fine finale riding out of Santa Cruise, and up to see the Amgen Tour of California cruise by. Good times!
I am pleased to say I am making use of the bikes I brought from Taiwan.
Highlights this month are without doubt my pilgrimage to Mt. Tam – spiritual home of mountain biking – and getting a ride in before work. Not just a standard pootle-along … a proper ride. Needless to say, I was a little tired in the office that day.
Mt. Tam
Prepping the bikes. I am pretty lucky to have a couple of others in the office that enjoy riding bikes (and skiing, and general outdoorsy things).Huffing and puffing on the up-hill … I think I pushed a little too hard early on, and struggled to keep up on the upper sections.Fantastic views from the top over to the Bay Area.… and classic down-hilling (though still lacking the seat-of-your-pants thrills of Taipei)
Stepping out early (my rental car and parking space in the background, incidentally)Climbing the not insubstantial hill behind my house.Ready to ride across the Golden Gate for the first time (!)An absurdly beautiful sunset over the Golden Gate … you can see how it got its name.Gulp.The Transamerica looking even more cryptic than usual.
Proper sub-zero conditions, and I had definitely not brought enough clothes – this is California!View from the top, looking down into Cupertino and San JoseI mean really … this is before work?!Lovely descending through single-track woodlands back to the car, shower, coffee (and a meeting).
First ride for my Santa Cruz Blur LT in California today! We took the opportunity of a day off work (Thanksgiving) to head out into the hills. This ride is a solid lung-buster climb, followed by amazing views (sadly not for us though) and a swift descent down sandy fire road. A perfect blast and work out for an overcast morning.
Start of the climb on pretty pleasant roads, following the ocean (amazing waves below us today).Checking the routeFabulous views from the top!Descending back down, and naturally the views start opening up – sadly not quite enough to really enjoy them though. On a good day I think it would be like Mt. Taimoshan in HK. Since it is a quick 20 minute drive from the city, there will be a next time!
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Within about 72 hours of landing, I already had my first riding date arranged with Marc Walliser from the office … I have yet to receive my own bike, so he was kind enough to lend me a very nice Rocky Mountain for the task. Awesome!
Ewok ForestNice riding – though lacking the killer technical sections of Taiwan so far!Looking happy with myself.
I have had some of the best days of my 20s up in the hills around Taipei – the days spent up there rooted in my memory. That’s why I was so delighted that, after six years of pestering, Ken finally decided to come up to Taipei for a round of mountain biking. Sadly, I managed to miss my alarm call leaving the rest of the guys stranded at Starbucks without us, but Ken and I managed none-the-less to string together a great day of riding and catching up before my departure.
Looking out from Starbucks at the rainMaking some adjustments to the Heckler brakesA new office chair post will probably change the riding dynamic; ie: less chatting!Need to do more of this in future.The rock drop section is never a cake-walk, but heading into this cameras blazing, knowing it was going to be my last attempt in a long time, combined with fuzzy status of medical insurance, definitely sapped my fluidity.The addition of steps on the intermediate section is not my favourite modification to the trail'Honestly, this is the way!'
I am itching to see what the trails are going to be like in San Francisco, and beyond …
Nenggao has been the ‘nemesis’ ride for the group for the last two years, attempts thwarted by typhoons and bad weather on two attempts: last year we even made it about a third of the way in before we had to turn around and high-tail it.
One of the highest trails in Taiwan, it climbs from about 1900m to 2950m, into the clouds. The trail itself, while well maintained for Taiwan, is beset by landslides. The bits that are not about to fall into oblivion, however, are very nicely graded, which is nice when you are climbing at high altitude and your lungs are trying to escape via your mouth.
Anxious e-mails were traded in the week leading up to the ride. Heavy rains were hitting Taipei in the afternoons, and we were not comfortable with the idea of being caught-out on the hill. Mark, Martin, Peter and I decided to go for it, planning to wake up at 5am and get to the top before the clouds were set to come in. Waking up at 5am, we were greeted with clear skies and cool air; it was now or never!
Reaching the police station at about 6:00am, we discovered they were not yet open for business, displaying only a sign that mountain permits were not being issued, and that vehicles and bicycles were not allowed to enter the trail. Ignoring the warnings, we ascended up to the trail head (a challenge by itself in a 2WD bus), prepped the bikes, loaded packs with food and water and began the long drag up, Martin clearly smoking EPO cigarettes and showing us a clean pair of heels.
The climb is about three and a half hours, broken with some scary sections of major landslide and rockfall. Legs were not quite calibrated with lungs and heart; they were able to put in far higher effort than the cardiovascular system, which would conk out unless you kept the effort at a moderate level. The cool air, clear skies and occasional views across the mountains kept the motivation up, though.
Reaching the top at about 10:30, we high-fived and whooped when we saw an almost flawless vista down to the smaller hills above Hualien down below. Clouds were forming quickly, however, so we ate lunch, and were engulfed in cloud within half an hour. Perfect timing. Negotiating the slipperiest segments of landslide in the dry, we were treated to 13km of sublime single-track descending; fast, slippery and technical. Minutes went by in a trance of speed and kicked-up mud. This is why we are mountain bikers.
5:20am, and clear skies!The sign says "all is really safe and you have nothing to worry about AT ALL – go and enjoy yourselves!" cough coughRiding one of the suspension bridgesMajor landslide, which stopped us in our tracks last time (that and the fact that we arrived about 6 hours earlier than last year)Kickin' itThis was to be our descent …Second of the major rockfalls. The junior workmen told us it would be fine to ride on; the site foreman told us to turn back. We smiled and carried on, but we knew we had to be back before it started to rain.One bridge out, and one bridge half-finished, slippery and dangerous.… but the skies were still holding for us!Double triple waterfall, and we are at the hut; a further 20 minutes of riding until we got to the saddle overlooking the Hualien plain, and lunch / brunch.We did it!Celebratory photographsOur timing was bang-on perfect; clouds engulfed us for the return through the landslide area.… no more photos on the descent as we were having far too much fun, and wanted to get off the hill in the dry. My filthy bike is testament to the quality of the ride.Austin Powers parking. Mark accompanies us as we ride down the hill back to the village to get washed-up."Can we borrow your hosepipe?" … 20 minutes later, mud covering the street and bags of used food packaging handed over, I think we were stretching our welcome!
Practicalities
We were all reasonably fit and riding bikes that were pretty well suited to hours of climbing in the saddle. I would not really recommend taking anything heavier than an ‘all mountain’ rig, since you will need to be happy carrying it in some sketchy situations. We were lucky and had no mechanicals or injuries, but had packed a spare tyre and multiple tubes and other spares. I almost had my rear dérailleur ripped off by a piece of bamboo and had a spare drop-out packed; we left the spare dérailleur in the van since someone turning around and heading back to the van would be able to coast with few problems.
Pack a range of clothes, nutrition, sun tan lotion (we are at almost 3000m remember) and whatever spares you are happy to carry. Start early, and enjoy!
Fantastic views of the Pacific Ocean and Yilan Plain from the summit. On other days.
It has long been a goal to ride from Wulai, in the mountains near Taipei, to Yilan on the coast. There have been rumours of such a trail, reporting varying levels of condition. The internet is making searching for this kind of thing much easier these days, and Mark contacted us last week to book the Tomb Sweeping holiday for a ride.
Predictably perhaps, Taipei dished up a crappy morning of weather, and we ascended into the hills looking up at clouds, mist and light rain. Nothing we haven’t seen before.
Despite another crash on the treacherously slippery road section (giving me pleasingly symmetrical wounds), cold weather, a broken water bladder and dodgy shifting performance it was pretty awesome to break through the summit and see the Yilan plain laid out in front of us. Almost as awesome as the pack of Jelly Belly Sports Beans (seriously, so delicious it is the reason I even do sport) and the descent down to the stream crossing where I almost tipped a photographer into the water as I clattered by.
Conditions also made life pretty difficult; every single thing was covered in slippery moss; even my bike became a handful at times. In the summer, you would no doubt trade more confident trail conditions with high temperatures and humidity.
Singletrack was great while it lasted …… sadly, everything was wet root, rock or mud. Treacherous.The bikes take a breather at the halfway point.Mark waits for the slow motion waterfall photography class to finish with their picture, before we ruin their serenity!Ready, aim … (the guy had to put up his umbrella to protect his camera when I went tumbling through)Me, just about in one pieceLegs, sporting wounds from two days riding this weekendThe bike – after a stream splash did most of the cleaning for me!
Directions:
Driving into Wulai, you need to drive into the town, and at the start of the old street, take a left up past the school. You then follow the road for a few kilometres, register at the police station, and drive another few kilometres to the next check point. If you want to go further, you need to register online, so we stopped there. It’s then about 12.5km of gentle climbing to the trail head.
From the trailhead, it is about 6 or 7 km to the summit, of which the first 3 or 4 are rideable, and with the final section turning into more taxing hike-a-bike. We then kept heading downhill towards Jiaoxi, and stopped when we hit tarmac. The climb back up is a solid 20 minute slog. After negotiating the steps and climbing sections, the final few kilometres are lots of fun, with sweeping turns and frequent close proximity to pools and small waterfalls – great in the summer. We set out from Taipei at 7:00am, left the trailhead at 8:30, and we back at the car at about 2:30 pm.
I think it would be possible to take the train to Jiaoxi or Yilan, do the complete climb, and ride all the way back to Taipei from there. A solid day in the saddle, but eminently doable!
The route up to the trailhead is featured on this blog-post here.
