[Closed] How many people here could honestly manage a 40 mile mountain epic?

you could push your bike 40 miles in 12 hours so I wouldn't worry too much 😉

Don't worry about the bike ride, "an epic ride through a place called Noble Cayon" is a quite obvious euphemism 😕

Not trying to be big-headed like, but I'm 52 and wouldn't think twice about it. If you're worried about it then I suspect "your average national champion" is a lot fitter than you.

40 miles in 12 hours? You could walk that!

Doesn't sound that hard tbh, and googling "Noble Canyon San Diego route profile" shows a 2000ft climb - it'd have to be a very rocky climb for that to be 12hr route!

You'll be fine unless it's got huge amounts of climbing and you are really unfit (well compared to me!).

Sounds great, might be worth doing a few long rides to get yourself "in shape-ish" for it.

Go for it - he'll have to wait 😀

I'd be struggling 😯

Thumbs-up to druid for pointing out that over 50's should not be written off. 🙂

You'll be fine and do let us know how you get on! Good luck.

Druidh - I was saying that I used to be that fit, but work and a young family take their toll. On the other hand, I really do applaud you for being in that kind of condition at 52; it gives us all hope.

Yep good points about walking it in 12 hours. That makes me a little more relaxed.

What's your usual distance when you go for a ride? If you can do 30 miles the extra ten wont be too hard.

TBH - it doesn't sound too bad

I'm over 50 & regularly do those sorts of rides, albeit not in the Winter these days

suggest you tell him you are up for it, then describe your typical "25mins along the canal" weekend ride to ensure he plans a bail out option for anyone needing to MTFU a bit

oh and three of the guys i regularly ride with are pushing 60 hard, all would happily set out on that sort of epic.

geetee1972 - Member
Druidh - I was saying that I used to be that fit, but work and a young family take their toll.

geetee1972 - Member
On the other hand, I really do applaud you for being in that kind of condition at 52; it gives us all hope.

Fake an old injury- ask if you could half it. Mountain biking is about enjoyment, this guy seems to be hellbent on showing off his prowess/age.

Agree with druidh that 40 miles in 12 hours is no big deal at all. I'm 54 and quite happy doing the Ben a'Ghlo circuit in about 6 hours -about 35 miles and 5500 ft of climbing. Wouldn't class myself as more than reasonably fit

Bring it on 🙂

Have I stepped into some parallel world this morning? 40 miles off-road does not an "Epic" make.

Some pictures of the proposed ride.

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You see when I read these replies and look at those pictures, I think 'MTFU'.

Man I am sooooo excited.

Last year, in a not at all fit state, I managed 155 miles in 2 1/2 days in the black mountains / breacons, with some really fit guys.
Yours is not an epic - just a ride....
EDIT: with some rocks 😉

I'd call 40 miles all/mostly off road an epic, 45 is about the biggest loop I do for fun (done 100m once, the route was not as much fun).

I didn't know you were a mega-endurance athlete druidh? 😉

I'd be pushing on the downs too 😉

What an amazing opportunity! Do it.

looks lovely mate that! you'll be fine!

i know its not really a comparison but i did 36 miles and 4500ft of climbing in under 5 hours....

about as hard as it gets around peaks which is always pretty steep technical and demanding...so mileage wise 36 miles in 5 hours, and hes wanting to do 40 in 12 hours? you should be fine! be alot of scenery and photo taking opportunities i would have thought and of course plenty of time to eat and refuel with a nice break!

cynic-al - Member
I didn't know you were a mega-endurance athlete druidh?

Must have massive climbs and not much flat to take 12 hours. Take loads of food and drink to keep going. You'll be trashed but do it anyway. Looks brilliant.

Well, it's certainly not the Surrey Hills is it 😉

Which bike BTW?

[url= http://www.socaltrailriders.org/forum/trailhead/8552-noble-canyon-10-20-07-a.html ]Probably something like this ?[/url]

My in-laws are in orange county (bit further north). They had massive rainfall (for S Cal) around Christmas and lots of erosion so your trail might be hard to follow, hence long ride

Nickegg not it's certainly not! It is the terrain my Nicolai Helius AM was made for so I'm taking that.

OK - who here [apart from geetee] can't manage to cycle 40 miles in 12hrs?

🙂

Shouldn't be an issue, if he'd said 40 miles in 6 hours then I may start thinking 'hmm that could be a challenge in that terrain'

You'll be fine, just remember to take the single speed

Take a camera, then every time you feel you need a breather you can pretend you are just taking photographs 😉

geetee1972 - Member
On the other hand, I really do applaud you for being in that kind of condition at 52; it gives us all hope.
**** - now you're making me feel old.

The worst part is this guys is freaking 55 years old!

Take a camera, then every time you feel you need a breather you can pretend you are just taking photographs

Is that a tip from SFB 😉

The distance would not put me off, but starting off with a 3 hour climb! 😯

sounds like the dyfi, but with dust,

Those photo's look great. You'd be a fool to miss the opportunity! Go for it.

Yep good points about walking it in 12 hours. That makes me a little more relaxed.

What?

rule of thumb is 3 miles per hour over rough terrain add 5 mins per 200ft climbed...

Greg - panic over, stop packing your bike up, I'll take your place, photos make it look half interresting.....might be worth a gamble to see if its any better than Surrey Hills.....

Man those pictures make me want to puke with envy!!!!

When is it? You can help your legs by doing repeated squat-thrusts. Basically your legs will then 'help' your lungs more.

My only concern would be taking sufficient fluid, assuming there won't be a tea shop in the vicinity?

Easy peasy pudding and pie.

Is there some willy waving going on here or what? 40 xc miles on well surfaced undulating trails is a whole different vessel of water creatures to 40miles of rocky mountain passes. I've been on some hard 20mile rides (normally involving a lot of carrying) not sure I could manage 2 laps of that sort of ride.

If you are that worried ask for more details and check for bailout options, looks very tempting tho, unless your mate is uber fit and is issuing you with warnings/liability waivers I'd go for it.

>What?

rule of thumb is 3 miles per hour over rough terrain add 5 mins per 200ft climbed... <

aka Naismiths rule:

"Allow one hour for every three miles forward, and half an hour for every 1,000 feet of ascent."

...and Naismith wasn't a fat I.T type he was a fit Mountaineer 😉

"Allow one hour for every three miles forward, and half an hour for every 1,000 feet of ascent."

Heather Bash - Member

...and Naismith wasn't a fat I.T type he was a fit Mountaineer

How hard can it be. These are yanks who are reputedly overweight and slow. You should be able to do it easily in that time.

I would assume that in the 12 hours there is a three hour allowance for a very big lunch and a further hour for a mid sized late afternoon burger stop.

DO IT!
The whole point of an epic ride, is that's it's EPIC.

People tend to exaggerate distance anyway.

San Diego's 8 hours behind GMT, remember. So it should only take 4 hours.

My 8th bike ride of 2010 was 103 miles, all off-road. On a borrowed rigid singlespeed.

MTFU 😉

gothandy - Member
Those photo's look great. You'd be a fool to miss the opportunity! Go for it.

Posted 41 minutes ago # Report-Post

+1

First sight of a mountain lion and I reckon you'll do it in a couple of hours... 😯 😆

Definitely got to be worth a go, you'd regret it for ever if you turned it down 8)

I wonder is it this ride:

http://www.viddler.com/explore/johnnyfuel/videos/9/

Seems to only take them half an hour 🙂

If it were me doing it then I'd be worried about falling asleep and generally feeling yuk due to jet lag.

How hard can it be. These are yanks who are reputedly overweight and slow. You should be able to do it easily in that time.

You forget that this is California.

They're all freakin free radical consuming, clean living, uber healthy olympians.

Looks cool to me - can I swap with you?

You are doing it single speed too aren't you?

You are doing it single speed too aren't you?

Yes - Slow. Apart from the downs where I hope to redeem some kudos 8)

Just make sure you're waiting for the septics at the top of every climb and again at the bottom of every downhill, whilst all the time maintaining an air of nonchalance.
Forbid yourself from sweating too.

More gratuitous 'look where I'm riding next week' pictures 8)

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>I always thought it was a fairly good average for a mixed-ability group. <

Sure but that wasn't my point. I'll bet you haven't actually walked / climbed many 40 milers in less than 12 hours incl stops.

Looks good - I reckon you'll be quite tired after 40 miles of that terrain 😉

I'd stick pins in my japs eye to ride a trail like that. I can't believe the navel gazing you're doing.

Your sir, are a big pair of girls pants.

Heather Bash - Member

Sure but that wasn't my point. I'll bet you haven't actually walked / climbed many 40 milers in less than 12 hours incl stops.

That is exactly the kind of trail i love riding. I crave for rocky descents

I'd call 40 miles on the Quantocks an "epic", as, due to the short sharp nature of the hills you're either going up or down and you'd be lucky to get away with a total ascent of less than 10,000 ft.

Those pictures look magic! Just go for it. Epic isn't just a function of distance and time but also how technical the ride is, how many mechanicals you have, how many riders get left at the side of the trail to cries of "leave the weak". 😀

Epic is when you go out as men and come back husks! If you have the thousand yard stare and a post ride 16 inch ham and mushroom pizza feels like it's barely touched the sides, then you may have done an epic!

Do it and post pics, fella!

Cheers

Sanny

I'd love to have a crack at that lot. I wouldn't expect any problem. But go at your own pace not someone else's unless it's absolutely necessary.

BTW notice they are walking on the rocky bits anyway?

When a fat 40 yo devs retired from rugby and took up mountain biking he was given the chance to do a 1 day C2C hundred miler for charity. He bricked himself because he was the only novice in a group of gnarly shredders. He did 108 miles and 10000ft in 16 hours, loved it and decided that this was the game for him. Go for it, it looks magic and if you don't you are gay. That is all.

I remember being told it would take 3hrs to do the Slickrock Trail at Moab. It's 10 miles and we were initially thinking in the region of 90mins.

It didn't take 3hrs, it took nearly 4. OK, a lot of picture taking, re-riding sections etc but God it was hard. Oh and in that 10 mile ride I drank every ounce of the 4L of fluid I was carrying.

All those people saying it's a piece of cake may not have ridden outside of trail centres... Just be aware that terrain, altitude, heat/humidity etc can make a massive difference and if he reckons it takes 12hrs, then I'd at least go out prepared for 12hrs! Looks like a great trail though. If you don't want to do it, I'll swap with you.

I am with druidh - and I am only a year or two younger ( 🙂 ) and no superfit endurance athlete.

I would not be concerned about 40 miles of offroad unless it contained lots of very technical sections or tens of thousands of feet of climb

to put it in perspective the Bein a ghlo circuit is 35 miles and 5000 ft of climb and takes me around 7 hrs including picnic stops. Whilst I don't often ride more than that in a day I have done.

I don't know whether I'd make it but would certainly give it a good go 🙂

Even if you have to walk a few sections (nothing wrong with that ethos - I certainly do it) looks kinda exciting if not tiring - Go for it 🙂

I had the good fortune to live in San Diego for a year in 1995 (when I was 25) and I rode Noble Canyon. I remember it as a 12 mile descent and an 18 mile climb. I did it on a fully rigid Klein attitude but I would love to do it again on a good all mountain full susser.

(Ellsworth factory is near by. see if you can get a test of the 2011 Moment)

Most people park a car at either end and just do the descent bit !!!

Either way it is well worth the experience. go do it!

If you don't do it, you'll kick yourself for years to come. i'm 52 and would kill for the chance.

Didn't ride down Mammouth, CA, last year, still miffed........

Oooh, oooh, how exciting.

I know you'll be fine on the downs, so: Just really take it easy on that up section, walk if needs be.
Start eating for Britain NOW.
Take loads of fluid, food and energy stuff (as others have said) and enjoy.

You have a long flight back to recover.

Have fun and report back with pitures and how you get on.

Jammy git!

Have a search on the MTBR Turner forum for videos by "TiSSer". He rides round Noble, and is a pretty damn good rider. Some of the trails look awesome. Very rocky, very exposed and with the odd mental switchback or 10. Do it!

Ride Report

OK so I survived! Although in truth we didn’t cover anything like 40 miles. I owe this to the simple fact that even in California it gets dark at 5.30pm in January and the sun rise is a lazy 6.30am so with only 11 hours of useable daylight (that has to include breakfast, travel, fannying around etc), a 40 mile ride was never on the cards.

First thing I want to report on is my guide – Steve Gordenker. He is something of a local hero in the San Diego area riding community; the sort of guy that when you’re out riding with, more or less everyone that you bump into will know of him, usually via the MTBR.com website and more often than not because they recognise his bike (twas ever thus).

This guy is more than just a local hero though. He is someone that the STW community should adopt and take close to their heart. He doesn’t just embody many of the highly esoteric and utterly individualistic characteristics of many people here, he positively raises them by a whole order of magnitude.

Firstly, the guy rides a fully rigid, Jones 29er with a 26” front wheel that has a monstrous 3.8” front tyre. Oh and did I mention that he rides single speed?

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Yes seriously. All of you who joked I should ride singles speed should eat your words because this guy rode 24 miles, with 4000ft of seriously rocky elevation and descent on a freakin’ fully rigid, single speed, 29er hybrid. And he didn’t just ride it, I mean he rode the pants off of it. Steve is probably about the best technical rider I’ve ever met. His quick enough on the descents, on a rigid bike, so that I had to work to keep up on everything apart from the most rocky of trails (he did have a slight advantage in that he knew every single rock, pebble and grain of sand on the ride) but where he really excelled was in riding the technical features he’s built over the whole place (he’s built so much that it’s a big part of his local fame!) Some of these were seriously scary pieces that I didn’t want to go anywhere near; precipitous 3m high boulders with almost vertical roll ups and then similarly vertical roll downs where you had to both commit serious speed (not to mention skill) to get up and then serious bottle to get down. Think Danny McCaskill and you’re not far off.

So the ride. What can I say apart from one of the most amazing days I’ve ever spent on the bike and certainly the best ride I’ve ever done.

You drive east of San Diego for about 90 minutes, over into the dry, arid and rocky mountains you can see from the coast, to a place called Pine Valley. This is proper pioneer type territory; think ‘Little House on the Prairie’ or John Ford’s ‘The Searchers’ and you’re very close.

The ride starts from going up straight from the car park and it doesn’t stop going up for 12 miles, by which time you’ve climbed 4000ft or thereabouts. The initial part of the trail, which is also the final descent, is a gravelly, sandy path that is interspersed regularly with big technical rock sections that will eat your rear derailleur and have most people clanging their pedals and walking. Even Steve, with his Jedi like technical skills, didn’t clean it all. The great thing with this climb though is that you get to see the trail you’ll be descending at the end of the day, so you can scope some of your lines and the features.

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After about 1000 ft and a couple of miles, you do get a break and the first real descent, which is also the last climb of the day. Depending on which way you’re going this is either just the first descent, or it’s called ‘The Whore’ if you’re on your way back and it’s the final climb. Incidentally, the last descent is called ‘Extra Credit’ because it’s possible to circumnavigate the ‘The Whore’ and just drop directly back into the car park, but you don’t get the last amazing descent.

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The first descent then is a subtle and relaxed introduction to the style of riding. Fast, swoopy single track that opens up into broader double track at just the right points, i.e. where the trail is fastest, allowing you to carry loads of speed into the natural jumps and berms that pepper the track.

At the bottom of this climb though is where things get serious because from here it really is non-stop uphill. The first section is about four miles of road climbing with an average gradient of about 1 in 10 and in places it’s more like 1 in 7. They call this one ‘Alpe D’Wheeze’.

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Beyond that you can choose to continue for another six miles of tarmac or take a rocky trail up Indian Creek. This thin ribbon of technical, rocky single track threads its way up the side of the mountain, taking in a seriously rocky section called ‘The Waterfall’. At the top of this you get to the Sunrise Highway and an amazing view of the top valley, where the fires raged a few years ago and there are still charred and scared trees. You can also see into the Anza Borego National Park, which is desert and a designated wilderness area.

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This is the top and from here it’s more or less downhill all the way home (apart from ‘The Whore’ of course).

I was pretty tired at this point but still feeling strong enough to give it beans. The trail starts off as a fast, smooth and very swoopy ribbon of single track. You’re carrying lots of speed into turns and you need to get committed to the front of the bike in order to make it around some of the turns. It’s always strange riding completely blind behind someone who knows the trails intimately, even if they are riding a fully rigid bike (except of the suspension action of a 3.8” front tyre) and I found myself in the unusual position of having to work really hard to keep Steve in view. Fortunately there were just enough seriously rocky sections to allow my advantage of 150mm of suspension to work in my favour and catch me up.

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The smooth ribbon of single track does however give way to much more serious rock – ‘chunk’ as Steve calls it. If you’re familiar with the rockiest sections in the Peak, such as ‘The Beast’, the drop down to Rowarth Mill or the more serious sections on the classic Edale loop, then you’re sort of almost there, but the rockiest sections were quite a bit more rocky that those. One section called Hell’s Staircase, really is a rock garden worthy of the best riders. I had to ride it three times before I could clean it and that involved one over the bars moment.

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But undoubtedly the most amazing thing about the ride (apart from the weather, which as you can see was sublime, about 25 degrees and baby blue skies) is how you pass from one eco system to another. At the top of the canyon, you’re in open pasture, then you move down into a woody glade, almost Alpine in feel before then dropping (via the serious rock gardens) into arid desert where the frogs and crickets croak and chirrup.

The scenery is breathtaking; just utterly breathtaking. The views out over the desert and the surrounding mountains are to die for. The sheer magnitude of the location, the ‘out there’ feel to it, is stunning. At one point I actually snapped my chain and being on 10 speed and not having a dedicated 10 speed connecting link (with Steve not even being ‘any speed’) I was seriously worried that we would have an extremely long push/scoot back. It snapped just at the half way point and we were then a very long way from anywhere. Fortunately a 9-speed link seemed to work without too much protestation from my drive train.

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Hopefully the photo’s will do this write up some justice. The whole thing was one of those ‘book mark moments’; those experiences in life that act like bookmarks in your memory. It will be one of those days that I think about on my death bed and I count myself lucky to have had the opportunity. The only problem now is that the Surrey Hills seem so utterly pointless.......

[url= http://gallery.me.com/greg.turner#100067&view=grid&bgcolor=black&sel=17 ]Noble Canyon Ride Album[/url]

Good job you decided to do it then 🙂

Wow1 Glad you went now??!!

I enjoyed your write-up and pics, what a ride to remember, and thanks for reporting back. 🙂

Thanks for the write-up - awesome!