Tonight's plan was to test out some new tubeless tires on my mountain bike. I lubed everything up, set my stuff by the door, but I just couldn't find the motivation to get out. Instead I scratched the biking plan and decided to read, but it turns out I left my book at work, so I suppose it's a good time as any to update!
The first weekend in October I raced the first of the triple crown challenge, a series of 3 mountain bike races this fall. It took place about 6 miles from my apartment, so I really didn't have a valid excuse for not going. Turns out all the extra off-road time has helped and I won the 19-26 sport class. The second place rider and I were pushing each other to the end, but I was able to overtake him on a long climb and I never looked back.
Katie and I had plans to head out to Joshua Tree last weekend, but the strong winds and sand storms in the forecast changed our mind. Instead I started scouting out routes to train for the Vision Quest, a 56.5 mile mountain bike race I have in March down in Orange County. The race has 11,000' of climbing, and luckily there are lots of mountain roads and trails within 5-10 miles of here to train on. I started in Rancho Cucamonga and rode up Cucamonga Canyon to the Barrett Stoddard Truck Trail, an old 4x road that's overgrown but still great for biking. It popped out up near Baldy Village, so I combined it with a climb up Potato Mountain, then descended Palmer Canyon to finish the day. About 35 miles with a guess of 5-6,000' climbing? I don't have a GPS so I could be way off. Either way, it worked me pretty good, but it was definitely worth the views.
Cucamonga Canyon from Jeff D. on Vimeo.
Maybe we'll get out to Joshua Tree this weekend. November will be a busy month with the Mt. SAC Fat Tire race, the Tour de Foothills road ride, 12 Hours of Temecula (I'll be on a 5-person team again), and lastly the Southridge XC Challenge. Definitely not hard to stay busy out here. Maybe a little too easy, actually...
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