Old Camp Night Ride

I couldn't think of anything creative for the post title, so there you go ...

I've been wanting to ride on Tuesday's and Thursday's to train for Counting Coup and so this last Tuesday I did Old Camp to the Luge at night with a few guys.

Specifically I did the ride with Andrew and three other guys that I met for the first time. Steve, Jeff and Keith all seem like pretty cool guys and it was nice that everyone was able to keep up well. It can really suck to go on night rides and have an anchor or two riding with you. You'll end up stopping somewhere and while you wait for them to catch up you cool down and freeze to death.

Anyways to the ride ...

I haven't been on a night ride in a while and so the very idea of riding at night had turned into something a bit scarier than it should have been. Same thing happens to me when I haven't been on a certain trail for a while. If I haven't gone down the Motorway in a few months it starts to become much scarier in my mind than it actually is.

The five of us met at Cook's Corner at 7PM and started riding pretty soon after that. Always nice to start on time.

We rode up Santiago Canyon Road and up to the start of Santiago Truck Trail (STT) with no problems. I felt kind of bad for Steve because he was on a singlespeed 29'er and I know it wasn't easy to climb Modjeska grade on that thing.

We cruised to the flag without any trouble. My legs actually felt really good, which is noteworthy. I had done about 40 miles on the Saturday prior and played softball on Sunday. Just walking around on Monday and Tuesday felt kind of bad. My legs - especially my quads - felt really sore and tired. I wasn't sure how I was going to feel on the bike, but I felt great.

There were three other guys coming back from Old Camp when we got to the flag. It's always good to see other riders out at night on the same trail. I figure if they are ok and happy, then I'll be safe and happy as well. Haha.

It had rained the day/night before and after the flag we hit the first of many puddles of mud. Thankfully the mud wasn't super thick and the majority of the trail was very dry and tacky.

I felt like I was riding very fast, but my final time would show that I was just going at an average pace. We got to Old Camp at 1:26 for ride time. Not too bad I guess. We ended up talking at Old Camp for a lot longer than I wanted to. I had worn my windbreaker for the entire ride to Old Camp and like an idiot I was sweating underneath and thus freezing. I just wanted to get back to my car, but everyone else wanted to joke around and talk. Haha.

The ride back was fun. I had forgotten how fun night riding is. It's just a thrill to know you're out riding on trails while everyone else is sleeping and watching TV. It was cold out and that just adds to the sense of adventure.

Going down the Luge was just plain fun. I was a little worried because I hadn't been down it in a while and I had only gone down it once at night. Add to that the fact that I still have to ride my old hard tail, and I was curious to see how it would shake out. It ended up being really fun and I can't wait to go down the Luge again.

The final ride time ended up being 2:01, which was a personal best, but nothing special. I think I average only 7.7mph for the ride, which isn't that good. For a short 2 hour ride I would expect to average at least 8mph. Oh well. I can give a lot of excuses, but I'll skip that for now.

Here is a video of the Luge at night from fooriders.com. You should check out this site if you ride mountain bikes anywhere in socal. It's _awesome_.

Luge at night:



... and for contrast, the Luge during the day: