Last Sunday, I decided to do an all day ride; one from sunrise to sunset. It turned out to be a crazy day to say the least. Around 11 hours of riding, 13 hours being outside the house, and a whole lot of water (phew! The previous night I actually bought a camelbak in preparation for this ride and hopefully for more in the future like it!). I packed 5 Shot Blok packages, 3 Kits Organic bars, and 2 Clif bars into my Camelbak, which was also full of 3 liters of water, to eat throughout the day! I also put 20 dollars in the jersey pocket that had my phone in it; it was not a wise decision as you will find out later. I started the ride from my house Sunday morning at around 6:45 and rode the Kettle Ride (a group road ride) all the way up to the Santa Monica mountains. I passed a lot of hikers climbing up the first (and one of the hardest/steepest) fire road in the mountains, and finally made it to the top. I hit some fun singletrack on the sides of the fire road until I hit a hiking trail going down. There was a sign that said no bikes, but I figured I could get down it without too many hikers going up it (It was only around 10 am at the time). In no way could I have been more wrong. I raced down the first part, only to find hiker after hiker trudging up the narrow singletrack trail. I would pass a group of 2-5 only to find another group 5 seconds farther down the trail. I felt like I was a robot that was only programmed to say the word "sorry". After a painfully slow hour or so of descending, I made it to the bottom. It was actually a really fun trail and had some sick drops in it due to it being for hikers, so it wasn't all bad. I rode to a subway at the base of the mountains, and went in and refilled my Camelbak. I then reached into my pocket with the 20 bucks in it and to my horror, found it wasn't there. BUMMER! I ended up not eating real food for the whole 13 hour ride! Lesson learned: don't keep money in the pocket you keep your phone in! After eating some Clif product, I headed back up to the trails and went up the fire road that has the only water fountain in the entire mountain range at the summit. I reached the summit then refilled my water and headed down a trail I had never gone down before. It turns out it was a trail that I had seen Curtis Keene, a professional Enduro mountainbiker, ride in a youtube episode of "On Track with Curtis Keene". So many fun jumps, berms, and rock drops! Halfway down that trail, I decided to take the fast jump line on the right side and got up to nearly full speed. Suddenly I looked ahead and screamed as I found myself speeding toward a 10-15 foot ditch gap that wasn't even a jump! I slammed incredibly hard on both brakes, skidded for 5 feet or so, which caused my back wheel to come off the ground and up over my head. I stopped right before the edge doing a sort of front wheelie and it felt like I was looking death right in the face as I peered over the ledge. I then clipped out and jumped off my bike, which landed in a heap right in front of the ledge of the mini cliff. I remember getting off the ground feeling more alive and alert than I ever had. I filmed the aftermath of the crazy scene using my phone, then continued down the trail a bit more cautiously. The trail was so fun that I decided to climb up the fire road next to it and do it two more times before heading down farther on the trail. Now as I went farther down, I saw an interesting side run off to the left of the road and decided to go up it; I even had to clip out to climb some of the parts. On the way down it, I descended this switchback set of stairs in the middle of the woods, but came to a dead end at a gate that said "Private Property". So I had to trudge back up this incredibly twisty and crazy flight of wooden/dirt stairs back to the top of the trail that met with the fire road. After finally making it back onto the main fire road, I descended a little bit farther and found ANOTHER fun looking trail off to the side of the main fire road. I was thinking about skipping it because of what had just happened on the other trail I had decided to do, but then I knew I would regret not doing it later. So like the fool I was, I descended about 1000 feet and hit the bottom of the canyon, only to find that the only way out was this intense river trail. I didn't want to have to ride all the way back up the other way so I decided to do it. I literally had to ride and walk down a stream for half of it, and the other half was this wacked out hiking trail that consisted of tree branches, steep drops, slippery rocks, and huge boulders blocking the way that I had to carry my bike over. At last I came to a sign that declared "trail end". It might have been the single happiest moment of my life. It took me about an hour and a half to get out! I was muddy and very tired so I traveled down to the subway and literally just sat down, put my head on the table, and just fell into a deep nap. I awoke, refilled my water pack for the third time, then headed back up to the trails for my final climb of the day. Halfway up the fire road, my bottom bracket became loose and I stopped and tried to use one of my flat changing tools and eventually my house key to screw it back in. Nothing worked, so I just decided to deal with it, hoping my bike wouldn't fall apart. Luckily at the top of the trail, there was a kind man that had an allen wrench that I could borrow. After fixing my bike and thanking him, I set off for my last descent of the day. I realized I only had an hour and a half left of daylight, so I raced down a trail called Backbone that I've ridden many times. I reached speeds up to 35 mph on that singletrack and had an epic time doing it. I reached the bottom and proceeded to race the sun home. I arrived a little bit after dark and ate pretty much everything in the house (I had no real food the whole day!). I ascended 11,000 plus feet of climbing, rode 101 miles, ended up eating all the food I had brought, and drank around 10 liters (2.6 gallons) of water! I named the ride MTB Epic on strava, yet that still barely described how awesome it turned out to be. I can't wait to go on another adventure with my bike soon!
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| Middle of first ascent |
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| Enduro trail |
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| Nice view |
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| Start of river trail in canyon |
Thanks for reading,
Jules Gilliam
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