Bit of a Sufferfest

Suffering on the 45 minute climb… I could see Dan enjoying taking this picture of me… watching me suffer

Went out with AV Dan on Saturday for a bit of a sufferfest at Chino Hills State Park. This one is a pretty common route I’ll ride if I’m short on time, but want to do more than the loop. I can normally get it done in under 2.5 hours which is about the amount of time it took for Dan & me that day.

It starts off with a long-ish 45 minute climb. The climb has very few breaks and is typical of Southern California, all fireroad. The kicker on the climb was that the last section from Sycamore to McDermott was not only steep, as usual, but also extremely sandy. If I had known it was that bad, I would have definitely opted out at Sycamore and rode directly to Four Corners from there.

Giant Trance & Niner Jet 9 at Four Corners

Ah, but ignorance is bliss, at least for a while. Then the sand hit and although I didn’t get off the bike, I was definitely in granny just keeping up a high cadence to climb through the sand pits. The sand looked to be the remnants from last fall’s fire that really did a number on Chino Hills.

Bovinian Delight’s singletrack is a a welcome change to the miles of fireroad we just finished

After our break at Four Corners we hit Bovinian Delight which is a singletrack treat after so much fireroad. The singletrack track was relatively clear and we stopped off to take a quick photo of Dan looking menacing on the trail.

Dan enjoying the cleared out singletrack

The return ride back to the car of about 7 miles is always fun. It’s rolling hills that can go pretty fast. Dan & I ended up trading bikes for a few minutes to discuss the merits of each other’s bikes. Dan rides a Giant Trance & I was on my Niner Jet 9. The Trance is 5” travel AM bike and my Niner is a 3” travel XC bike.

After trading rides and doing that for a very short stretch of trail, we were both certain that our own bike was the bike we preferred to be on.