Bikepacking to the next level

 So 3 weeks ago I went out on my mt bike with camping gear, and spent 1 night out (still refining my gear and such...2 years ago I went out for two 1-nighter rides). Then a week ago I went out again, this time for a 2-night trip (3 days of riding). That was memorial Day weekend...(I had that Friday off as part of my 9/80 work schedule where we get every other Friday off). This trip was a bit more aggressive for me: I was going to do the entire Sierra Madre Ridge loop, which in a nutshell is the final 2/5ths of the annual Tour de Los Padres ride (the full ride is 280 miles, 30,000' of climbing). Every year I do most of the route on 1 days ride at at a time (I ride "out and back" trips, so each ride I do is technically only half on route as either the starting half or the finishing half is in the correct direction of the Tour). This trip along with being my first "multi-night" ride is also my first point to point ride. 

So...Thursday night I was loading my bike in the car (all my bags were packed but they can't be put on the bike till it's out of the car at the ride jump-off point). I had downloaded the entire TDLP route on my Garmin 800 GPS nav unit so that I would have an easy time following the route (I'd never done the final 40 or so miles, and I was going out alone so I need to be able to NOT get lost out in the back-country). As I was loading the bike in the car I noticed my Garmin didn't turn off after I put the route in, so it had sat there running for a few hours and was no longer at 100% charge...so I popped it off the mount and set it down in what turned out to be a very stupid spot....(the little angel on my shoulder was saying "Don't put it there, you'll forget it and crush it with when you close the hatch"....while the little Devil on the other shoulder was saying "Don't worry...you'll remember it"). About a minute later the little Angel proved correct...I closed the hatch and there was a terrible crunching sound...opened it back up and there was my ruined GPS unit. Damn!

It's like I just tossed $175 out the window of my car, or lit it on fire and burned it. STUPID STUPID STUPID!!! So I installed an older unit (my Garmin 705) on the bike, but I had no idea how to load the route on that unit, and it's a much smaller screen...so I didn't even bother, and changed my plan to NOT go the final 40 miles that I'd never ridden before, but cut it short and take a route that I've done. Darn it...always wanted to do that final piece...oh well...easy come, easy go (that night I got online and found an identical unit that was refurbished (as was my old one...new ones are over $400, refurbished is half or less typically)...and I ordered it...and there was an audible "whoosh" in my mind....which was the sound of my hard earned.money flying out my wallet into the wild.

So early Friday morning Jeannie dropped me off at the start of the Sierra Madre Ridge (about 35 miles from our house) with a plan to pick me up in Santa Barbara sometime on Sunday afternoon (I'd call and arrange a pickup when I was close to finishing). I geared up my bike, and took off about 9:30am up the climb. Instantly obvious (the same for every time I load my bike up with gear) was how SLOW I was climbing, and how TOP-HEAVY my bike was (all the gear is loaded up high on a regular mt bike, as there's just nowhere else to put it). 

 

Here I am at the start...all fired up and ready to pedal the Queen Mary over 120 miles and 15,000' of climbing (strapping 25 extra pounds of gear way high up on my bike makes it feel like I'm pedaling a CAR uphill).

 After a while you sort of forget about the weight and just ride (not really, you never forget how heavy your bike suddenly is). Probably about 2 hours later high up on the ridge I came across another bike-packer....a lady, and she was standing off the side of the road in the shade looking pretty whipped. I stopped (as us bikers do) and asked if she was ok or if she needed any help...she said she was with a group (she was way off the back) who was doing the same exact ride I was, and wasn't sure she was going to make it...she just had too much weight. Her name was Debbie, and she had recently re-started mt biking again. Turns out that she was carrying 9 liters of water along with all her gear, enough for the entire 3 day trip, as someone had told her there might not be any water along the way. I told her there was flowing spring-water at tonight's destination (as I had just been there 2 weeks prior). She took my word for it and dumped most of the water while I continued on. Later I came across another lady rider (Nancy) who was waiting for Debbie. I told her she had dumped most of the water and was planning on continuing...that's all I knew. So Nancy stayed waiting and I continued on yet again, and then I came across yet ANOTHER lady rider (Tina) and we continued the final few miles to Painted Rock, where I showed her the cabin with the flowing spring (whew...it was still flowing, I'd have felt really bad if it wasn't). 

Here's the cabin where the spring is still flowing. I think it's called "The Montgomery" cabin, and the      spring is "Montgomery Spring #1" (there are other springs in the area called 2 and 3). You can see cows around it...the spring also feeds some kind of cattle-trough, if there wasn't water then the cows couldn't stay here. Thankfully the cows are afraid of us and depart as we come down to the cabin.

So after filling up some water (I'd run out a good hour+ ago and was quite thirsty...it was way hotter than I had expected, same for Tina) I showed Tina where she and her group would be spending the night at the little Painted Rock campground. Turns out that before I caught up with Tina I had ridden right on by the 2 guys in the group as they were also waiting for Nancy and Debbie, but were lying somewhere off the road in the shade and I never saw them. I left Tina at the Painted Rock campsite (it was pretty small) telling her I was going to stay 2 miles further up the road (where I stayed 2 weeks ago), and I would stop by later to meet the rest of her group. So I took off to drop my gear off at my intended camp-site, and then come back and fill all the water I'd need for dinner, breakfast, and tomorrows ride. 

           My campsite was right along these rocks looking over at the valley. It was SUPER QUIET over            here (2 miles away from the other 5 campers). I put my tent up on the grass in the lower left of                                 the picture...it was a perfect spot! (and no cows watching me this time!)

 

           Saturday morning, this is their group of 5, and as they had invited me I jumped on to their little                 merry band and we continued the adventure. Here we are just leaving the Painted Rock area.

This is Marcus. He is an amazing rider. AMAZING. Even on a loaded bike he flat out flies, both up and                                                     down. And he's a really nice guy too.

                

        This is Chase. He's a bike mechanic at a shop down in the Thousand Oaks area. He's also                    very strong and fast rider, and a seriously nice guy. 

So two of the group split off as we passed Santa Barbara Cyn rd (where I rode into Painted Rock to camp two weeks earlier). Tina and Debbie...Tina had only planned on doing the 1 night, and her husband was parked somewhere at the bottom of SB Cyn road (over towards rt 33) and he had his motorcycle, so he was out riding while Tina was riding her bike. Debbie had so destroyed herself yesterday carrying all that water that she realized she wasn't yet in shape to continue what was going to be another brutal day, so she took the bail-out and Tina and her husband would get her home. Always nice to have bail-out options in case things aren't what you expected. Did I mention it was quite hot yesterday on the opening 40 miles of the Sierra Madre Ridge?

Here I am chasing Nancy down the face of Buckhorn Rd, on our way to the cutoff that eventually           takes us up and over to Santa Barbara (which I've never been on before). Btw, Nancy is riding a Salsa Cutthroat bike...a serious adventure bike created for ludicrous rides such as the Tour Divide (2700 miles and around 300,000' of climbing). It's basically a rigid drop-bar gravel bike with bigger knobby tires than most gravel bikes can take. And she rides it like a demon, even fully loaded! I can't keep up with her on the descents on my full suspension mtb (loaded with gear, I think I could if I ditched all my gear). Nancy is the only one of the group who has ridden the entire "Tour de Los Padres" which this ride is a portion of)...she did the entire 280 miles/ 30,000 feet of climbing just 2 months ago...in only FIVE DAYS! My mind is seriously blown that ANYBODY can do that ride in that short of time. I would expect to take a full week and not sure I could do it even that fast. And just know that a guy I met a few years back up on the Sierra Madre Ridge did the entire TDLP route in under 24 hours 2 years ago (didn't stop to camp)...poof! Mind blown even more! And even that is tame compared to the Tour Divide record (which is under 14 days...they ride 20+ hours a day). That just doesn't sound very fun.

 

After a huge 58 mile second-day (I was actually expecting today to be easier than yesterday) we arrived here at Little Caliente. We went from Painted Rock past Big Pine, stopped at Little Pine to filter/load water (as we didn't know if there would be any water available anywhere else on the route)...I had just come up to Little Pine the week before scouting water and knew it was there. It was at Little Pine as teh 4 of us were filling up with water that I realized that I am not really equipped to carry enough extra water...my few outings I've done so far were all predicated on having water available at my stops. I'm going to have to re-think this and figure out how to carry more water on my already overloaded bike.

This is our little camp area...my tent is the orange one on the left, with my bike just behind it leaning on a tree. That's Chase already IN his glue/gray tent, and Marcus has the green one behind Chase. Nancy's tent is to the left of mine just out of the picture. That's Nancy sitting on the concrete pad behind my tent.

About a 50 yard walk or so brings us to THE HOT SPRING! Yes, someone went to the trouble to create 3 tubs that are filled with the natural hot sprig that flows out of the side of the hill. Here in the middle of nowhere...hot tubs! There are 3: the upper tub gets the water right out of the ground at it's hottest, then that flows over the wall of the tub into the 2nd tub below it, and that flows into the 3rd tub below that. Brilliant! And AWESOME!

This is tubs 2 and 3...you can see how the overflow to the lower tub works...so each succeeding tub is a bit cooler than the one above it.

Here I am in Tub #1....hot hot hot! (took me a bit to get all the way in)...I don't think a hot-tub has ever felt so wonderful in the history of hot-tubs as this one at this moment. And I am getting a very nice bath in the middle of my trip...wasn't expecting that...BONUS! My sleeping bag will be appreciative to have me clean (although smelling a bit like sulfur).

Here is a shot looking down the little valley from the hot-tubs. Our camp is downhill and to the right of the tubs about 50 yards or so.

Here we are on Sunday morning, all geared up and ready to ride into Santa Barbara (about 28 miles).

Looking up you can see our road slant across left to right...not too far on the other side of that 2nd point is the beginning of the Romero Trail that takes us down into Santa Barbara.

Here Nancy and I are at the gate at the top of our climb, with the Romero Trail start just a quarter-mile or so past here. Marcus and Chase already have their bikes over the gate (we have to lift them over). Lifting fully loaded bikepacking rigs over gates is actually difficult...they are very heavy and SUPER top-heavy (mine especially). They make it hard so-as to keep the dirt-bikes out of these roads.

Looking down into Santa Barbara (we are over 3000' in elevation right here). The Romero Trail which you can see on the left and right runs over 7 miles down from the Camino Cielo road.

Here is a pan of a section of the Romero Trail. It's an amazing trail, with some quite difficult (ie technical) sections, and some fast sections, and some just plain spooky sections. It must have been a monster to make...certainly a LOT of work. And it's quite popular...LOTS of bikes going both directions, and hikers and trail-runners...I had my bell ringing as there were so many people.

I don't have any more pictures, but our little band of four rode thru the streets of Santa Barbara for a few miles, finally taking us to "The Brewhouse" which is right next to the Train Station (where Nancy has her car parked)...that is the official end of the Tour de Los Padres....and a very nice way to end an epic ride for sure (beer and burgers). I'm seriously rethinking this bikepacking thing (as in using my current bike as a bikepacking rig...it's just not made for this)...sure I can do it, but it's nowhere near an optimal situation. My gear is all loaded WAY TOO HIGH on the bike (making it SUPER TOP-HEAVY) and also it's strapped down as good as I can get it, and as I learned on this trip, there are bikes that are way better suited to this sort of thing, where your gear is much more firmly secured to the bike (which is important when you are riding faster speeds such as this group was doing). I'm actually doing some damage to my bike (the cables are in the way of my handlebar bag and are being smashed into the frame)...there are a few spots now where the paint is worn away from my bags.

Also, I had to stop frequently to re-tighten my bag straps, especially on my enormous seat-bag (they call it a "Torpedo bag"). My bike doesn't have ANY room for a "Frame bag" which fits inside the front triangle of the frame, thus I need to pack everything either in either the handlebar bag (strapped to the handlebars up above the front tire and way too high up for the center of gravity) or the seat bag, which is also way too high and is impossible to securely strap down so-that it doesn't sway all over the place and continually loosen the straps as I ride. Bikepacking has really become a thing...and why not? It combines two of my favorite outdoor things into one: backpacking and bike riding. You can cover a LOT more ground on a bike than on foot, although you can't take it into wilderness areas (yet). And the trails you can ride are not the type of trails you'd backpack, just due to the sheer difficulty of most actual hiking trails. But there are routes all over the country/world where bikepacking has become the way to go. I get it...it's a blast! They rule on dirt roads...and there are dirt roads everywhere! 

And so...another successful bikepacking trip, only this time with other people...I learned a lot and it was really fun AND comforting to have other people around (riding/camping alone in the middle of nowhere is a bit spooky). Jeannie picked me up in Santa Barbara on Sunday afternoon, Monday was Memorial Day, and Tuesday morning bright and early I headed up to Sunnyvale for a fast and furious work-trip (came home on Friday). Went out on the mt bike yesterday with a guy from work, and it turns out that my bottom side isn't yet fully recovered from that 122 mile trip (I knew my mtb seat was hard, but until you've ridden 3 long days in a row you don't truly realize that...now I do...and I know that I need a new seat). 

OK...that's my report. Not sure if I will get any more 'bikepacking' trips for a while...it's getting too hot in the interior, the springs are slowing down/stopping their flow making finding water pretty sketchy. But maybe a road-touring trip for a few days, staying near the coast where it's cooler (maybe a Santa Maria to San Diego trip?)...and in August there MIGHT be an Oregon coast north to south road-touring trip in the works...I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this happens...that would be really fun, and also would be my introduction to road-touring which I also really want to start doing.

And so...Summer is here. The Tour de France is just a few short weeks away all of a sudden. 

Game ON!