Best Ride 2010 Sun Valley, Idaho… My New Five Star Mountain Bike Location

This year, the boys elected to make our fall MTB adventure a trip to Sun Valley, Idaho.

In 1981 I had skied there during a season long trip across North America, and after reading about the riding in a few of the bike rags, I knew I had to make a return visit to check out it out.

Accessing Sun Valley requires a bit of patience unless you own your own private jet. (as we drove by the nearest airport to Sun Valley we counted 23 on the tarmac) The closest that we could get to by commercial air was Boise, Idaho. We then had to drive for about 3 hours in a rental car. Thankfully, Sun Valley has a number of good bike shops all willing to rent you state of the art equipment for your stay so you don’t have to bring your own bike.

We had our choice of several different brands in either 26 or 29 inch mode. As I had never had the opportunity to ride a 29er, I jumped on this plan. Accommodation is plentiful, and you definitely have the choice of some pretty nice digs. Sun Valley is known as a haunt of the rich and famous and by the average size of the houses we saw, the locals don’t seem too fazed by the current recession.

TL knew a few contacts that live in Sun Valley that he had met through other sporting endeavours and they kindly took us under their wings to show us the local area. We might have been a bit concerned when we first met this group of five as their average age was 67. After they put the boots to us on the first day, it became clear that these guys are die-hards, putting in 2 to 4 hour rides, 4 to 5 days a week, June to October. They then fill up their winter, doing the same thing on XC skis. The base altitude in Sun Valley is about 2000m with many of the climbs peaking out in excess of 3000m. i.e. These guys are riding at altitude. What an inspiration!!!

Day 1 was spent just north of town in an area known as Dry Horn Gulch. The altitude really seemed to make the climbs very difficult. Short kickers put you in the red zone, and although you would back off when the trail levelled, you never seemed to get your heart rate back under control before the next kicker arrived. In general the trails were very smooth and flowy with reasonable grip. (as long as your bike had tires with reasonable tread; a few of ours did not which we corrected for the rest of the week)

Sun Valley has some pretty cool terrain with trees appearing only on the western sides of the ridges. Clearly, precipitation must be at a premium and falls rarely on the eastern slopes.    They have also had a number of forest fires over the last few years and a constant feature of the whole trip was swooping down trails amongst burned out trees. The contrast of black and white makes for some pretty good pictures. Day 2 was spent a few miles south of town in an area called Greenhorn Gulch. The drive out revealed some awesome houses, quite a few were architectural masterpieces, and many seemed to exceed 10,000 square feet in size. What do you do with all that house?

The ride was amazing, especially the last 10 to 15 km which revealed some wickedly fast descents with bermed up corners. This trip was progressing as planned: Day 2 better than Day 1.

Day 3 saw us shuttle about 50 miles north of Sun Valley to an area around Stanley with the local Pink Fairy Shuttle Company.   Once again the riding was significantly different with a good portion of the ride through a recently burned area. We started high, and finished low, the definition of shuttling; but most of the riding was only slightly downhill requiring big ring hammering. There is nothing quite so fun as 5 guys completely pinned, trying to take each other down on a trail like this. The day ended with a quick trip to Redfish Lodge for a beer with a view of the Sawtooths in the distance.  Out last day of riding was absolutely the best of the week. We once again shuttled north of Sun Valley into the Stanley area. We met up with our local friends, and then drove up to the start of our ride.  By now, most of us were starting to acclimatize a bit to the altitude, and for all of us, this was the best that we felt on the climbs. We headed up into the Cloudburst Mountains and eventually peaked out at 3050m. The view was fantastic. We headed down into a big bowl that we all thought would serve up some sweet back country skiing in the winter.

Lunch was beside a mountain lake, and then the fun really started.  The first part of the descent was about an hour long and was quite technical with lots of rocks and creek crossings. Eventually we landed in a large valley bottom with all the fall colours on display.  The pitch continued down and the speeds reached quite ridiculous levels. After another hour, we reached the plum of the trip, the descent down Fourth of July creek. This one was off the chart. Smooth wide trails following the contours down the creek valley. The trail swooped into little side crevices of the main valley, and these always had huge bermed corners at the end. I swear the average speed for the descent down here was about 30kph with parts of the descent over 50. Pretty darn fun on a mountain bike. And, for the finish celebration, one of our local buddies was kind enough to remember to bring a cooler of Stella’s.

Sun Valley…. Don’t miss it!!!

Levi’s King Ridge Gran Fondo

Gran Fondos seem to be the flavour of the month these days. Last November I had heard about this ride after its inaugural year turned out to be a great success. In fact, the organizers of this years RBC Whistler Gran Fondo went down last year to learn what they could to make the whistler race a success.

Lev’s race has three distances like most of the Italian fondos do. The Pico is about 30 miles, The Medio about 60, While the Gran Fondo is about 100 miles. Last year they had about 2500 riders, this year they has 6000 spread about evenly over all three courses. While the Whistler Fondo seemed to have “race” associated with it, Levi’s race is more attuned to the Italian versions which are a ride to celebrate cycling culture. There were certainly people out “racing” it (Victoria native Max Plaxton has won it two years running) but the vast majority were out to enjoy the ride and this certainly presented a very different atmosphere when compared to the Whistler race.

The “century” course seemed pretty difficult to me when compared to the “race” to Whistler. Mind you it was 52km longer, but while Whistler seemed to be a long steady push, King Ridge threw a lot of short steep kickers at you. The group I was with rode together until the top of King Ridge about 65 km in. Shortly after that, I got dropped on a short climb and then the agony began. It seemed that for the next 10 km I was dangling off the back of the group about 100 m back. Despite all my efforts, I could not bridge back on and after trying for quite a while, I noticed the 80km marker and thought that seeing as I was barely halfway through I had better  conserve a bit of energy if I had any intention of finishing. The boys disappeared and I went into recovery mode.

The last half of the course is spectacular.
 

A wicked descent off of King Ridge is followed by about 20 km of riding south along the ocean.

The organizers set up a fantastic aid station right on the ocean just before the last kicker of the course: the infamous “Coleman Grade”. This part of the course was used in the Tour of California in 2009 and bit a few pro cyclists in the ass then also. Once up the grade it was a 30 km ride back to the start. Finish time 6 hours.

The finish area was set up outdoors with a carnival atmosphere. There were live bands, lots of food venues and sponsors booths. All in all, a very well organized event and well worth the trip to Santa Rosa. And the real beauty is, if you stay for a few days afterwards, you can go wine tasting or continue riding your bike in the Sonoma/Napa area, or head down the California coast like I did.

Climbing Mt. Hood

For me, this summer has been one of those years when I learned that sometimes you just have to listen to your body. Accumulated fatigue can take a long time to go away when you block out heavy training in March and April, race a 9 day 1300 km May race at a fairly intense pace, add the BC Bike Race in June, and sprinkle in assorted day races as icing on the cake. July comes along and you tell your body to go… and it reacts by immediately informing you that you have to be kidding. Guys you  normally pace with ease are soon disappearing into the distance. Although your ego may tell you differently, there really is only one solution. A solid block of easy riding with the emphasis on fun is what the doctor ordered, and I made sure July and early August filled that bill.

By mid August, I felt a little bit more pop in my legs so I started a bit of a build in anticipation of the RBC Gran Fondo to Whistler and Levi’s King Ridge Gran Fondo in Santa Rosa, California. I had some time off in late August and as usual made my annual pilgrimage to Hood River, Oregon to abuse my trusty Roberts sailboard on the Columbia River Gorge. Usually, I bring my mountain bike for no wind days; this year I brought my road bike too. 

My son was attending a summer ski camp on the slopes of Mt. Hood with the Whistler Mountain Ski Club and needed to be picked up after the camp was over if he wished to stay with us in the Gorge. This sounded like a good opportunity to put a few miles of climbing in as training for my fall plans.

The base of the ski area at Mt. Hood is at about 2500m elevation and Hood River is pretty close to sea level. 2500m elevation over about 80km distance… about an average 3% gradient. Sounds perfect. My wife had to be at the mountain to pick Blake up with all his ski gear so my ride home was already in the bag. If the day dawned with a no wind forecast, this trip was sounding pretty much like a no brainer.

Sure enough pick up day arrived and the forecast was for marginal conditions on the water. Pick up time at the ski area base was to be about 1030hr, so I was up at 6 to fuel up for the climb ahead. Even though temperatures in the Gorge routinely reach the high 30’s Celsius, early mornings in late August can be quite cool. I was also riding to altitude, and it makes sense that if the kids are skiing, the temperature on Mt. Hood has to be reasonably cold. Arm warmers and knee warmers were the order of the day and I was soon on the bike.

The ride out of Hood River is quite scenic as you wind you way through rolling terrain filled with cherry and pear orchards. Mt. Hood is pretty much always in view so there is little doubt which way to go. If you turn around, Mt. Adams is behind you so that anyway you look a snow capped volcano dominates the horizon.

The first 20 km are pretty flat and they roll by pretty quickly. Soon you are on the steeper north flank of Mt. Hood. The road circumnavigates in a clockwise direction around Mt Hood as you ascend to the ski base on the south side. Road quality is excellent and at this time of the morning there is little traffic passing you by. By 0900hr I was still wearing every piece of clothing I had brought. Temperatures can plummet precipitously to the low single digits when you ride in shady areas beside glacial streams.

The scenery is spectacular. The broad focus is the snow capped mountain, but the narrow focus reveals signs of its power. Road washouts in various states of repair are fairly common caused by early season glacial snow melt. The view changes with every km. ridden. This is not a boring ride.

The gradient continues to increase as you ascend the mountain. Eventually you turn off the highway for the final 12 km ride to Timberline. The gradient on this road approaches 10% to 12% in places and your legs are certainly feeling the effects of the days efforts.

The last few hundred meters are through the parking lots of Timberline. You finish by  weaving your way through skiers exiting the mountain after a hard days skiing and eventually reach the snow.

Not a bad way to finish an epic climb in the middle of the summer!