BURNOUT ROAD - SICK JOKE CX-PLORE

Author overcome by Usain-mania, high on Burnout Road.

Friday night, Brian Ecker's e-mail arrived announcing his open invitation for a "mini-epic" from Winthrop to Conconully and back via the remote forest service roads of the Okanogan. (Seems hilarious that to Brian, an 80-plus miler w/ 9,600 feet of elevation gain rates only a "mini-epic.") This is a route I've been lusting over for a while and thus, Titaniuma Cancellara and I are going to go for it. (That is, if I can come up w/ an appropriate bike to ride. My geared mountain bike is in a state of disrepair right now and I'm not sure if my CX bike is up to it.)

To get us in the right frame of mind, on Saturday TC and I rode what I guess might be considered a mini-mini epic through the Chuckanuts (though to me it was pretty epic): Burnout Road, a bushwack down into the Land of the Lost, followed by Sick Joke--a steep, nasty bastard of a climb that ascends to the Pine and Cedar Lakes end of the world.

Accessed from already steep Fragrance Lake Road, Burnout Road climbs 1,200 feet in less than three miles with four especially steep sections that I'll call the Four Hillingen of the Apocalypse. Above, Scott Young ascends the last one which pitches upwards at 20-plus percent. (The others are similar ranging from about 18 to 22 percent.) Plus it's gravel. I was pedaling my 'cross bike whose lowest gear is a 38-26; ideally, I need a couple lower for epics (or mini-mini epics) like this. 

At the top, the recent logging, while a bit of an eyesore from down below, offers up some amazing island and water views. (See top pic.)

With the Overlander Trail no more, we hike-a-biked about 20 minutes until we found the Rockyard--basically an overgrown, rocky gully--which eventually hooks up with the south terminus of the Lost Lake Trail. From there, it's those remote Land of the Lost roads which lead to, among other places, Mud Lake, Blanchard Mountain, Lake Samish and elsehwhere. We made for Sick Joke which is every bit as evil as Burnout, if not more so given its slippery rocky surface. Admittedly, I had to stop at one spot; something I've not had to do the two recent times I've ridden Burnout.

Once at the top, it was the fun, winding Hemlock Trail down to Arroyo Park, most of which I quite enjoyed on the 'cross bike. In all, it was about 30 miles of rugged riding with 3,600 feet of elevation gain. Not quite Winthrop to Conconully and back, but probably my most rugged day yet on my 'cross bike. 

Here's our route:

CX-PLORING THE CIRRUS BODY FLOAT

My wife and son have been back East all week visiting family and so I had ambitious plans of riding throughout the state both near and far. And while I got in an Artist Point assault and a visit to the Stevens Pass Bike Park (for an upcoming Seattle Times story), for the most part my sub-5 hour Tour de Whatcom has left me pretty much worn out.

So instead, I've been pedaling from my house and enjoying some CX-ploration rides on my cyclocross bike. The above pic is from the Burnout Road Overlook; that's Samish Island and Mount Erie (ouch!) in the distance. Below is from the towers at the top of Galbraith Mountain.  



On both these rides, I was trying something new: a Cirrus Body Float seat post suspension thingee. For months, Charlie Heggem, who's RD of the Mount Baker Hill Climb, has been trying to get me to try one and truthfully, I haven't been interested. (He's involved in a sales and marketing capacity, I believe, with the Bellingham company that makes them.) Last thing I want to do is add anything to my bike, especially something that looks frankly, a little dated.

But after two rides with it installed on my cyclocross bike--totalling about 50 miles, most of that on gravel road and hard-packed trail--I have to admit, I kinda liked it.



On Tuesday, Charlie and I rode Galby and I liked how the Body Float absorbed the bumps on seated gravel road climbs. I felt less jostled and pushed around than normal, able to track better and keep a straighter, more efficient line up the road. (My cyclocross bike is a fairly middle-of-the-road Giant TCX 1; aluminum w/ carbon fork.)

When descending, the differenence was even more noticeable. Fast descents on logging-type roads can be pretty miserable on a 'cross bike w/ cantilever brakes, but on the way down, the bumps felt like they were being gobbled up; I felt a lot more stable and confident and thus was willing to go faster. I found pretty much the same thing the following day on a 30-miler that took me to the top of Burnout Road and down into the Lost Lake basin.

 

I'd be interested to see how the Body Float worked on my rigid-fork, single-speed 29er. But I can't see using it on my full-carbon road bike which is already comfortable as heck and never leaves me sore.

Check the website for more details about it; I don't know if it's available now or will be soon or even how much it costs. (What good am I?)

Riding a road bike w/ skinny 23C tires, Charlie climbed to the Galby Towers and descended the Wonderland Trail. Guess what: he got a flat tire.

BURNOUT ROAD - LOST LAKE RIDE

We so, so wanted to road ride this a.m.--Scott and John just scored new fancy-pants road bikes--but it was raining and wet and all-around nahstee. So we MTB'd to the top of Burnout (four or five pitches at 20-plus percent!) where the view was non-existent. Still, it was better than just about anything else we could've been doing!

Here's our route:

MORE 2011 MONTHLY BIKE PHOTS

Here's July through December. 

July. A lovely summer afternoon climbing the upward-tilted Burnout Road with terrific views overlooking Samish Bay. Samish Island is the foreground (ish) strip of dark forest with super-steep Mount Erie in the distance.

July (part 2). Mount Shuksan as seen through the spokes on one of my repeat rides up the ski area on the Mount Baker Highway. Because of 2011's mega-snowfall, this year the road never opened all the way to Artist Point.

  

August. Mount Shasta Summit Century. Ultra hard, ultra long ("That's what she said" joke goes here.)--130 miles with 14,750 feet or so of climbing, 10-plus hours on a bike. Glad I did it but it was the day I realized that anything longer than about 6 hours begins to enter the This-isn't-a-whole-lot-of-fun-anymore zone. Also in August, I turned 50.

September. Riding across the Skagit Flats on the way to La Conner and back with the Cowboys Titanium. Seventy-three miles, a stop for coffee in L-town, some hellatious town sign sprints thoughout--certainly one of the year's most enjoyable rides.

October. Crazy Jacob Stewart holds onto his bike for dear life after dropping down into a hole atop Anderson Mountain. This was on a cool MTB ride with Jacob, Ryan Rickerts and Scott Young. 

October (part 2). I just really like the colors on this helmet cam photo of Titanium Cancellara pedaling down the Interurban Trail. 

November. Another helmet cam shot, this one during a warm-up lap of the Cross-Border Clash CX race outside Ferndale. That's Glenn Gervais in blue; he won the men's master C race that day.. 

December. I've not taken many bike photos this month. (We've been running too damn much.) Here's a snapshot taken from a helmet cam video I shot of our Samish Loop ride 'n' bushwack. The reason I'm not wearing a helmet is that I'm pointing the camera at myself whilst riding.

Happy New Year, y'all!   

SEPTEMBER SUMMER RIDE

Summer came late to the Northwest this year but when it finally got here, it put it's feet up, made itself comfortable and decided to stay awhile. Another incredible day weather-wise so we headed up Fragrance Lake Road, Lost Lake Trail and to the logged area above the old Dictionary Trail where the views on days like this are out of this world. Beyond the Titanium Cowboys (above) are Bellingham Bay, Lummi and Orcas islands, Western Whatcom County and Canada.

Area Man (me) is proud to announce that for the first time ever, he was able to ride the psycho-steep and usually muddy-slippery-as-hell Lost Lake climb clean on my single-speed. (Please hold your applause 'til the end of the post.) The almost-no-rain-in-the-past-six-weeks was a big help. Still, a first-ever after turning 50 is nice. ('Course, Titanium Cancellara has always been able to ride it clean ...)

Along with the water- and island-side views, with a few pedal strokes to the east, you've got terrific views of Mount Baker, local hills and faves such as Lookout Mountain, Lake Samish, Galbraith, Blanchard, Lost and Mud lakes, Raptor Ridge, etc. and all that. Pretty much everywhere we've mountain biked and run over the past 10-plus years.

Here's John on a stump. Unfortunately, I ran out of film before his dismount. Which was a three-quarter triple half-gainer with a 900 Fakie McTwist Cork thing. Pretty amazing, really.



Whilst we were up there, the Titanium Cowboys posed for this year's holiday card. (Not really; sorta looks like it though.) Return ride was an usually dry and way-fast Lost Lake Trail to Arroyo Park and the outdoor fireplace table at Boulevard Park's Woods Coffee. Terrific super happy fun.

LATE AUGUST MTB, ROAD RIDES

Got in a couple great rides this past weekend. Saturday was mountain biking with Titanium Cancellara. With some bushwacking through a recently logged stretch, we were able to connect the old Burnout Rd.-Land of the Lost-Pine and Cedar Lakes loop, one of our faves but one that had been out of comission for almost a year now. Above, Scott picks his way down toward what remains of the Ender Trail and the Rockyard. Just follow the ridge in the direction of Lost Lake, which you can see in the above pic. (Pine and Cedar lakes are on the ridge beyond Lost Lake.)

Here's a shot that looks a lot like the top photo except when you zoom in and see that Titanium Cancellara was being buzzed by ...

... a Titanium Hummingbird! Cool. It was great to connect this loop again; we bushwacked for probably a half-mile through serious ankle-buster underbrush, but saw a route where we could probably cut the bushwacking in half. Burnout Rd. has four (or five) killer steep stretches and of course, the climb back up to Pine and Cedar is a mega-hill. In all, I rode 28 miles with 3,600 feet of elevation gain. And broke a chain. And was eaten by mosquitoes as Scott and I (mostly Scott) fixed it.

Sunday, I rode the Rabbit Ride for the first time. This group road ride leaves out of Fairhaven Park and is essentially a ride of the Colony Road loop (about 30 miles) at race pace. Self-seeded groups leave at 3-minute intervals with the goal being to catch the groups that leave before you; slower groups leave earlier, faster ones later. Despite my 3-1/2 hours spent climbing up and down the Chuckanuts the day before, hubris made me join the fastest group and I surely paid. I had a heck of a time hanging on to wheels and my time at the front was short and puny in power. Oh well, did the best I could, hung on for most of it before I ended up in no-man's land on my own. Still and all, a great ride and I spent the rest of Sunday totally dead!

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DAY MAKES



Samish Island, Mount Erie and Samish Bay from about the 1,000-foot level of Burnout Rd.

I wanted to get in more climbing so 24 hours after my Mount Baker repeats, I pulled out the 29er and headed up Cleator Road for a sustained 45-minute climb. Followed that up with Burnout Road, off the south side of Fragrance Lake Road. Along with probably the best unobstructed water views (see above and below) around, it's got four crazy-steep pitches that thankfully, aren't super long.

Burnout Road tops out at about 1,800 feet or so and in the old days, before last fall's logging, you could find the So Easy Trail that dropped down beyond Lost Lake, pass behind Samish Lake and then climb up out of the basin to Pine and Cedar Lakes. And maybe you still can, I just need to take the time and make the effort to find it. Today, I wanted to see if I could connect the Burnout Road with the Dictionary Trail and thus Lost Lake. And as I found out you can. Yipee!

At the top of Burnout--which, like Cleator, tops out at about 1,800 feet--just head through the clearing, look north toward B'ham and Chuckanut Mountain and follow the above road to that point right there. Just before you reach the end, there's a semblance of a trail off to the right. Pop down there and in two or three overgrown trail-riding moments, you'll be at the Dictionary. Very cool. This should make for some epically fun, scenic-as-heck loops.

In all, I got in 31 miles with 3,700 feet of elevation gain. Not sure how mountain bike miles and climbing feet translate to road-riding units. I'd think it'd count for more since my mountain bike is much heavier than my road bike and mountain climbs sometimes reach pitches of 25 to 30 percent. Whatevuh--I've got close to 11,000 feet of climbing in two days. (Which is still 5,000 feet less than the Mount Shasta Summit Century.)



DICTIONARY TRAIL UPDATE; MORE TALES OF STUPID FUN

Right. Well, first off I'd like to update something that's of import to the handful of people who are interested in this sort of thing. Those being folks such as myself and my fellow Titanium Cowboys who like to connect the Chuckanut end of the world with the Blanchard and/or Pine 'n' Cedar lakes areas. As Titanium Cancellara (Scott Young) and I found out last weekend (see post below), the Dictionary Trail--or Overlander, as it's called on Square One's Chuckanut Recreation Area map--is kaputski for right now because of logging. But since we'd approached it from the Burnout Road (south) side, I wasn't sure where the trail stops on the Dictionary (north) side. Today I pedaled up via the Fragrance Lake Road-Lost Lake Trail, took a right at the Dictionary and in about 300 yards, had my answer. (See above pic.)

The trail is blocked by a pile of logs and beyond that's it's all new logging roads, a new clear-cut (great views of the Sound though), and lots of scary machinery making lots of scary sounds. So, we'll have to come up with a new way to get our Blanchard-Pine 'n' Cedars lakes on.


Sign warning folks to stay from the logging.

In other news, I wanted to share some e-mails I received in my response to my story in last week's Seattle Times about Stupid Fun. (The story was basically about crazy workouts/races/informal competitions that people come up with on their own.) Brock Gavery of Seattle (who, by the way was featured in Outside magazine a couple years ago for being one of the Fittest Real Men in America) wrote that in August he and two friends biked 120 miles from Ballard to Paradise on the south side of Mount Rainier. The next day, they climbed to Rainier's 14,411-foot summit and the day after that, ran the 93-mile Wonderland Trail which circles the mountain. (I've got a feeling they did it over four days but I'm not exactly sure.)

Dustin Wallace of Ellensburg included a bunch of crazy stuff that he's done. Among them, he and a friend challenged each other to run the Yakima Marathon and then bench press 300 pounds within 20 minutes of finishing. (Their marathon time was 3:59:46; they were able to press 275 pounds.)

Bruce MacLean of North Seattle wrote that he recently rode his bike 50 miles to Mount Si, which he then climbed including the Haystack scramble to the top.

Cool. Love to hear about folks doing stuff like that!

TITANIUM COWBOYS FIND THEMSELVES LOST

Saturday, Scott Young and I headed to the Chuckanuts and up the evil Burnout Road which has three (or four, or maybe even five) steep, seemingly vertical pitches. Above, Scott climbs the last one. (The two-dimensional camera doesn't do it justice; it's really steep.) At the top, we discovered that there's a whole lot of new logging going which ended up altering things dramatically.



Once there--elevation, 1,830 feet; we climbed over 1,600 feet in less than 4 miles to get there--we found the little-used trail off to the right, headed into the woods and started our steepish descent which we anticipated would lead to the Overlander Trail. (For those of you scoring at home, that's the one that leads from the Dictionary. Which, of course, isn't there any longer.) However, after about 300 yards the trail just disappeared, obliterated by a new logging road.) We looked for the trail on the other side of the road but after having no success finding it, we lifted our bikes up onto our shoulders and bushwhacked it in the direction of where we were just positive it had to be.

(This, after I had the daylights scared out of me by the one logger who was up there cutting and who let a tree fall scarily in my direction. It really didn't come close to hitting me but given than it's just about exactly a year since a tree did fall on me--read about it here --I was quite afeared.)

Thing is--and I'm still trying to figure this out--when we started bushwhacking, we had probably already crossed to the other side (the east side) of the Overlander Trail, and though we sure it was ahead of us, it was actually behind us. I'm wondering, does the new logging road follow the Overlander Trail? I'll have to go back up there and check this out. It's a damn shame if it does.

Luckily, after about 45 minutes of bike-carrying bushwhacking, we found the Lost Lake Trail, a few hundred yards east and below the post where the Dictionary used to sit. From there it was the fun-as-heck descent down into and out of the Lost Lake basin and then the Arenburg Forest straightaway on the North Lost Lake Trail.

IT WASN'T SUPPOSED TO RAIN

Forecast said clearing was on the way so John, Vanderstaay and I headed down the Interurban to the Burnout Road and all the way to the top. Lots of climbing on the Burnout with three crazy-steep pitches. Rained harder the higher we got and the descent wet, cold, and slippery. Especially cold. Fast and muddy too, as shown by the above photo of John Clark who, with his mud mustache, resembles Charlton Heston in "Touch of Evil."

A really fun ride. Below, John and Steve make to the top of the second crazy-steep pitch enveloped in a rain cloud.

We shall do more rides like this!