I had done a mountain bike on the Santa Ana River Trail a few years before with Keith, 29 miles from Angelus Oaks down the Post Office loop to South Fork then back on Middle Control Road. This time he invited me to join him and a couple others to bike the full SART from South Fork back to his house in Redlands, 39 miles with 2600ft elevation gain and plenty of total loss. The others clearly more capable bikers than me, my old bike being one-fifth to one-tenth the worth of the other individual bikes, and myself being deep in a pandemic fitness slump, I was fully expecting to be the weak link and struggling to keep up. The bigger question to me was what would break first, me or my bike; despite my 27-speed bike dropping down to 3 functional gears by the end of the ride, I think I was the one that broke first.
I was the only one that opted not to start with a jacket layer and the cool mountain air cut through my lungs and goosebumped my arms for the first few minutes out of South Fork. Happily I quickly warmed as I tried to keep pace with Keith and had no regrets about the jacket. This upper part of the trail was much as I remembered it, fast, swooping corners in and out of gullies, often with thin screed out sections of trail and steep dropoffs to suffer if my balance was ever so slightly off. To add to the challenge many of the shady corners had surprising patches of snow covering the trail from the freak thunderstorm event about a week prior. The section closest to Glass Rd remained one of my favorites, particularly flowy and fast singletrack. I more-or-less managed to keep up with the others until we started the Middle Control Rd climb. Here they smoked me while my low fitness levels let me down more than my bike. Eventually I reached Angelus Oaks. After catching my breath and a quick snack we continued on, the rest of the ride now new to me.
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| Looking up Mill Creek |
After dropping off the forest road back onto singletrack, I was surprised that somehow the trail seemed even steeper and narrower. I clinged white knuckled to my handlebars for dear life hoping I did not bounce my way off the cliff. I was managing until we reached Thomas Hunting Grounds where my rear shifter cable snapped. Keith locked it in place and I took my considerable handicap, from 27 speeds now down to three. I did my best but certainly began to limp further behind the others as we continued.
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| Dropping off Morton Peak |
At the base of Morton Peak I was severely tempted to call it quits, ride out the highway and meet the others in Redlands but decided to fight on up the last uphill, slowly walking my bike. I was in pain, my calves burning but made it up to the others for the final screaming downhill. Traversing some of the Tertiary sandstones, the trail was different in style, perhaps not quite so steep but still technical with plenty of challenge. We rode out the creek and through the backroads of Redlands, eventually getting back to Keith's. After downing a milkshake I shuttled Keith back up to South Fork before heading home. It was a solid, exhausting day with 5 hours of dense activity. It would have been better if I was in better shape and my bike as well but it was still excellent to be able to get out for a bigger ride.
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