It’s definitely worth the 4,000 foot climb | Mountain Biking Indian Falls Ridge

Whoa! It's time once again to get out and ride something new. I'm in the Lost Sierra, and this is the latest and greatest piece of single track from the Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship. It's Indian Falls. Woo! Hold my breath. I've got a 3,500 foot climb up ahead of me, and this is probably, eventually, gonna be a mostly downhill trail by the time the Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship finishes with this whole master plan, and there will probably be very few people ever riding this trail up, but I'm gonna be one of them. This is Mount Huff. Whoa, was that Poison Oak? Dang it. We're actually a little lower than Everstoke starting out down here, so maybe there is Poison Oak in this neck of the woods. Yeah, this is just one of the many awesome options off the top of Mount Huff. If you did this off the top of Mount Huff, you're kind of stranded out here, and you have to ride 10 miles back to the edge of town, so not really recommended as a shuttle yet. Oh, wow, make the turn to the beautiful view. Yeah, things are scarred up from the burn, from the Dixie Fire, the biggest fire in California history, but everything's coming back, bigger and badder than ever. Trying to get out early for the solo ride today. It is about nine o'clock already, so I did my best. This ride is about 45 minutes or so from Everstoke. Another Everstoke-adjacent awesome adventure. Well, I haven't done it yet. I've just looked at the map. I think it's awesome. We're gonna see if it's awesome right here, right now. I'm doing this one as an out and back, so it's kind of nice. I'll get to see most of what I'm doing. This is Indian Falls Ridge, and this just randomly appeared on Trailforks a couple weeks ago, so I'm always keeping an eye on everything, and it's like Christmas morning when a new trail appears on Trailforks, especially when it's in the La Sierra, the beautiful Pacific Midwest. Man, it really does look like Poison Oak. I think it is, and I think I gotta make sure I scrub down after this. I always thought it was crazy. People ride to the top of Mount Huff, but I guess I'm doing it today. We'll see if I make it to the tippy top. I have to sadly admit that, you know, I've been riding with a hip pack now for a couple years. I'm off the full backpack, which means I'm carrying a lot less water, but I was totally ignorant to the fact of how much less water I'm carrying, so I usually carry three of these bottles on a big ride. These are only 500 milliliters, so basically I'm only carrying a liter and a half of water with me on all these rides, which I think is a pretty good testament to Element and getting me through all this stuff when literally I should be having three liters of water if it's a mega ride like this, but the great thing about a ride like this, if I get torn up, if I'm done, turn around, I'll be at the bottom very quickly. There is no way. I'm making it through a ride like this on only 1.5 liters of water. That's why every ride, pre-ride, during ride, post-ride, I've got Element, the fine sponsor of today's video, in my bottle, and because I've got a refrigerator in my van, most pre-ride and post-ride drinks are these new Element sparkling waters. I just tried the grapefruit for the first time about 30 seconds ago. What was I waiting for? I'm just not a big fan of grapefruit in real life, but in Element life, it's fantastic, but of course I'm taking these little hydration mix packets with me along for every single ride. Element is just the best. It checks every single box, tastes fantastic, doesn't make me jittery, but keeps me fired up, doesn't mess with my stomach, and doesn't have a pound of sugar. The Element thesis is simple. Out with sugar, in with salt. They believe that most people, especially active, healthy people that get out and sweat a lot, need more salt in their diet, not less, to perform their best. Over the past year, I have been putting myself through so many tough workouts, tough bike rides, and tough days of manual labor out in the hot sun. The one thing I bring along for all of them is Element in my water bottle. I haven't had a cramp, a headache, or even that general tiredness that comes along with a lack of electrolytes ever since I started using Element. The best way to get started with Element is to use my link, drinkelement.com slash BKXC. Put in an order for Citrus Salt. It's the most nice, mild flavor that everybody loves. I love it the most. And then, with that order, you will get a free eight-pack sample pack, and you'll be able to taste all the different flavors of the Element Rainbow and figure out which one you like the most. And you better try every single one because now I'm kicking myself for not trying grapefruit sooner. This is fantastic. The best part about getting started is that Element has a no-questions-asked return policy. Just email them, ask for a refund. They'll give you your money back. You are taking no risk with your first taste. Head on over to drinklement.com slash BKXC, to get started and get your hydration sorted. Oh yeah, I was referencing the other Mount Huff rides at some point, and I lost my train of thought. Indian Falls, this is one of them. The regular Mount Huff ride, which everyone knows and loves. Super fast, super smooth, awesome. And now there's a new option called Tollgate, which kind of parallels the regular Mount Huff trail, and a little bit more technical. I haven't ridden it yet. Hoping to ride it soon and get a video for you guys. And then the last riding video with Sarah and I over on Taylor Creek, also off the top of Mount Huff. So it's just so cool. There's gonna be more. They're always building more. Big shout out to the Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship. And of course, my new thing I've been doing with every ride video, donate $100 to the local trail stewardship that takes care to build, maintain, and keep all this single track flowing. Thanks to the Trail One Treasury. And we have been kicking butt with some awesome donations this year. 4,000 to Crockett Hills for the Crockett Handlebar. 3,000 over to the Kajabi Trails for the Hell's Gate Grips. Still building up the treasury for the Slickrock Stem and the Rockville Stem and the Viking Stem. So once we get to a nice amount, we'll donate that. Gotta sell a few more. And whenever we can, I try to put all the donations through Trailforks so you can actually see, and it's transparent that it actually did happen. And yeah, this is my new setup with the new Top Cap Silver Shine with the Rockville Stem in silver, aka clear matte. This is just what the aluminum looks like before it gets dyed a different color. Oh yeah. Here we go. Keep pumping. It looks like there's some good whoop-de-doo jumps throughout this thing, or should I say strategic grade reversals to help water shed properly. Sarah and I are currently contemplating our next phase of life. I definitely wanna spend most of my time up at Everstoke, which works for me. I can be in the van. I can hose myself off. But for Sarah, working from home, she has the flexibility to work from Everstoke, but it has to be a comfortable place, out of the shade, not a bunch of noise, not a bunch of stuff going on, just a nice office environment where she can get her work done and focus and be comfortable. And we had that with the tiny house here and there, but now tiny house is getting booked out, regular people coming and enjoying it, which is fantastic. I hope you get to come check it out someday. So we got to figure out our own little thing. I'm thinking of a travel trailer. There's some pretty good brand new ones that are a little shorter in the $35,000 range, which just seems too good to be true. I know the travel trailers have a bad rap for longevity. They don't last that long, but if we can get that thing to last for seven years or something, it has heating, it has cooling, it has good tables to sit at, a fridge, a stove, all these little amenities that would make staying at Everstoke longer a possibility. And then I can drive my van off a damn cliff, get rid of it, or just trade it in at the dealership. And I'm very much looking at electric cars right now because holy moly, 14 miles per gallon, 400 mile round trip, $5 a gallon for gas. I'm like at 140 bucks or so round trip every time I go to Everstoke and basically go up twice a month. So 280 bucks towards an electric car payment and I'll have enough solar probably to charge the car. And if I get a Tesla, there's much better charging network all along the way up to Everstoke. If I get something else, like an Ioniq 5, which I think is pretty cool. And it's a little more difficult for the charging stuff along the way, but I can figure it out. If anybody has ideas in the comments, let me know. And I'm also looking at leasing. Just have that thing for three years and give it back. I am so worn out and tired of maintenance. The van feels like a disposable object. Yes, I put about 30,000 miles on it every year, but I was so religious about all the maintenance, all the stuff the dealership wanted me to do, I did. And I still feel like the van is just about to go right as I have it paid off. My $800 a month car payment and then boom, what was it worth? Well, okay, it was worth it. I did get to travel the country. It's so amazing to hide the bikes in the van, sleep in the van. There's amazing things about the van, but I got the cheaper van and it only cost me. I'm going to be a lease man. I'm going to put $0 down. It's their problem if something messes up, not mine. And especially with electric cars. In three years, maybe there's a battery revolution. I trade it in and get a new one. A little spooky through here. Do some charcoal drawings. So that first part was about 1,400 foot climb. Still 2,000 feet to go, at least, probably more. Oh yeah, feels like something's watching me. Dang, doing a ride like this on a weekday when most likely only a couple of people ride this trail a week. And I don't have the newer iPhone with like the satellite SOS thing that detects if I crash. Yeah, it gets me thinking. Gotta be careful, but I also want to go fast on a downhill. As always, I'll have my ride log in the description. Check it out so you can see exactly what I did. And hopefully at least one or two of you actually gets out here and rides it. I always get a little demoralized where I don't think anybody's actually watching these videos and going out and ride. Please tell me you are, please. I do meet people every once in a while that have done a bunch of stuff. And really, I don't care if you, you don't have to travel the world. You don't have to do a 20 state road trip, but for God's sakes, please at least drive four hours from your house. If there's something really cool nearby, it's worth it. And your car probably gets much better gas mileage than mine. Wow, this is cool. So far, so good. These wildflowers. Oh, the green, whoa. I didn't know butterflies eat poop. Ran over some coyote bobcat poop. There was like 50 butterflies on it. Whoops. Wow, that's a, let's see if I can get a shot of this. Gonna have to keep my mouth closed on the way down here. Swallow a couple of butterflies. Oh man, I'm going to be coming down this thing so fast. I got to remember once I get back into the trees that there's going to be that right turn. Just a little bit. Just, just going to walk a little bit, just to catch, catch the breath a little. Just me and a million butterflies. Bad thing about horseflies, when they get you, they get you and it hurts, but good thing is they're easy to slap away. Slow pokes. I need a ponytail. Not much of a trailhead where I started. A room for a couple of cars and I kind of feel like it's a very easily break-in-able spot, so I put away some of my hard drives, locked them in the glove box. I could lose my laptop, I could lose material things and get an insurance claim, but losing footage that I haven't edited yet and I haven't uploaded yet, that's not, not good, can't do that. That's precious. Man, I can't believe so many people with vans aren't able to like really block out people from seeing what's inside. Like the number one thing is the, the partition, the curtain between the cab, the driver's seat and behind and not many vans have that. Whoa, another butterfly frenzy. Sorry guys. I'm just so surprised. Covering on windows. People are very lackadaisical. Maybe I'm just a hyper paranoid, but I've also never had my car broken into for a reason. I just saw some pretty good bear prints. Let's see if they're still on the trail here in some spot. Just always looks like a little kid's foot, the back foot. Take my word for it, it's not gonna really photograph well with the camera either. Oh wow, that photograph's pretty good though. Hopefully. Oh man, hidden pedal strike stump right there. That is not good. How can I warn myself? You can't tame everything on a trail for sure. You don't want to, but there was definitely a confluence of events that made that seem extra dangerous with all the big foliage on the trail. It's a little funny. I went into this not knowing how many miles and knowing the rough elevation, I just kind of added up all the climbing segments. But like I said, you get tired, you turn around, you go back downhill. You'd be done in five minutes. Goes quick. Maybe 25 minutes. Let's hope. I'm still climbing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Got a special treat for myself at the top. Hopefully it's still cold. I'm getting close. Have to be. Nice, sponsored by Mike's Bikes. Okay, so that is the top. That is the start. But I do think I want to go over to the tippy top. Wait a second. I don't want to lose a bunch of elevation though. You know what? I think I'm just going to call it. I know, I know my limits. I'm going to find a nice little rock over here. Have a seat, have a snack. Still cold. Okay. I'm excited. Ride something new. Whoa. Tire shredders up top. Oh. Hey, the grip is good. I'm surprised. I was ready to be slipping out everywhere. Yeah. A berm turn. That is a precious commodity out here. Love to see it. Whoa. You can see how these mules here could hide a stump or a rock. Just turns into trail camouflage. Whoa, soft spot. Oh, I think this is already that spot where there was that stump that I marked out with the X on the trail. Yeah, right here. Oh, man. A lot of pedal height stumps on this little section. Whoa. No butterflies yet though. Woo. Yeah, pump through it. Nice. Beautiful. I am keeping my heels pointed down. Ready for something to come out and bite me. Whoa. Whoa, where's it going? Ha ha. Yeah. Nice mellow flow. Can't really go much faster with how slippery it is and stuff. Kind of got that perfect in the zone feel. Woo, yeah. Hey, that was one of them that I walked up. It didn't seem so steep going down. Going up, it's plenty steep. Yeah, Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship has a really nice master plan website now. Before they had kind of a map that you couldn't really zoom in on. It was like a PDF or whatever that was low resolution. So I would see all these different trails and be like, where is that? What is that? There's gonna be two big old ones behind Everstoke eventually when they get the funding and build it. But for all this Indian Falls area, I need to go back on the website and kind of see what the other plans are. Cause it's all there. It's all public. Ooh. A little more sharp. Weebles wobble, but they don't fall down. Okay, now I'm back in butterfly territory. I'm gonna have to talk like this. Probably a whole different adventure on an e-bike. Zip right up, zip right down. Choose your own adventure. All the trails from the top. I haven't had the chance to ride any of the super light e-bikes. Very curious. Cause for me, the heavy e-bikes just, it ruins the flow for me. It's too heavy. I don't feel like I'm nimble. I'm not able to do all this. Be really in the zone. Oh man. That's cool. Whoa, that snuck up on me. Oh, I'm still climbing. Got a little kickback. Whoa, pinch point. Oh man, adventure supreme. Oh, almost had a bad pedal strike, but I just kind of tapped it on the top. Man, it's crazy. I can remember all this little bits, but then even crazier, you come back and ride this trail again in like three years, you'll still kind of remember it. I love that. So interesting what our brains are tuned to. Wow, here we go. Oh, more poop on the trail with the butterflies, which means my turnoff will be right here. Power down. Okay, new adventure. More climbing. Yeah, these big old adventure rides definitely get me more intrigued about the super light e-bikes, as long as they last. You don't want the trade-off of blasting through the battery and then having a heavy bike that you have to mess with the rest of the day. I'm not a purist about the e-bike thing, but I am a purist about going fast downhill and feeling amazing. For me, love the climbs, love the views, but if the downhill isn't fun, it's really not worth it. Man, the e-bike thing still kind of gets me with the constant, oh, how much battery? Okay, how much did that climb use? That used this much. Okay, what power do I need to be in versus I'm just going for a ride right now. Yes, I need to worry about how much element I have and how many snacks I have, but push comes to shove. You can make it down. I'm already calculating that, like the calculating the e-bike battery things. If you don't have to think about it, then it's nice, but I think you need the big boy e-bike to not think about it. Oh, so much predator poop. Wow, look at this, up and over, huh? Not a problem. Yeah, a little confused. I would've made it. Would've got it. This is a real middle of nowhere adventure. I like it. Welcome to hell. I like it. Thought maybe I was going down. Crazy. It looks like it goes up and over to the right, but we're actually going this way. Yeah. Love it. Do some tough route finding through there, but that was awesome. Tall grass and the dark socks. Not great for ticks. I'll have to do an eagle eye check near the bottom. Cool. Oh, okay. So that was just a little loop. What the heck? That doesn't seem right. Did I go the wrong way? There was a lot going on up there. Didn't even think of checking the map because everything just flowed through perfectly. I think I just go back and do all that fun stuff again and then look for the turnout because if I try to go up this, it's just going to zap me. So let's do a second one. Second chance. Oh, it's tough. So tough. I'll get it next time. Maybe I'll be on a little smaller bike next time. I am ready to go back to the 160, 150 style or 150, 150, whatever the Ritmo is. I think that's kind of the perfect one for me. I love having more downhill plush and being more confident, but I really like being able to get the technical climbs and this bike is a little too big to get everything I want to get. That's my excuse at least. And I'll keep using it. I don't know what I'm going to say when I get the other bike. That one on the right actually goes all the way too. Probably the actual trail. I'm just moto styling over everything. Okay. Eyes up. This is what I saw on the right and that doesn't look like a trail. Okay, but it does. There it is. So hard to see. Okay. We're in adventure supreme territory now, especially with this crazy trail, all these challenges. That burned up the legs real good. Come on. No way. Okay. Well, I guess this rides both ways. Hmm. Gloves are off. Needs a few more tires. Some more traffic. This is going to be a big old adventure. Head on over to patreon.com slash BKXC if you want to see the extended cut. Those videos usually come out a week early or so. Sometimes even earlier. It all depends on the schedule. Ooh. Massive archive of rides. Tons and tons of stuff over there on the Patreon. Three bucks a month. Best deal in the business. I've also got my BKXC map. If you're ever curious where I've been, if you've got ideas of going someplace, if you just Google BKXC map, it'll come up and you'll see all my ride videos from everywhere. I get so many emails from people trying to plan a trip and yeah, not so much in the trip planning business, but you can look at all of those videos and get a really good idea of what you can do. I think there might be some value in getting AI to read through all of the transcribed text in my videos, all my podcasts, and have like a little chat bot that people can get vacation advice from. Because I said it all at some point. And of course the trail one list. That's a great place to get ideas for great rides. It's funny, I spend so much of my time like trying to categorize or rate trails or say what's the best. And it's a part of my job for sure. It's totally part of me being the traveler that I am. And so much of it always comes down to how the turns are. You can have these big, fast sweep. See, that's the case in point. So you have this big, fast sweeping section that's just so fantastic. And then you go into a white knuckle, drag your brakes. You don't wanna drag your brakes, but you almost have to drag your brakes turn. And it's like, that's everything that keeps most trails from being amazing, from being world-class. And just like our Everstoke trails, it's kind of the first draft. We go through it, you build it. And then over the years you maintain and make the turns better and it becomes so much better. But it's very easy to be a critic. And I very much am a critic. And until every single berm is fixed at Everstoke, I can't complain about everyone else's trail. So I've got a lot of work to do on my own. I was just seeing if this was gonna go over the top. Maybe. I have taken a wrong turn. Son of a gun. I didn't recognize any of that stuff. Oh man. 500 foot climb back. I'm still climbing. Okay. Pretty much out of my element now. As in I ran out of my hydration drink. Just from this little spur. I got carried away. I'll make it. Just got to get up here and it's all downhill. Okay. Four hours later, 18 miles in. No more climbing. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Nice. They caught me. Yeah, there we go. The real deal. Nice. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. There we go. Oh, I'm getting far out. This is a beautiful thing. Fantastic. That's cool. Oh, it's going right. Yeah. Oh man. Yeah, they really aren't jumps. They are just like drainage things and they're awesome. Maybe this one, let's see. Oh yeah, a little bit. Little baby jump. Oh yeah. Through the duff. Little bit of this dirt road and then back on into the poison oak region, I think. Whoa. Making shapes. Not sure how much I want to lean into the bush. Hurt now or hurt later. Isn't that all the choices of life? Oh, was that poison oak? Dang it. Tough part is on the tires. Get the tires in the van. I take the front tire off when I put the bike away. Whoa. Oh man. What a diabolical view. Oh baby. I see the van. Oh, took my eyes off. No busted windows either. Internal temperature, a thousand degrees. 116. Cold as ice. Oh man. That tastes good. Well, if I trade in the van, I need to be able to have some kind of mini fridge, some kind of plug in my future vehicle because I can't do it without the cold drinks. And then you're gonna need a tent to be able to change after the ride. The van is such a nice mountain biker machine, but back down the mountain into Quincy for a couple of post-ride hot dogs at the Rich Bar Tap Room. It's been so long since I had a hot dog. Hopefully there's nothing stuck in my teeth right now. That was a perfect post-ride meal. Holy moly, I just got service to be able to check the stats on the Strava, 21 miles, 4,000 feet of climbing. Holy moly. I guess I thought I was gonna do 3,500 and then I took the wrong term and added the extra 500. So that's exactly what it should have been. I got a king of the mountain going up that lower climb because only two of us have ever done it. 48 minutes, a new record. Amazing. When I do this climb again, I don't think I'll be going all the way to the top. I'll probably do the exact same climb, stop at Indian Falls 2, do that loop, and then come down just like I did. That was a super fun. That lower section was a hoot. And then that Indian Falls 2 was just a weird, cool, rocky thing. Very, very cool. So getting up to the trailhead is a dirt road, but it's actually a really nice dirt road. So it's a bit of adventure in the van, but I didn't feel intimidated whatsoever. And then when you get to the trailhead, you just park on the side of the dirt road and there's actually quite a bit of room for cars to be parked there. So all in all, pretty good. It is a bit of a bummer about the possible poison oak because that stuff is just gonna grow and grow and grow all summer. Hopefully it's not poison oak and it's just regular oak. And I was paranoid, but I did wipe myself down after the ride. So hopefully I don't get any little... Also a good shout out to Midtown Coffee. I stopped in the morning to get a breakfast sandwich. I got an agle. So it's a bagel, sausage and egg and cheese. And it was sizable. I'm always worried about, should I get tooth of things and eat too much? But one agle was fine. I think it was like seven bucks or so. Really good grab and go before your ride. I am feeling surprisingly good after that big old ride. The one thing that's bothering me is my hips. My hip pack digs in. I got bony hips. Any other skinny people out there, do you have a hip pack that you can ride all day in and it doesn't just dig in? Let me know in the comments, please. And one more big time, thank you to the Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship, getting it done in California of all places, writing the grants, getting the boots on the ground, building miles and miles and miles of new trail for all of us to enjoy every single year. I can't wait until they finish the Beckworth Peak Trail. That'll be on the channel as soon as they finish it, punch it through that last bit of mileage. I've got to go ride the toll gate option off of Mount Huff. I've got to go ride the regular Mount Huff to show it off. There's so much good Everstoke adjacent, Lost Sierra, Pacific Midwest goodness. I hope you come and ride it sometime. Hey, do me a favor, go ride it, please. And maybe I'll see you on the trail.