Another Sunday morning; another shop ride with the gang from Summit Cyclery. Just six fellows gathered today in front of the bike shop for the outing. Marco, one of the store managers, was present and would be the ride leader for the day. He was mounted on a slick new carbon fiber Rocky Mountain “Thunderbolt” 27.5-inch bicycle with a 1×11 drivetrain. At about 8:30 am we started pedaling at a leisurely pace in an easterly direction, riding city streets until getting out into the country. We continued heading east on unpaved roads, passing through Tlalixtac and then veered toward the foothills that form the northern rim of the Oaxaca Valley. We were headed into one of the several valleys that drain from the Sierra Norte. To this point the riding had been easy — the dirt roads were smooth and the terrain was flat — so no one had even broken a sweat. Then suddenly the road turned into a rock garden. Marco was in the lead and charged into the rocks with gusto. We all heard the “Pop!” and “Whoosh!” as the sidewall of his rear tire was punctured by a sharp rock. A quick examination showed a one-inch tear in the tire. Too bad, as the tire — like the bike — was brand new! It would have been a long walk back into Oaxaca if not for a number of plastic soda pop bottles littering the roadside. One of these was the right size to take a slice from the middle to make a splint to put inside the tire so an inner tube could be installed and inflated, making the bike rideable for the journey home. As the saying goes: “All’s well that ends well.”
Category: Foothills
Countryside, Foothills, GPS, MTBing, Photos
San Cristobal Loop
by Larry • • 0 Comments
Continuing our recent excursions exploring the Etla Valley west of Monte Alban, Larry and Albi set out at 9 am on a warm and sunny morning on Thursday, 8 December to ride a little-used jeep road that drops down the side of the mountain from San Cristobal to El Carrizal. This road apparently serves solely to provide access to the farms and a few homes scattered along a burbling brook used to irrigate some of the fields in the valley. We drove west from Oaxaca city and parked in the same spot we used as a staging area for a ride to Cuilapam on 23 November 2016, recounted in an earlier post on this web site entitled, “A Final Ride In Oaxaca.” From this vantage point we pedaled into San Pedro Ixtlahuaca and proceeded to make the long climb up the main road which leads to San Cristobal and Cuatro Venados. Since both of us have ridden this way before and the climb is tedious, we were delighted when a passing truck offered us a ride on the steepest part of the climb. As it happened, the driver had spent a few years in Denver and spoke excellent English. We had a great conversation for the mile or two we hitched a ride to the top of the mountain. In summary, we covered a distance of 16.6 miles (26.7 kms) on today’s outing, with an elevation gain and loss around the loop of 2675 feet (815 meters). The high point was at San Cristobal at 7226 feet (2202 meters) and the low point was at one of the creek crossings at 5196 feet (1584 meters). It took a bit less than four hours to finish riding the loop.
Countryside, Foothills, MTBing
Good Intentions Gone Awry
by Larry • • 0 Comments
Today (Sunday, 11 September 2016) the Nitos group sponsored a ride in the countryside to a presa in the hills east of San Bartolo Coyotepec. It seemed this outing would be a good subject for a new post here at OaxacaMTB.org. Apparently, the gods of fate felt otherwise. First of all, my GPS unit failed to map the route. Secondly, because of early morning rain I did not take my camera with me, and so shot no photos of the trip. And lastly, we are having problems with this web site displaying properly right now.
Suffice it to say that the 24 people who took part in the outing (14 fellows and 10 women) had an enjoyable time. The group left the plaza in front of Santo Domingo shortly after 8 am and returned at 2 pm. The leisurely ride took two hours each way, and the group lounged around the presa for two hours, enjoying a picnic lunch and celebrating Salim’s birthday. A few of the more adventurous even went for a swim in the lake.
Sorry there is no map and no photos of the day’s adventure!
Countryside, Foothills, MTBing
Additional San Felipe Trail Maps
by Larry • • 0 Comments
In doing trail maintenance work last week, we realized that a couple of short trails around the police firing range just off the Libramiento were not mapped on this web site. Oops! An obvious oversight on our part.
So here are the missing maps:
1. FIRING RANGE LOOP — The loop trail that follows the old jeep road around the top of the hill where there was once a quarry and where the police firing range is now located. This is a very easy trail. It is just .5 miles (.8 km) around and practically flat, with only 28 feet (8.5 meters) of elevation gain and loss
2. SHORT CUT TRAIL — This trail is the shortest and fastest way down for those who don’t want to ride the “Toro, Toro” trail or take the paved Libramiento. This trail takes off from the Firing Range Loop (above) and runs just .4 mile (.64 km) from the top to the junction with the Libramiento. It is rather steep, with an average downhill gradient of 17.3%. The trail drops 367 feet (112 meters) from start to finish.
Countryside, Foothills, Mountains, MTBing, Trail Work
Doing Maintenance on the San Felipe Trails
by Larry • • 1 Comment
It has been a while since we’ve gotten a crew together to do serious “pick and shovel” maintenance on the bike trails in the hills above San Felipe del Agua, and some of the trails have erosion damage that requires attention. On this Wednesday in early August Larry, Alex, Rafa, Andrés and Phil tackled one of the shorter, more needy trails. This being the rainy season, 1.7 inches of rain had fallen in the past four days. This was a good thing, as it softened up the soil and made it easier to dig new drainage channels to move water off the trail and into the woods. The crew finished their work in three hours time. They hope to return in coming weeks to do similar work on other of the many nearby trails.
