South Bay - Jose Lead and Devo - Mike Maio
This will be purely an advanced XC challenge. Confident XC riders who know they can make climbs that most don't. There is at least one section that I don't make every time. Look forward to a great amount of climbing you may call, technical. To me its simply blood and guts XC riding. This is a continous ride with no stopping. No joke. Be sure to fuel up and take in plenty of water accordingly the evening before, and morning thereof.
Meeting/Parking/Starting point: 1475 Lake Crest Dr., Chula Vista. This will be a Park just North up the road from the ARCO Olympic Training Center. Take Orange Ave./Olympic Pkwy. off the I-805 S, head Left/East about 7 miles. It will wrap into Lake Crest Dr.
Meeting at 0815. Dropping into the trail at 0830.
The Ride:
We will ride a 1/4 section of the Lower Otay Lake single track, pop out on Otay Lakes Rd. There we will cross Otay Lakes Rd., entering Upper Otay Lake near the dam, riding the trail to Proctor Valley Rd. Then head West to the trail head where the climbing begins toward the base of Mt. San Miguel, where we cut a bit West heading toward the East side of Rock House. This climbing is arduous and not for riders who expect perfectly shaped single track that could be ridden on a Crossbike. After you finally reach the point where your lungs no longer feel like they're going to explode with your legs, the single track goes off-camber most of the way to the Rock House single track climb. This stays fairly level a good distance for a bit of recovery until we dip down a bit. Immediately at the bottom there's a transition into a technical climb that may cause most to cry once they look up and begin the climb to Rock House East ST. Then begins the RHEST switch ascent up the hill, somewhat similiar to the switch climb out of Sycamore Canyon. Once we get near Rock House we drop down the North face single track, crossing an access road or two, hooking up with the Trail of Dead Bones single track. This ST climbs up to the Upper Tiki Hut. Depending on weather and rider turn-out we will do the devotion there, or drop down the single track to Lower Tiki Hut to do the devotion. From the Lower Tiki we drop into single track traveling along the fence line, heading toward the Horse Gate/Steel Bridge. Nearly 100 ft. from the Horse Gate we will take a Right onto a single track climb back up to the Trail of Dead Bones, passing Upper Tiki, dropping down the access road to make a Left onto the single track descent near the Weather Station. At the bottom of that ST we will begin climbing to the West face of Rock House ST switch climb. If not long ago, some maybe wondering why they thought they were Advanced XC riders. We ascend Rock House West, which is considerably tougher than the RHEST climb, pass RH and drop down the East face. At this point we are doubling back the route we came in to where we parked our vehicles
