We were determined to find the mountain biking goods called out in Bike magazine and set off on a quest for these alleged dreamy trails in the Mendo area. We rode from our campground and tied into some of the trails heading north (the previous day we headed south). After several miles we hit our paved road that would gain access to the trail network on the north side of our access point.
The trail darted into the woods and we quickly twisted and turned in the thick growth until we got to our first junction where the plan was to go right and tie into some 'must do' trails. The brush got thicker and thicker and there we no tire tracks to speak of. Pretty soon the trail descended and we realized this trail was no longer open or ridden but of course there was no trail marker or indication to warn you. We begrudgingly re-traced our steps back to the junction and went the other direction. The trail started to descend and had some nice flow for an all too short time period until it kicked you out onto the road. We follow the course markings for the race from the prior week but had no idea whether we were on the early part of the race, or the latter part of the race.
All too quickly, we were once again on a dirt road trying to figure out where Waldo was.....we kept referencing the map and it made zero sense to us...what was portrayed as a 'trail' was road and it absolutely made little sense given the total lack of trail markers. We pedaled up a dirt road until we hit a junction and tried to make sense of where we were. We sort of kind of knew where we were but could not confirm considered trail-heads were not where they were marked on the trail.
We guessed and road trail that paralleled a logging road which would supposedly end up on the 'ride through tree'...although that trail was closed due to local logging. The tertiary plan (we had to go to plan C at this point) was to ride the road up and loop into some trails higher up that were not effected by logging operations. We climbed up and hit a junction where we again had to somewhat guess at where to go...after a couple of wrong turns we backtracked once again into where we were supposed to go according to the map and our plan. We started descending on what was marked as trail on our map but was really abandoned logging road, We were supposed to take this until we had a right turn to tie back into another trail system.
We kept our eyes open for the right turn that never came...we came to another junction and figured out we somehow passed the right turn and now had to climb out of the stoooopid descent that went nowhere! On our climb out, we saw what was supposedly our right turn. It had been covered with big logs, brush to close it off and try to re-grow the area...what a royal PITA. At this point we had zero confidence in the map and even less confidence that all this pedaling would yield quality riding.
Back up the road we went and then took another road over to what was supposedly a primo trail - as I said we were skeptical of everything at this point....We eventually found our trail and started our descent. We were expecting an awesome mind blowing descent....we started to find some flow until all too quickly it was over before we knew it! It was about a 500 ft descent and it was over way way way too quickly. What exactly was all the fuss about????
The bottom of the trail tied into a road and we guesstimated (based on our illustrious map) that we could turn right and tie that into a road that would get us into the area we were in the day before and therefore tie back into the area we started in. We rode along the road for about 4 miles and came to the conclusion that we were not on the road we thought we were on, and according to our map were somewhat lost. The road was not on our map - surprise surprise! The prudent thing to do was to reverse direction and head back the 4 miles we had just ridden and ride up the prima A cut 500 ft descent we were just on (sarcasm intended). Fortunately the climb would not be too long so it was just a function of getting back on to the road...eventually the road came, and we descended until we hit another road that would tie us back into the start of the trail network.
It was another day of frustrating trail finding (or trail losing) and we had put in a good solid day on the bike of 35 miles and 4000 ft of elevation gain. It was a lot of pedaling for not a lot of single track.
Day two left us once again disappointed at the build up of a teaser of riding destination. For an area that wants to be a biking destination, there trail maps and markers or WOEFUL!!! It is an area that keeps trying to compare themselves to real mountain bike destinations like Oakridge....
My humble opinion is that on a scale of 1 to Oakridge, Mendo riding ranks as about a 3
Harsh but definitely not worth the long drive to get there only to spend time pedaling trying to find trails. There is a lack of continuity on trails...lots of time on road to link trails and although I am a cross country rider at heart, this lack of 'flow' was annoying.
been there, done that....
We salvaged the day by taking the dogs out to the light house and enjoyed a nice walk along the bluffs before heading to dinner in Mendo to watch the sun set.
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