“Deth March” was the subject line of the e-mail that went around for this Saturday’s ride, so it went without question that a certain amount of suffering would be involved. The plan was to do the complete Demon trail loop, but heavy rain on Friday made us switch to our backup plan of a long ride at Wailuna. I had it set in my mind to link the Wailuna ascent, Waimano Ridge trail, and Waimano Mystery hills into a loop. We have ridden all of the pieces, but never together as a complete circuit. Jeff, Sara, Root, and I have been up Waimano Ridge from Waimano Home Road all the way to the Wailuna trail. Chris and I have been up Mystery Hills to Waimano Ridge, but we went down the trail to Waimano Loop Trail and sortied that way.
We met at the park at the appointed time. Chris was there when I rolled in. Ckucke had invited Kevyn who was in and out of McBike for the past two weeks trying to get the front brake channel on his Santa Cruz fixed. Kevyn showed up followed shortly after by Ckucke. I didn’t want to overdo it with a first-timer to the group, but since he was originally planning on joining us for Demon trail, this loop would be much less exertion. My loadout was the normal 2-liters in the pack, frame bottle with Cytomax, and bars, gels, and Shot Bloks. I had loaded up more food based on the Demon ride, but kept it loaded even after the destination change. We geared up and started up the hill. The morning climb was much cooler than the afternoon climbs we have been doing there recently. There were moist spots on the pavement in the shade of the street trees from rain the night before, but after turning off the water tank road, the dirt was all dry.
A group of four bright tight lycra riders came down the trail while we took a break at the swamp gum grove. We could see their tracks along the dry dirt of the moonscape and up the trail to the junction rest. From this point, the ground got progressively moister. Both the surface grass was wet and the underlying soil was saturated. I was taking pictures at the root-up, so I was the last one up the climb Almost at the top of the pitch, I saw a hiker coming down the trail. I stopped on the side to let him pass. I greeted him and he said something to the effect of, “you all are in great shape,” as he passed downhill. He was an older Asian dude with hiking poles and seemed nice enough. At the top, we continued through the melaleuca roots to the next pitch. Ckucke said, “we got scolded.” Apparently the dude had asked them if they had seen some other riders, and instructed us not to ride in the same line as each other to help preserve the trail.
I could go into the intricacies of the mere existence of trails being an affront to nature and by default causes erosion, and not riding or walking the same line widens the trail and causes more damage, but that wasn’t the point here. He was venting his disgust at the other group of riders (quite probably the four who passed us at swamp gum). Who knows exactly what they did in their interaction with him, but as we continued up the trail toward the hike-up to the second powerline pole, we could see what they did to the trail. At least one of them had skidded down nearly the entirety of the hill, carving a muddy groove down the center of the grassy trail. I’m guessing they passed him near the top, then he saw their aftermath as he walked down, his anger at their indifference and disrespect for the trail growing with each step he took. We were all disgusted as well. I am pleasantly surprised that he didn’t lay down a blanket judgment and lump us in with them and blow up at us. We all have heard many stories like that. The flailing trail-rapers were a group, and we were a different group, and we weren’t automatically condemned.
Near the top, we could see a group of five trail pedestrians going down the Waimano Ridge trail. I wanted to give them a little time to get down the trail before we went rolling down. We hit the top of the Wailuna loop and turned down the junction. My cold, wet brakes squealed something horrible going down the first descent. We rode the contour over to the drop-in. I continued on a little to see what the condition of the ridge trail upward bound was like. After a hundred meters or so the trail was a little grown-in in places, but otherwise was distinct and rideable. This demands further exploration in the future. I returned to the junction, and we dropped in. Mindful of the admonition the hiker gave us, and the personal disgust at the trail damage, I did my best to keep the traction under control. The ground here was conducive to this as it was well-drained and grippy. The line had been weed-whacked since the last time I had been on the trail. The shinguards were still a good addition to the kit though. The clearing was within a few months, since there were still loose, dry ‘uluhe fern fronds that would get ingested in the driveline or spokes. It seemed like the lead rider (me) picked all of them up.
The trail undulated down the ridgetop, descending and climbing through the ferns, and contouring in places in the shade below koa trees or strawberry guavas. Many parts of the trail were off-camber or not handlebar width. In most instances, this was from recutting the trail off of its original ridgetop-centered line and moving it to the edge of the ridge crown. Whoever recut the trail didn’t want to bother cutting branches or new growth trees, all of which were non-native species. Because of this, there was a fair amount of dismounting. As the trail breaks back in, this should become less of a problem. A lot of the trail seemed different. Unless I turned around to look back the way we came, I often didn’t recognize the trail. The few places that were clearly familiar were areas where I had turned around and taken pictures on the way up last time.
Reaching the depression above windy trees and seeing the Pitcairn Island pine, we traversed over to the mystery ridge and climbed up through the moonscape to the ridgetop. We descended along the ridge to the junction. It appeared that the trail had been cleared down the continuation of the trail along the ridge. This should also be investigated in the future. Turning down the branch toward the mystery hills, we rode the drop-in and followed the spongy, ferny trail down and out to the fenceline. This was a good, fast sweeping descent with several good mini-drops, series turns, and bumps that had the potential to become much more fun as the trail works in – even without the purposeful construction of jumps or berms. It was all over too fast, maybe a bit too fast to actually make the travails it takes to get around to this section worthwhile in and of itself.
We dropped down the old doubletrack instead of turning down the bathtub trail. The erosion grooves forced us to make quick direction changes to avoid critical wheel stoppers and find the smoothest line. I ended up sliding into a groove and leading Kevyn in after me. We switchbacked down through the grassy pasture to the first ravine. The landslide hike-up was the marked line. Although it was cleared, it was unridable, so we took the old overgrown road cut. The push up out of the ravine was unusually slippery and soft. After pushing a while, we got to a point where the surface was hard and became rideable again. The descent into the second ravine and the climb out was firm and dry. The last pitch out of the ravine was unrelentingly evil. In the past, we have only come back up this way once before, since we have sortied out in the Waimano direction. A steep, unbroken climb at the end of a tough ride is generally poorly received. This alone was almost enough to make this loop something never to be repeated! We rested our burning legs and bursting lungs on the descent back down the road to the park.
The computer sensor was not aligned correctly, so the ride data was not recorded entirely. About the only good data is the maximum speed, which is 58.1 km/h (36.1 mph) on the road ride back down. The average speed was recorded at 11.3 km/h (7.0 mph), but the actual average is probably lower, since the computer wasn’t recording on the climb. There was a distance recorded of 7.27km (4.52-miles), but that probably represents part of the climb and the descent from halfway down. I’m guessing the actual distance is around twice that. Total ride time was almost four hours.
More pictures here
Although this ride was fun, I prefer the normal loop over to Newtown/Royal Summit.