Our recent story about the Small Tract Act of 1938 and the Jackrabbit Homesteads of Wonder Valley was recently published on The Radavist.
“I breathe in. An anxious tension reverberates through my chest every time I step inside one of these cabins. Some still have doors; others do not. Almost all of the empty ones have had their windows broken out and boarded up to protect their interiors. I can’t see what I’m walking into until I’m already inside. A wave of emotion washes over me: fear, anxiety, and sadness. I feel a certain reverence for the lives lived here and the hopes dashed. I take a moment. I breathe out.“
Just outside the dusty, run-down dot on the map that is Desert Center there’s an empty grave perched on a rocky hillside, overlooking Interstate 10 and a heavily graffitied gas station surrounded by dead palm trees. This is a point of interest on the forthcoming Chuckwalla Loop of the Desert Collective.
The placard, handmade by a man who’d dug his own grave reads:
DESERT STEVE Born June 16 1882 Founded DC Sept 21 1921 Worked like hell to be and honest citizen Loved his fellow men & served them Hated booze guzzling Hated war Hated Dirty Deal Damn Fool Politicians Hopes a guy named Ragsdale will ever serve humanity at Desert Center He dug his own grave Here are his bones I put this damn thing up before I kicked off NUFF SED — STEVE DIED___________ 194__
I’ve been visiting Desert Steve’s empty grave from time to time over the past 15-ish years now, and each time I get a bit more curious to know more of his story. Turns out he was banished from his own town and ended up living in the mountains not far from me, in Idyllwild, California. From what I can glean, he was a bit of a kook, maybe the original MAGA, and almost certainly lived a bold and full life. I will be attempting to tell his story and more with the next chapter of the Desert Collective Bicycle Touring Routes; the Chuckwalla Loop.
We will be adding a series of 4 short, new offroad bike touring/ bikepacking routes to the site this coming fall & winter.
The Desert Collective Bike Routes will begin as 4 unique but interconnected routes coming available this fall & winter, plus BikesGiving this November 23rd & 24th; a one-time group gathering to ride a portion of the Collective and enjoy a meal together.
I’m really excited to see the Collective coming together. These routes have been a long time in the making, which is not to say I’d set out to “make a new bikepacking route” (Stagecoach 400 is a very tough act to follow) but I felt the cycling community could benefit from them. They’re each relatively short, doable routes for the intermediate bikepacker. It’s my goal to use these routes to help us all gain a little more understanding of these areas I’ve come to love over the years. I hope you enjoy them. — Brendan
We’d been receiving a steady stream of emails from folks dropping out in the week leading up to the ride. One email read: “I guess I’m gonna give up my Sideshow spot… I have chilly ‘n’ sloppy here at home all the time!”
Idyllwild got more snow than most locals could remember. Steve from Idyllwild Heat recalled seeing this much snow in the 1960’s & 70’s but not since then, he said. It was a LOT and it was all melting off into waterways as we prepared for the ride start… and the forecast called for yet another big storm; the 11th “atmospheric river” of the season. Meg & I scrambled to re-write the entire route for more favorable (less unfavorable?) conditions both for rider comfort and also for better trail sustainability. We checked with various land managers and knowledgeable folks and came up with the route I’ve been calling Stagecoach Winter Soldier route. This’ll likely be the go-to route for touring riders facing storms in the future, and possibly for the Grand Depart riders next week as well.
The start list was comprised of 30 riders; the majority of them veterans of other high-level bikepacking events & Stagecoach finishers– hearty folks who could ride well in a variety of conditions and might not need as much guidance as Grand Depart starters. We met at Idyllwild Brewpub Thursday night to discuss our plans and solve the issue of the coming storm– we knew we’d all have to be off course by Monday afternoon/evening as the forecast was calling for a solid 2-3 days of cold, wet, hyptothermic conditions after then. We came up with various ways to curate & re-route our experience for the conditions.
The new route includes singletrack outside Idyllwild that’d been missing since the Mountain Fire of 2013, and several new pieces of doubletrack through Garner Valley…. all of which was nearly saturated, but not muddy. Several large water crossings, and general slowness of the conditions put us about 1-1/2 hours behind schedule arriving in Anza. Coyote Canyon was a pleasure to ride and the desert below greeted us with warm-but-not-hot afternoon temps and a nice rest in Borrego Springs. Several riders took their time in the desert towns before Fish Creek (the Iron Door was a popular spot on St Patricks Day!) and from there the routes we all took more closely resembled a chaotic mess than an organized route. Some folks cut out San Diego by crossing to Ramona, others popped over to Julian for their famous apple pie and rejoined the route in Warner Springs. Others (myself included) loitered in the desert a while for the great camping & hot springs opportunities, and Blake Bockius even made a desert loop before re-routing himself back up to Idyllwild via Coyote Canyon. One rider– Drew Raney– completed the ENTIRE course on a respectable race pace and is counted as the sole finisher of the full course on the Sideshow. As I type this, I know of only 2 other riders still on route; Cedar Kyes of Esker Cycles and his riding buddy left Alpine this morning en route to San Diego where they intend to pull out.
This Sideshow format is in flux; likely to evolve for next year. Stay tuned; I’m sure we’ll come up with even more ways to have fun with it.
The Stagecoach Sideshow takes off March 17th from Idyllwild running clockwise (desert first) on the route, one week ahead of the Grand Depart. We are adding this to give more options and to better accommodate demand— but the Sideshow will have to be a smaller event because it is running clockwise. The ride is self paced; just like the Grand Depart and you can go at whatever speed you would like. We will provide cues & gpx files with deeper dives into points of interest along the way and (optional) schedules for riders wishing to sync up and ride together on a similar pace. We will identify accommodating camp spots & things to do along the route for sub-5 day, and sub-4 day paces. Riders will be expected to follow standard self-supported guidelines to be considered Stagecoach 400 finishers. Satellite tracking will be provided.
The Sideshow is not a race— it’s for anybody who’d like to see the route differently. Previous Stagecoach finishers, backcountry tourists, “soft ITT’ers” or anybody hunting for the FKT (funnest known time) are all welcome to join!
As usual, there is no prize, and no entry fee, but we will be raising funds for the Idyllwild Outdoor Education Booster Club, helping provide kids learning experiences in the great outdoors. This ride will be smaller than the Grand Depart, with lower rider entry cap. Registration will be opened concurrently with the Grand Depart, sometime around the new year.
Coming March 13th, start time 8am in Idyllwild, CA
This’ll be a significant year in returning to Idyllwild after the flooded roads and San Diego start in 2019, and it’ll be a transition year passing the non-management role on. We’ll have a charitable cause, as usual, and a registration link coming up soon here on the blog and at other social media sources.
Plan on a pre-game party in Idyllwild Thursday nite.
“If it ain’t moto it’s worthless”
— Ross Shafer, Salsa Cycles
The first San Jacinto Enduro, in 2009, was originally named the “San Jacinto Endurance Ride,” a free, self supported, no-prize-no-entry-fee sorta deal much like it is today. Pre-dawn start, super long and hard and all that. But it turned out the word “endurance” was pretty valuable at the time, and using it for our ride was an issue. Long story short, we received a letter from an interested party explaining that we couldn’t or shouldn’t use that word in our ride title, and we needed to come up with something different.
“Enduro” sounded woodsy and moto, and it wasn’t so on the nose as “endurance” so we used that. Today, it’s confusing, I know. Sorry!
The San Jacinto Enduro is a good long ride out in the sticks, and you’ll definitely get plenty of shred, too.
Promise!
Camping, hard riding, variable distances, self support– the SJE may come back in 2019, possibly in October.
Eric and I headed out today in Garner Valley and scouted some of the former SJE area in Garner Valley, and also some new areas of interest. We found extensive flood damage, deep soul-sucking sand, and thigh-deep overgrowth. It was great.
The trails of Garner Valley are frequented more often by cattle than cyclists, and that’s part of what makes them so special. The area is rich in jaw-dropping beauty, history, and riding not quite like anywhere else.
The plan for the 2019 San Jacinto Enduro, if we can pull it off, will be similar to what we’ve done in years past– camping in a big pretty spot, a big day on the bike with route options, cues & gpx tracks provided for navigation, and strict adherence to self supported guidelines. The aim of the SJE is to bring people to our mountain, show off our goods, make friends, and spread the good word of self-supported riding.
SoCal Bikepacking 