Training Log Archive: revyIn the 1 days ending Aug 14, 2015:
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Friday Aug 14, 2015 #
8 AM
Bike 6:00:00 [3] 60.0 km (10.0 kph) +2550m
Another local epic checked off the list - Silvercup ridge. Haven't' heard of too many people doing this ride. The ridge is traversed by an old mining road as well as several sections of hiking trail (some of which are pretty faint or even non existent). Couldn't find much beta online either but google earth and some hiking guidebooks made it seem doable. Brendan and Brad joined me for the adventure. Weather wasn't looking too promising a few days ago but forecast today seemed better. Overall our weather was fine except for a thunderstorm that rolled through as we climbed American Creek road (stopped for a 15 min snack break when the rain got too heavy). It passed and the rest of the day was clear though quite hazy due to forest fire smoke in the air.
We did the ride as a loop so that added an 18km warm up on Hwy 31 (gravel with only two cars going by) and a 12km/1300m climb up the American Creek road. Grade was reasonable for the most part - a few steep sections that required some spinning. I walked once but Brendan made it all the way on his bike. The guys were a bit faster than me on the climb as I was content to spin without killing myself. Closer to the ridge the grade steepened and had some more hike-a-bike sections before doing a few km traverse along the mining road. Eventually the road ended and we pushed our bikes for a bit on the crux of the trip. Not much evidence of trail and we ended up side hilling on some sketchy scree before finding the trail. next time I would climb a bit higher before the sketchy section as most of it could be avoided.
The trail we found started off a bit rough but eventually became quite nice. There was also way more trail then I expected. Some steep bits where we had to push our bikes but overall very fun and rideable. Eventually we rejoined the mining road for several km before the final single track descent. The top was fun, middle was less so (riding the brakes) and bottom was fun again. Pretty fun adventure despite the large amount of climbing. Less hike a bike than Cartier. Only thing that put a damper on the day was having an unexpected two sailing wait to cross the ferry as Hwy 3 and 33 closures due to forest fire smoke significantly increased the ferry traffic.
We did the ride as a loop so that added an 18km warm up on Hwy 31 (gravel with only two cars going by) and a 12km/1300m climb up the American Creek road. Grade was reasonable for the most part - a few steep sections that required some spinning. I walked once but Brendan made it all the way on his bike. The guys were a bit faster than me on the climb as I was content to spin without killing myself. Closer to the ridge the grade steepened and had some more hike-a-bike sections before doing a few km traverse along the mining road. Eventually the road ended and we pushed our bikes for a bit on the crux of the trip. Not much evidence of trail and we ended up side hilling on some sketchy scree before finding the trail. next time I would climb a bit higher before the sketchy section as most of it could be avoided.
The trail we found started off a bit rough but eventually became quite nice. There was also way more trail then I expected. Some steep bits where we had to push our bikes but overall very fun and rideable. Eventually we rejoined the mining road for several km before the final single track descent. The top was fun, middle was less so (riding the brakes) and bottom was fun again. Pretty fun adventure despite the large amount of climbing. Less hike a bike than Cartier. Only thing that put a damper on the day was having an unexpected two sailing wait to cross the ferry as Hwy 3 and 33 closures due to forest fire smoke significantly increased the ferry traffic.