I’m so buzzing right now. I just finished riding some sweet, technical, steep singletrack within a 30 minute drive from my house. I hooked up with a teacher, Andy from school and a couple of his riding buddies, Nick and Rob. It was a beautiful day…slightly hazy unlike the perfect, cool, blue sky day we had yesterday, but that’s very rare here…it’s usually polluted smoggy muck.
The trail climbs from a middle-class, suburban part of Beijing called Fragrant Hills which is on the northwest side of town, nestled at the foot of the mountains. The long climb starts from the valley floor and crawls up technical, craggy rock outcroppings, with a brief mix of paved trail followed by an additional climb topping out at close 2000′…over a very short span of about 5 miles…that’s very steep.
The total ride-time was about 2.5 hours including a number of breaks.
About 30 minutes into the climb, I quietly panicked because I took one last sip from my Camelback it was bone dry. Luckily, when we reached the top, there was a small snack stand with a guy selling coke, beer, and water. Excellent! I had a Coke and refilled my Camelback with a half liter of water and we departed down the back side of the mountain. This part was more grassy and sandy with lots of erosion. It proved to be pretty tricky but fun. We reached a small reservoir and dam where locals were fishing. We rode up dirt road back to the ridge and dropped back into some extremely technical singletrack with large, twisted rock drops followed by a tunnel of low-hanging tree branches. We soon re-connected with the main trail and after a quick climb and descent, we were home.
While the trail wasn’t designed for cycling, it was really quite amazing because it had elements of every trail I’ve ever been on in terms of tread, steepness, and ecosystem. The only thing it lacked was a creek crossing which is not a desirable thought here in China considering the water quality.
Leave a Reply