Good morning Ornot campers!
Welcome to day 2 of CX camp. Uncle Randy has a pretty rad route planned out for us and I’m positive everything will flow perfectly, Ornot.
the high country
We pilled in the van, drove 30 miles and 3500’ up to Bear Valley looking for the benefits of training at altitude. The route isn’t really that long so Mel decided to eat all his food before we left.
an overview
Randy broke down the route like this, first we hit a 4x4 trail, then a little fire road, some singletrack and pavement to finish us off.
tire choice
Will enjoys a challenge and decided 34mm WTB Exposures were the right tire (basically 34mm road tires). Perfect choice, ornot.
Damn we look good in this Ornot gear. 
The beginning of the trail was promising and boy was it nice to see so much water this late in the year. Strong work nature!
“Really, no one is going to ride this?... Oh I see”
taking it all in
Although difficult to ride, our reward included gnarly rock faces and narrow chutes perfect for our cross bikes.
tabletops
“I kind of have this sinking feeling we are about to get lost but its way too much fun to contemplate logistics like that.”
The road continued on so we went that way.
an aerial
Tyler attempted to take flight. It didn’t work but he looked funny.
Randy is positive that he knows where we are going. Keith is highly skeptical.
intuition anyone?
A do not enter sign to a dirt trail seems like a great first move on how to get back to the van.
Yep, this is definitely the trail.
pushing bikes
We went up. We went down. This particular trail appeared to not be frequented by humans with much regularity.
we look like we know where we are
At the apex of our ride, so beautiful and only a mere 500 ft below is the trail that we're supposed to be on. We hiked to a spring drainage chute and carefully descended. CX camp is really focused on carrying the bike this year?
thou shall pass
A fellow that looked quite bewildered as to where in the hell we came from patrolled this creek crossing. No matter though as he let us cross and even told us how to get back to the main road. Good thing because we were about ready to go get lost again.
even more adversity
On the 7 mile 1500’ paved uphill back to the van it hailed.
relaxing van hang
According to Randy these rocks are warm from the days sun. They weren’t, we were freezing, some of us still went swimming in pink slippers. A ride that should have taken 4 hours took us 7 (it was just under 20 miles). No matter though, adventure rides take time.
Back at the cabin on display are various forms of warming and drying. Which is more efficient? The dry mountain air or the newspaper? The coffee, the whiskey or the whiskey in the coffee? At cross camp we do our best to solve issues like these.
Day 3 can’t possibly be more ridiculous, can it? Is anyone still reading?
HERE'S OUR ROUTE.
Not that we think you should ever do this.
