Yeah, that's what I figured on the Vegas Traffic, so that means I need to leave first thing Friday morning. Maybe I will just leave Thursday night and get a head start.  I think Dave mentioned a good spot to car camp near the starting point. 

Once you go flat you never go back.  Flat pedals are hands down the best option for technical singletrack and walk a bike sections. 

Mike thanks for the info.  Are all the best camping spots dry camping?  I figure they will be.  I think I will just carry enough food and not worry about resupply at all.  I hate trying to make it to resupply points by a certain time of day.

Looking forward to it.  Now I just need to figure out how to not get caught in Las Vegas traffic getting out there on a Friday.....

Michael,

I would suggest skipping as much of highway 166 as possible. For a remote highway, it is heavily used by truck drivers.  I hated the section between highway 33 and Carizzo Plain. Although I have never rode La Brea Canyon, it looks like a decent fire road.  Looks like you could just take Foxen Canyon Road to FR 10N06 and then reconnect to your route. I don't know about water in this area.  You could call the Santa Lucia Ranger District and ask the ranger.  I bet there are still creeks running in this canyon. 
Miranda Pines to Santa Barbara Potrero has very little water and none of it is on route.  Stock up big time on water before you climb up to Miranda Pine mountain.  If you can find Miranda Pine Spring  (it is on the topos), please hook up with a waypoint to this spring. That would be a huge find.  I can't verify if Santa Barbara Potrero has water this year, but its not far off route.  Chokecherry spring is just 6 miles past that. 

You are skipping the Santa Cruz trail at the top of Little Pine Mountain.  Not a singletrack to be missed in my opinion. My favorite of the entire ride. You will be wanting some singletrack by then anyways after 110 miles of fireroad. 

I would try to time it so you camp at Little Caliente Hot Springs your last night.  Great hot springs and a great reward.  This would mean camping at Santa Barbara Potrero the night before.  I screwed this up and Camped at Bluff and then got to the hot springs too early the next day.

DO NOT walk a bike up from Blue Canyon at mile 138 or so! I did that once. Awful!  Instead either go up Blue Canyon the way the TDLP proper goes (my preference). Or go up Juncal Road if you are not feeling adventurous. Wear long soccer socks if you go Blue Canyon to avoid Poison Oak.

I would not skip the front country singletrack at mile 145 or so.  Man up and go for it.  Yes there is some walk a bike in the front country, but lots of fun singletrack downhills.  Just try to hit it on a weekday if you can (lots of hikers).  And if you are not feeling it, there are plenty of bail outs at paved roads- just go left and downhill when you see pavement.

Most important, go at your own pace and have fun!

 

I am in for the 200 most likely. Much thanks for putting this together.  The route looks like a great adventure with plenty of nice technical singletrack. A proper bikepacking route, much like the Coconino.   
I looked at all the previous years threads-- blogs, gpx., waypoints, etc., and loosely gathered information, but if you could just touch on the general strategy for the 200 ride that would be appreciated.  I will be going at a slower pace with no intention of going fast.

-Best/ most scenic spots to camp?

-Water (I see the water waypoints, but any off route water not in the waypoints?).

-Resupply (I see the resupply waypoints, but any off route resupply not in the waypoints?).

That should be all I need to plan.  Really looking forward to it. 

Hey guys thanks for all the trip reports. it looks like we have a new thread going here.

Anyone interested in the dixie 200? I think that's next on my list.

The 2nd half of my write up is here:

http://tourdelospadres.com/blog.html

Ill try to go through the route in sequential order, some of the points brought up.

although robs idea of going from the summit of Mount pinos mount Abel is a good one, it is not legal. Its a beautiful trail though, I've hiked it many times.

mt abel was included in the route because i thought people would like camping there after 8500 ft of climbing for the day. I guess that was too short of a day for most riders. Camping in carizzo is not that scenic. The upper two thirds of the mt abel singletrack is a blast and is rideable if you are a competent technical mountain biker. The lower one third is too steep of a downhill. I guess the bottom line with abel is if your not going to camp there, the climb up is not worth it.

I gave Forrest 3 options for getting to Gilliam spring that looked like much less climbing. Too bad the option he tried did not work out. I guess ill have to try the other two.

If you look on the topo map there is a spring near Miranda pines. If this spring can be found, riding unsupported will be fine. You just need to eat in pine mountain club and ventucopa the first day and save all your food for the next 3 days.

Skipping camuesa connector and instead taking camuesa road is my favored re route option because it still takes you by little caliente hot springs. I was hoping to camp at the hot springs the last night but it was too early in the day to stop.

For the last day, the only trail that i feel is too technical is lower romero. That is an easy re route via the romero fireroad. As for the rest of the sb frontcountry on the last day, there is some hike a bike but most of the downhill sections are very fun and all the trails are in great condition. Its a hard finish, but these things should be challenging right?

The 311 looks like a 5 day ride for me. Similar to TDLP numbers but even more challenging. The 200 looks like a good option if I don't have that many days to commit.  Looks like beautiful country and rugged terrain, just the way I like it.  I am definitely strongly considering doing at least the 200.  If anyone wants to carpool from California, let me know. 

Sorry if this info is hidden somewhere in this thread already-- Can anyone tell me what are the stats are for the 311 ride and for the 200 ride? %fireroad,  %singletrack, %pavement?  Cheers. 

Here are the starts of two blogs about the ride from a few weeks ago.  One is mine, one is Rolands:

http://www.tourdelospadres.com/blog.html

http://rolandsturm.blogspot.com/

The map and sign up are up and running. We are just two weeks out!
So far on ITT attempts, one failed attempt at the tour route, and one failed attempt at the
Point to point route.

http://trackleaders.com/lospadres-signup

http://trackleaders.com/lospadres14

I don't think this connection would be a loop. Probably a point to point.

The temperatures I am seeing make me cringe. Low to high 80's? WTF?  This is early march. I though we were going to get mid 60's.  Global warming is real!  

Great info.

Remember there are a quite a few dirt OHV trails/ roads  that are mostly rideable that take you between Lockwood Valley Road and Gorman.  These mostly not part of the TDLP, but they would be of great use if you are continuing east towards the ANF. 

No, but mountain bike bill has some info on the Liebre Mountain area. 

www.mountainbikebill.com/GoldenEagle.htm‎

I still have yet to ride over in that area.  Too many rides out there and too little time. PCT guidebooks might be able to point you to water sources.  Some of the PCT is open to bikes in that area. 

Hello all, I made one last change to the point to point race route, which is the addition of Blue Canyon singletrack, which I decided to add to the route after riding it a few weeks ago. Blue Canyon trail was very fun and remote.  

The pluses- more singletrack, less miles, less fireroad, more water, and 3 more backcountry campsites.  

The only minus is that Blue Canyon bypasses Big Caliente Hot Springs, but the route already goes very close to Little Caliente Hot Springs at Mono Campground, so I did not see the point in the route needing to go past two hot springs that are so close to each other.  

New GPX can be found here (revised cue sheets will come soon):

http://www.tourdelospadres.com/event-and-route-info.html

The Tour Route and Loop Route remain the same. If you want the gpx and cues for the loop route, just contact me. I don't really want to release them until the trail maintenance needed is complete on middle Sespe Trail and Boulder Canyon Trail, which is not a ton of maintenance, but it needs to get done.

To answer the question about water, I ride with 55 oz of water on my bike, and a 64 oz water bladder, which I rarely keep full.  The only water shortage on the route is between mile 134 and mile 182, but with the one support campground (Miranda Pines Camp) we are offering for the race, this be so much of an issue. Water supply along the rest of the route is solid, particularly after our 8" rain storm we just had last weekend. See Cue sheets for more info on water sources.

Anyone who wants to ITT the route should fill up as much water as humanly possible at mile 134!

Go Clipper Nation!  

Looks like there was some precipitation over the weekend.  It should prove nice for dust control!

I did a similar loop to this a few years ago, but I changed the routing drastically this time around to get in a lot more singletrack in (probably too much singletrack actually!)  Photos and GPX here:

http://www.tourdelospadres.com/blog.html

This is the driest winter on record that I can remember.  The entire Los Padres NF has basically no snow right now.  We got a little back in early December and that was it.  To answer your question- yes, the route is 100% rideable right now.  This could change in a day though if we get a winter storm. 

A good web cam to check on real time snow conditions in the higher elevations is this-  http://www.frazmtn.com/mount_abel_cam/

I am probably in. I was just in Tahoe this past weekend ice-boarding at Heavenly.  I also snow-shoed up Tallac Mountain (a lot more rewarding than snowboarding on man made snow).   Its pretty dry up there.  Most of the route is rideable right now.  Just took this photo this past Sunday (almost at the summit of Tallac looking east towards South Lake Tahoe).  Looks more like June than January.  

The unnamed trail connecting Gibraltar road with Rattlesnake trail is open to bikes to my knowledge (no signage stating otherwise going either way). The route is on Rattlesnake Trail for only 2 tenths of a mile.  The cue sheets direct riders to walk this section to comply with Santa Barbara County Parks Department rules. 

-Erin