CSTR Planning

[B_Bock]

Sean,
Thanks for the info. I want to ride this thing one way or another. I'm stoked on the route you put together! This is gonna be an epic race/ride. I can't wait to meet up w/ you all at the start, where or whenever that may be. I feel confident that the forest service and Cal fire will get the upper hand on this one.
Cheers!

[Sean Allan]

Folks,
 
It kills me to even think about this after training and putting so much time into this on the planning end, but I think we should probably start thinking of postponing the race at this point due to the fire. Right now all of the course out of Foresthill is closed and I can’t even reroute it as Foresthill Rd. to Robinsons Flat is closed, as are all the roads leading down off of Robinsons Flat. Beyond the road closures is the problem of the smoke. The entire region is filled with a very thick layer of smoke due to the topography of the land here. The mornings and nights are the worst by far, there is currently no way I would ride or send you guys out riding in these conditions.
 
The fire is currently at about 7,500 acres with no timetable as to when it will be contained, it’s currently at 35% and has been for a couple of days.
 
Here is some info. on the fire.  http://yubanet.com/     http://yubanet.com/nevada/American.php
 
I have attached some pictures of what it looks like at my house every morning. The fire is about 20 miles from my house but the conditions farther down the hill towards Auburn are actually worse.
 
I know that some of you are travelling from far away places so I thought I’d get in front of this as much as possible. There is always a chance that all will be fine come the 31st, but the chances of that are now looking pretty slim. 
 
Let me know what you all think. 

[B_Bock]

Sean,
Thanks for being proactive. Here's a thought- What if we give it one more week and see what the conditions are w/ the fire.maybe we can shorten the route and loop Tahoe via ice lakes road. Cutting out the western Sierra:-(  We could start in Tahoe or Truckee. Let me know if any of you are  as psyched as i am to get out and do some kind of route. In Truckee the smoke has not been bad and Tahoe is better. Over the last week the prevailing pattern has been pushing the smoke to the north .
This fire sucks in many ways beyond our little race, but I'm still optimistic.
Also I know this could be a lot of work to redo the track so let  me know if I can help in any way. 
LMK what ya'll think.
Lets communicate and come up w/ a plan!

Ps- I plan on riding from wrights lake to French meadows this weekend and back. I'll let you know what it's like.
Cheers to all,

Blake

[aaron w]

Well...shoot!  For me personally, I have a bit of flexibility and could start a week or two or three late if necessary. 

If the route were shortened, I might not come out.  Coming from Colorado, this is a huge trip for me...and I guess I'm pretty enchanted with the full route that Sean has put together.  If I were more local, I'd be up for shortening the loop, or whatever, since I could ride the other stuff any time.  That being said though, I wouldn't want decisions regarding this event being made based on my desires!

Unfortunately there are too many unknowns to figure things out right now.  I'll keep tuned here for info and will try to stay flexible in case things come together.  I'm hoping for the best.  I've been really, really excited to get out there and see the Sierra's. 

[cjrbike]

John Swisegood and myself are stoked to try this adventure but agree something should be decided in the next 5 to 7 days for planning purposes. We are in even if we start above the burned area. We wont be able to ride if is postponed but will plan for next time if it is cancelled.  Hope that helps and we will support any decision.
Curtis Reynolds

[forest_on_bike]

Apparently I broke my ankle during the TDR, so, as of today, I'm not sure if I'll be able to ride the CSTR this year.

I literally just saw an x-ray of a bone chip floating in my ankle last night. I had no idea that the pain I was feeling was from a break. Even though I was able to ride the CTR, they are recommending that I stop riding for 6 weeks to give it a chance to heal. I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet.

Regardless, I just wanted to also suggest another possible start/finish location. Sean, what do you think about starting north of hwy 80, possibly near Lake Spalding. We could bike up to Grouse Ridge or Carr Lake and make our way towards Tahoe from there.

Just wanted to throw that suggestion out there.

Forest

[pjanzen]

Map of fire boundary and CSTR route...

[Sean Allan]

I'm making time to go up to the Forest Service office in Foresthill tomorrow. It's not looking good in California in general. We've got two more large fires in NoCal, one threatening a large amount of homes. Add to all of this that we now have 100 degree temps and dry lightning and it's a pretty serious situation. I rode in Lake Tahoe this weekend, Sat was not great and yesterday was the worst I had seen smoke wise since the fires started.

Forest, no way we can start to the north, I couldn't see lake Spaulding from the freeway yesterday the smoke was so thick.

Here are some pictures of my drive home. These are all North of the course mostly right around the west end of Truckee, but all it would take is a wind shift and nearly anywhere in California could look this way.

I think I'll make the call after talking to FS tomorrow.

Sorry Guys......

[B_Bock]

I agree there is no way that we can race Labor Day weekend if the smoke continues to be this bad.
My trip from Wrights lake to French meadows was great. Saturday I had no smoke. On Sunday the smoke became much worse and seems to be covering the whole region. I was anticipating no smoke once I returned to Truckee. To my surprise I drove over Donner summit into some of the worse smoke I've ever seen.
Sean, I noticed on Yubanet that the fire is 49% contained with estimated containment on the 28th. I'm not sure what this means as far as hving any acces to the surrounding area or smoke conditions. It will be interesting to find out what the Forest Service has to say.
I have some good ideas as far as reroute if we can just get rid of the smoke. I'm feeling that I will get out and do some version of the route starting 11 days from now- assuming that the smoke is gone?!?!?!
Iv'e been lucky enough to ride 90% of the route over the past few weeks. Sean has put together a great course! You all will be blown away if you ever get a chance to ride it.
PRAY FOR RAIN AND NO LIGHTNING

[B_Bock]

P.S. It just began to rain here in Truckee.

[tanman1337]

Anyone want to just plan an awesome bikepacking touring route instead? I was thinking about doing the northern half of the AZT just to get out on my bike and do something. Anyone got any plans to do something similar?

[AZTtripper]

Tanner

I've been planning on doing what I am calling the Flagstone 500 in early Oct.

500 miles from Flagstaff to Tucson mixing the AZT with the Black Canyon Trail.

I have a pretty complete track and everything has been ridden just not all at ounce. I wasn't planning to call it a race and my plan was to get all of the info for a cue sheet while I do my ride. Then I was going to call it an official route weather it ever turns into a race I don't know. It all looks good on paper tho.

Tim

[Sean Allan]

O.K.
So here’s what I know, and it’s not very much. Foresthill Road is closed right now at about 10  miles above Foresthill Rd. The FS can give me no timeline on when it will reopen, her best guess is that is will be at least a couple of weeks. It could also open up tomorrow, just no way to tell.
 
The only worthy reroutes take us up Foresthill Rd. where we could join the track at Deadwood Rd, right now we cannot get above Deadwood Rd and all of the track from Deadwood Rd to French Meadows is out, it’s all closed due to the fire.
 
We can go out Mosquito Ridge Rd about 20 miles of pavement and enter the track at the crossing of Rd 43 and Mosquito Ridge Rd. We would lose a significant amount of trail, but the race would also be significantly easier, so that might appeal to some. That would allow us to still start in Auburn, do all the Auburn trails to Foresthill, take WS to Michigan Bluff and then head down to Mosquito Ridge Rd. I’m pretty set on starting in Auburn or cancelling the race. I’m not real interested in cutting the race in half and starting up in the higher reaches, just not enough of a challenge for me. Cutting out the middle section of Michigan Bluff to French Meadows will alter the feel and stress of the race, that stretch is very hard, remote and beautiful. If we do this reroute it would be a cherry stem from where we enter the track and we would just go left at the French Meadows Dam on the way out.
 
My best guess without doing some work on the reroute is that this would shorten the route by 30-40 miles and we would lose about 3000’ of climbing total on the race. It’s still not easy, the climb up Mosquito Ridge Rd is 19 miles long and nearly 5000’ of elevation gain, it is a  regional road bike legend route. We would be doing this on Labor Day weekend, so we will have that to consider as well, it’s a pretty remote FS road, but there will be traffic on it as there is a pretty popular lake at the end of it.
 
All of this does not take into account the smoke, which is pretty non existent today, hell I may even be able to ride for the first time in a week and a half. That could all change at any moment though. I do get the feeling they are getting the upper hand on the fire, the plume as seen from the valley was much better today.
 
I’m still kicking myself for not going with my initial thought of mid to late July, that is when it will go next year regardless of CTR. We’ll just have to build up a California contingent of bikepackers to do this race. I still think that this race has all the attributes of CTR without pushing your bike so much and getting rained on for a week. Hopefully that will appeal to others.
 
So I guess we need to figure out who is in and whether it’s worth it for me to spend the time on a reroute or do we just call it in favor of Mother Nature and regroup next year.
 
Let me know your thoughts as soon as possible. I know we started out with nearly 20 and some have already dropped out, totally understandable, but who is still interested in coming on the 31st?
 
Sean

[Buttermilk]

Lets run this thing...count me in. It's a crap shoot either way so lets do it.
I agree with keeping the the start in Auburn and keeping the commitment level high. The possibility of smoke does suck but we'll have to take as we get it.

Hope to see a solid group of riders at 6am in the Raileys parking lot.

Sean, thanks for being proactive on this.

[dkirk]

Hey Sean. Stop beating yourself up on this one. The odds of knowing this would happen?  Come on, I really appreciate all of the work you've done and are doing on this. As for my thoughts, I got to ride the route closed by fire earlier which is/was spectacular, and although not available is just a small part of the entire route. If as you said we could do the ride minus 30-40 miles, I'd drag my sorry arse down for that. As you said, if it was completely camfire city smokey, I would have second thoughts. So my vote would be a wait and see what the thirtieth brings with updates in between. And if it looks like a no go, Oh well, there's always next year! So count me as open to a reroute if the skies stay reasonably clear.

[Meriwether]

It's seeming more and more like the race is going to be a GO. The smoke is much better today than Sunday and they're seeming to get a good hold on over 50% of the perimeter.

Like when there's a fire detour in the Tour Divide (almost every year it seems) just gotta work around it and next year's CSTR will be game on for the full course. 

Mosquito Ridge Road is a classic road ride, it's a really cool long steady climb that mostly lacks cars. Gorman Ranch Road is another one of my favorite local roads that this new route would use both out and back. It's around a 7 mile railroad grade dirt road that isn't used by cars either since it doesn't really go anywhere.  Point is, this is a worthy alternative route that Sean is suggesting. 

[B_Bock]

I'm in. Great to hear that we're on. Let's hope the smoke stays away.

[Sean Allan]

Updated the website with the fire detour GPX and water cues this morning, that sucked ass........

Beautiful here today, no smoke at all. First night in nearly two weeks I slept with the windows open. Hopefully this is a good sign!

[tomk]

sean -

thanks fro posting updates.  unfortunately getting file not found trying to fetch the changes.

[trebor]

I'm going to edit and update the track and email it out to everyone on the race email list. It will have all the corrections and be the complete loop. Sean can then post it to the CSTR site.

I expect to do this around 8 PM PDT.