Those that know me are aware that while I ride my road bike near my home on the coast I regularly get up to the Fawnskin/Big Bear area to ride my Mountain bike.  For those who aren’t familiar with the area Fawnskin lies on the North Shore of Big Bear Lake. Unlike my roadie which I ride for miles, my Mtn bike is a pure adventure tool.  So I don’t count the miles I ride on it toward my roadie goals whether I’m doing about an hour with my coworkers in the Flightline area or out for an adventure up in the San Bernardino National Forest.

Note with my coworkers the normal ride is about 5 miles and we do it in around 50-75 minutes.  It’s a loop with some steep but by definition relatively short climbs.  The ride is all single track and rather technical.  On the other hand up in Big Bear the rides tend to be long climbs (1-3 miles generally ascending) for literally a thousand or more feet and then the accompanying downhill.  A good example is my original ride up Polique Canyon Rd. to 2N71 across to 3N12 down to 3N14 and into Fawnskin.  The ride is about 10 miles and the first 5 miles climb from the lake elevation of 6900 feet to an elevation of ~8000 feet, followed by an equal down hill back to town.

This past 4th of July holiday weekend I decided to explore a new route.  I’ve been taking a more challenging route that takes me up Polique Canyon (2N09) and then across Holcomb Valley (3N16) to 3N12 which brings me back to 3N14 just south of the YMCA camp so I descend down into Fawnskin.  This has a massive 2.5 mile climb up 2N09 followed by a very tough climb up 3N12 (before it descends).  Overall the goal, since these roads aren’t very technical (rocks and difficult handling) is to ‘keep it on the middle ring’ and when I’m fresh I can do just that.  So this weekend it was time for a new challenge.

I had already gone to the east on 3N16 out toward Baldwin Lake, so I wanted to go west.  What I saw on my map indicated that I could continue a short distance past 3N12 and hit 3N08 and that it would take me around to 3N14 down below the Hanna Flat campground area.  So this was my new route.  The first 4 miles took me to the top of 2N09.  The next 4 miles took me down into Holcomb Valley, across to 3N08 and started me along 3N08.  These 4 miles were mostly rolling hills and some sand, nothing too difficult.  Then I got into 3N08.

3N08 is the first fire road that I would classify as 'difficult'.  Now over the course of 3N08 (heading West) you are loosing elevation, but it isn't a downhill ride.  In fact there is a lot of climbing and a lot of it up steep inclines.  Areas that definitely call for the granny (little) front chain ring and your lowest gears.  The down hills are very steep and ugly with lots of rocks.  This is a tough downhill and I know I’m not ready to head up this road yet.  

A word of warning however, the first time I road this I started to doubt my map.  After all fire roads are exactly well documented and the map I use sometimes has minor errors.  As you ride along you have a beautiful view of a river valley and on the other side are the mountains between you and Fawnskin/Big Bear.  Now of course along the way my thought was "uh-oh I'm on the wrong mountains! When do I go across (there aren’t many suspension bridges in the forest)?  Where am I really going?".   My concern was if the map was wrong I was headed to Green Valley Lake and was going to be calling home for a ride back.   Of course, by the time it became an issue I was past what I considered to be the point of no return so I continued forward.  The net is the next 4 miles down 3N08 go on forever and you are literally out in the middle of nowhere, but you can’t miss 3N14, because this part of 3N08 dead-ends into this much larger fire road.  At the same time 3N08 is very technical to the point that there is one downhill section that I walk because of the jutting rocks that could cause major bodily injury.

Once to the 'bottom' of 3N08 you hit 3N14 right in the river valley.  This gives you a long 2 mile climb up 3N14 (a more well maintained/traveled fire road) past the Hanna Flat campgrounds and the YMCA Camp Whittle and down into Fawnskin.  The views off to the north-west while climbing 3N14 are great and I'm pretty certain that was Lake Arrowhead I could see off in the distance.  All told you are looking at about 17.5 miles depending on where you start.  It was a very challenging ride and one I repeated a second time so I could be more comfortable on it in the future, of course the future is tomorrow at this point... so I'll be out on the roads again on Saturday morning.