Biking Mule Trail

There’s a really cool trail system that makes up the San Dieguito River Park in San Diego. This trail system is also referred as the “Crest to Coast trail” and is approximately fifty-five miles running through San Diego from inland North County to Del Mar.

Today I rode the Mule Hill portion of this trail. I called my dad early this morning to see if he wanted to go riding and he agreed, so we met around 10am and loaded the bikes into my truck. Once on the trail he realized that his front derailleur wasn’t working and causing him to be stuck on the small ring. This trail is relatively flat for the first five miles and there was no way to pedal that far turning the cranks that fast for that long. We turned around and headed back to the truck and dropped his bike off at the local bike shop. I still wanted to go riding because I’ve felt like a lazy potato the past couple of weeks and because I wanted to blow off some steam, so I dropped him off and headed back out to the trail.

Overall it was easy going and there were a number of people enjoying the cool weather and nice day. Most everyone was respectful of each other and moved off to the side to make for some easy passing. However, I ran into a couple of walkers making their way side by side in a spot where the trail was only large enough for two people. I slowed down and waited for them to shift to single file but it never happened. As we approached each other they finally squeezed into each other and gave enough of a gap for me to pass and I thought all was well until I noticed that a horse happened to have taken the same exact line earlier in the day and left a gift for me. With no room to maneuver due to the walkers I went right through the droppings and muttered the obvious four letter word.

The rest of the trail seemed to breeze by and I decided to take a break and catch my breath before the single track climb that makes up the last three quarters of the trail. As I grabbed my water bottle I was surprised at how muddy it had gotten on a relatively dry trail. It wasn’t until I was wiping the top off that I realized my early cussing and proceeded to exclaim the early word again, but this time with a little more heart.

After dealing with the crappy situation I made it as far up the trail that my legs would take me and turned around to head back. The return trip seemed to fly by and I figure that total mileage was right around twelve miles. Not too bad for not doing anything physical the last couple of weeks.

I think that work will return to normal next week and hopefully I’ll get a few more posts in. I hope everyone has a great Easter!