Your #1 Source Of Dirt On The Crumm's: SART Trail... F@$%ING AWESOME!

I had today off and was supposed to be in Yosemite. Unfortunately someone tripped out and the plans got ruined... I guess thats why you have backup plans. Anyways my friend Thug Life just happened to have the day off and we had been meaning to find some new trails to ride. Luckily enough, earlier in the week while doing some internet research I had found out about the alleged "Best Trail In Southern California" for mountain biking. This trail was called the SART which is short for the Santa Ana River Trail. Details were a bit sketchy but I found a great mountain bike website called Mountain Bike Bill and finally I had enough specifics and pictures to make finding and riding this trail a real possibility. We took off early in the morning and set out for Angelus Oaks, a small little mountain town on the way to Big Bear Lake. It only took us about 2 hours (thats with 3 wrong turns) to get there, but once we got there a "local" totally sent us off on a wild goose chase to find the start of the trail. We wound up wasting about another hour driving on this dirt fireroad at about 2 miles an hour searching for a place where all the bikers supposedly parked. We did however find 2 connecting parts of the SART so we at least figured out that we were definitely in the right area, but that we were headed in the wrong direction. We decided to turn around. Little did we know, all we had to do was go behind the building we were at in the first place before the "local" helped us out, and ride about 5 minutes up a fireroad to be at our destination... the SART's start. At last we were about to start on another epic ride. It was kind of sketchy though since at the Trail Head there was a sign warning about bears in the area and how they can smell food from a few miles away. Of course I happened to have a huge pack of beef jerky and a bunch of fruit and power bars in my back pack so I felt like a walking bear treat. I decided not to worry about it and strapped up with all my gear and we took off. Along the way I saw several mysterious turds and paw prints, but the single track was so insane I didn't even care if a bear attacked us anymore. The trail seemed to never end, but it did about 3 miles later when we got to the fireroad. At this point you can either continue on about 60 feet and take that trail, or ride down the fireroad another mile and pick up the trail again. I highly suggest the second option as the first route was very treacherous and had seen a few rock slides recently. For this part of the ride we probably walked and carried our bikes about 80% of the time, with really mushy ground crumbling away with each step. Eventually we got to the second trail connector. This part of the ride was back to being some kick ass single track for mile after mile. Once we made it to Glass Road (about 10 miles in) we saw that it was getting late and decided to head back. Amazingly enough, heading back was just as fun. It seems like either way you go on the SART its never a big climb, just rolling trails and nonstop action. Then we got to the fireroad. This is the only part of the ride that sucked. And it only sucks because odds are you will be dead tired by the time you get back to this point and wont want to ride uphill for 3 miles. Let me just say that this is definitely the best trail I've ever ridden and Red Box only sort of compares to it. This was single track heaven and you can ride as far as you want as long as you have the strength to ride the same distance back out and tack on an additional 3 mile uphill from hell at the end of the ride to get back to your car. Anyways we made it out and rode somewhere between 16 and 17 miles total in about 5 or 6 hours. By the time we got back to the car I was the most tired I've ever been after a ride and could have slept until the next day. If you like mountain biking I highly recommend this trail. Here are just a few of my pics from that ride...