It's been awhile now since I returned from my vacation in Lake Tahoe, California and the memories of the great rides I did have fully sunken in.  So I thought I'd drop a quick email and give you a little story about one of the rides, called Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.  I'm not sure if reading someone else's description of a ride is at all interesting to you, so for those with short attention span here's a condensed version:

Short Version – This trail ROCKS.  Best sustained singletrack climb I ever did followed by one hoot-n-holler raging singletrack, tight, buffed, swoopy downhill.  That's all you need to know – just get your duff to Tahoe and ride it.  Period. 

For those with more curiosity, I'll fill in the details.  You should know that at this moment I am at 35k ft on my way to Holland for 2 weeks of work related shit.  God I hate working, especially as I write all this good stuff about riding.  I may loose battery power on my laptop because I just spent 2 hours on powerpoint presentations – how stupid is THAT?  Anyway, one bright spot is that next weekend I am going mountain biking in Holland with a friend of mine who works at ASML Holland.  John knows him (Andre) from when he was assigned to Tempe for 6 months to work (riding).  Anyway, it should be fun.  I also just saw in the latest DirtRag that in October there is a 100km mountain bike "tour" in Holland.  I'll have to check my "work" schedule.  I'm not sure what they mean by a "tour".  My experience is that anytime you get more than one rider, it quickly turns into a RACE.

OK – back to Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.  I'll send some pics as soon as I get them back from the developers/robbers.  I've got two rolls in right now, one from Whistler and one from Tahoe.  I love my Canon Elph camera, but I can't believe it costs $22 per roll to get APS film developed onto CD's.  I'm DONE with this robbery – these are my last two rolls, I swear.  I'm going to go all 1's and 0's  (that's digital – get it?).  The Elph will go the way of eBay.  I've been looking at a nice little Sony digital and also the digital Canon Elph.  I want something small.  They are both 2.1 Mpix.  The Canon is about $100 more because it is REALLY small.  The only problem with the Sony is that their shit turns obsolete so fast.  Try buying a battery for my 6 year old Discman?  Julie has a nice Olympus, I think the same one as Tim.  That's good, but I would prefer something a little smaller.  Any suggestions from you binary guys?

Now, on to Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.  MTWR (that's Mr. Toad's Wild Ride) is actually the name of a rollercoaster at Disney Land.  This is supposed to be one of the PRIMO rides in the Tahoe area, according to the guide books, internet, etc.  And yes it is WILD.  Of course the locals say there are even BETTER rides, but they keep those kind of secret from the general public.  I got to ride one of these, but that's another email.  As far as MTWR, I have officially renamed this into three sections of the ride.  First there is Mr. Toad's Wild CLIMB, followed by Mr. Toad's Wild LSD Trip, then finally Mr. Toad's Wild RIDE.  To start, the ride is a point to point that ends right back at town.  I imagine many folks ride it as a loop by adding about 8 miles on road, but I was lucky enough to have Julie drive me to the trail head.  The ENTIRE ride is singletrack.  Basically, you climb up the backside of this big mountain (that's the CLIMB part), then you risk life and limb through some gnarly rock gardens, drops and steps (that's the LSD TRIP part) and then it's wicked smooth swoopy singletrack down, down and down.  A few miles on a paved bike path and you are right back at the "Bean & Begal", where by the way, I think there is more than just a little bit of weed being smoked.  The whole ride takes place over 7000 ft and you climb to close to 9000 ft.  I'm not sure the miles, but it took me about 3.5 hours without really hammering.

Now, from the start of the trailhead it is smooth groomed singletrack that goers UP and UP and UP the lovely Mr. Toad's Wild Climb.  The trail is hardpacked and just beautiful.  No having to pick a line or anything and the visual surroundings are stunning.  Dense forest and spectacular views.  It's so damn stunning that you have no idea that you are really climbing.  Make no mistake, the climb is tough – but your brain seems totally detached from your legs and lungs so you are not aware of the effort.  You just keep spinning up and up.  This same climb on a jeep road or fire road (or hell, even on a PAVED road) would have been just misery, but somehow it just all flowed along.  I stopped a few times to look around, take photos, etc., but I'm pretty sure I could have cleaned the whole thing.  There are not many (any) climbs that I can think of that you DON'T ever want to end, but that's how I felt.  Of course I also had no idea how far the climb really was, so I just kept on spinning.  The higher you got, the more beautiful the views.  It was pretty obvious when you had reached the top.  You could not go higher if you wanted to.  The trail  came to a "T".  Right goes to who-knows-where, Left is Mr. Toad.

Mr. Toad's LSD Trip:  At the summit of the trail was a warning sign.  Not what you would expect.  Not "Caution – watch for hikers", "Share The Trail" or any of that crap.  The sign said "Please Lower Your Seat"!  Made me wonder just what lay ahead.  Also made me wonder how sane it was being in the middle of nowhere, all alone, nobody knows where I am, etc.  Oh yeah – there are black bears around here.  And did I mention that I only had a partial rear brake?   Well, only one way to get back home and that was DOWN.  The trail took off on a smooth rolling downhill which gradually tilted to an almost steady 15 % grade.  Almost out of nowhere came the first section of ragged rock drop offs and other assorted goodies.  These would have been "do-able" or at least I would have tried had I not been alone.  But I thought better of it and dismounted.  Almost as soon as I started riding again came repeated drops and jags that were WAY beyond my ability.  Although it was obvious that many/most freeriders just blast right through this stuff.  But I walked/climbed around this stuff and was actually getting a little bummed, thinking "shit, did I climb for 2 hours just to walk down this mountain – this sucks."  But then I heard running water and the trail smoothed out and made two quick stream crossings.  About as much as the Flat Pas water crossings – no problem.  No more rocks and the trail seemed to be more groomed, so maybe I was on to something. 

With the LSD Trip apparently over, the trail got FAST.  Very much like parts of the Whistler downhill (minus the jumps).  Swoopy banked tight turns in still-dense forest.  All of a sudden I was in full smile thinking – "Woooah, this is the damn best singletrack downhill I have ridden.  YEAAAAAH-HAAA".  My mind started to really zone out and I was flying on autopilot, although still holding back a little for fear of just being all alone when disaster would strike (hint – next year I need a riding partner).  Just as I was flying along, Mr. Toad decide to through one more little LSD Hangover at me – In the absolute middle of nowhere, all of a sudden the singletrack trail turns onto a set of about 200 wooden steps.  Incredible, how in the world did this get built HERE?  These were something like 8x8 landscape timbers build into this huge staircase.  I started bounding down this thing, and it was VERY steep.  After about ½ of it, I realized that my rear wheel was no longer even making contact with the steps – I was just pogo-sticking it on my front fork.  VERY scary.  I bailed out into the brush on the left just to stop myself.  Absolutely weird stuff.  I image the freeriders blast down this thing like it's not even there.  Anyway, at the end of the steps it was just more and more smooth downhill singletrack.  A few small bridges over some streams and more and more buffed downhill.  Hard to imagine how cool this was.

I still had no idea how much farther it went and then BAM – you dump out onto a forest road.  A few miles later onto a paved bike path and then HOME – all smiles of course.  In summary all I can say is that if you are ever anywhere NEAR Tahoe and do not ride this trail, you have missed a truly superb opportunity.  Life brings a lot of twists and turns and none of us know what tomorrow will really bring – so as for ME, I just thank my lucky stars that I am who I am, that I am where I am, and that I'm able to do the things I do.

Dave (August 2001)