South Yuba Trail

The South Yuba River, one of three arms that makes up the Yuba river, is a gorgeous riverway that is peaceful and littered with great swimming holes in the summer, and a raging torrent of whitewater during the spring. In the Fall, the river's 30 miles of shoreline trail has something for everyone and lots more.

A couple of co-workers (Rusty and Big Dave) and great mountain bikers leave for Columbia Sunday for three weeks to do some site work on a future nickle mine down there. Before leaving they wanted one more epic ride to tie them over during their absence. An epic ride is just what Rusty had planned, the South Yuba trail - in it's entirety. I've been meaning to ride other sections of the trail for some time now, but had never really planned riding the entire trail in one day. But the weather was phenomenal, everyone was in good spirits and chalked full of energy (at least at the start).

We dropped a car at the North Ridge bar and shuttled to the scenic overlook on hwy20, about 20 miles up the road. From there we bombed down Washington Road to the South Yuba River town of Washington. This is where the South Yuba Trail begins.











Our route (minus a 3 mile section in the middle where I forgot to press start on the GPS).

The S. Yuba River follows some pretty rough terrain and is confined by steep canyon walls on either side. The steep canyon walls make for some of the most technical, exposed and exciting riding in Northern CA. In many places, one error could result in a helicopter ride out of the canyon.

The South Yuba River Trail, like many river trails, follows the course of the river. Except the topography governs where the trail can and can't go, so the trail will often climb into tributary canyons, climb over secondary ridges and sometimes just climb for the hell of it. Riding the Yuba trails makes you think that you're constantly climbing.

The ride on the South Yuba was great with few conflicts or incidents. The group was spaced out most of the time, as hilly climbs will often do to a group. I broke a chain about 15 miles into it. The link that broke was right next to the master link, so a trail-side fix was easy. My shortened chain meant that I had two fewer gears to work with though, which made the remainder of the trip seam like a single speed ride.

So we rode the South Yuba from Washington to Edwards crossing, about 30 miles, in 5.5 hours with little conflict. The only thing left to do was to climb out of the South Yuba River Valley back to the car parked at the bar, about 8 miles and 2500 vert feet away. It was a poor sight, 5 tired, beat and spent riders waging an epic battle against gravity motivated by the crisp taste of New Bel Fat Tire and hopes of sitting on something besides a bike saddle. The last two miles of the trip nearly killed me. We stumbled into the bar, ordered a couple pizzas and enjoyed a picture of beer.

The ride topped off right at 40 miles, took us from 10:30 to 5:30 (7 hrs) with ample stops and a calculated energy of 5000 calories. It will probably be a while before I ride the South Yuba in it's entirety again, but I definitely had a blast this time. Once again, my lack of a decent camera produced no pictures of this ride. The ride stats can be found in full at: http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/7153424