by Doug Burnside

These rides will take place every Tuesday evening throughout the summer, rain or shine, and will be hosted by long-time Fairbanks cyclist Doug Burnside. The group will meet at 7:00 PM and start riding as soon after that as everybody is ready.

These rides will most definitely be rides, NOT races, and hammer-head riding will be discouraged. To me, the fun part of a group ride is riding in a group, socializing, meeting new people, and seeing trails I haven't ridden on before. My plan is to have slower riders (such as myself) lead the group and I will be dictatorial about keeping the group together. It's almost easier to define what these rides aren't than what they are. They are not races. They are not training rides. They are not rides for people whose idea of a good time is to push the limits, get a hard workout, or see how fast they can go on a trail. They are not highly organized rides. They are rides that will be fun even for novice riders with limited off-road experience, and there will be experienced riders to offer advice, riding hints and mechanical help.

I've ridden all of these routes many times, and have a pretty good idea of what they are like, but there isn't any absolute commitment to any of them. If somebody has an idea for a different route, I'd be delighted to hear it. I know there must be hundreds of miles of trails I haven't ridden, and I love to ride new trails. I'm not going to pre-ride or mark any of these trails, so no doubt there will be a few surprises. If we're lucky, I'll manage to get the whole group lost a couple of times. Those are always the very best rides, when you don't know where you are or where you're going or how you're going to get there -- or back!

There are no entry fees for these rides, but for insurance reasons, all riders must be Fairbanks Cycle Club members at a cost of $35 per year, or get a one-day $5 membership at the time of the ride. The good news for 2001 is that the $2.00 USCF insurance for each ride is now a thing of the past. Paperwork is much simplified. Each week you have to initial a release form - and that's it.

Rides will vary in difficulty from easy (Ester-Henderson Road-Marathon Trail-Ester) to difficult (Colorado Creek) to exceptionally hard (Standard Creek and Goldmine Trail--Cleary Summit). Easy rides are scheduled early in the season, longer rides when there is maximum daylight. A difficulty level of 1 would be equivalent to riding your mountain bike on a gravel road with rolling hills for an hour. A level 10 would be like riding from Ann's Greenhouse to the top of Ester Dome and back--twice.

5/1/01 Meet at 7 PM at the Ester Community Park, located next to the Fire Station on the Old Nenana Highway just before the turnoff into Ester. We'll ride up Henderson Road to the Mine, then turn left onto the Marathon Trail. About half of a mile into this trail we'll take the left branch and take what I call the Back Door Trail back into Ester. This trail is down hill for over 90% of the distance (about 4 miles) and is my favorite trail I have ever ridden. This early in the season it will probably be muddy and not as much fun as it will be later, and there will be three puddles to ride through that could be as deep as 18--24 inches. On a difficulty scale of 1 to 10, this ride is a 3. Figure about 1.5 to 2 hours, depending on the mud.

5/8/01 7 PM, Birch Hill ski trails. Follow the leader. 2 hours, as hard or easy as we want to make it. These trails are a LOT of fun. They are safe, fast, challenging and entertaining, particularly if I can find some cross-country skier who knows the trails to lead us. There are trails up there that are NOT part of the ski trail system that we can explore as well. Difficulty level will be about a 4.

5/15//01 Meet at 7 PM at the first level area (about half of a mile) past Cleary Summit. There's an old mining trail we can follow all the way down to an old mining claim. See a little bit of Alaskan History, explore for about two hours. Difficulty level is 5.

5/22/01 Meet at 7 PM at the Ester Community Park, located next to the Fire Station on the Old Nenana Highway just before the turnoff into Ester. We'll take the Ester Mine Road all the way to the top of Ester Dome. This is an arduous climb, but since we won't be racing, there's no reason to thrash yourself doing it. Taking an extra 20 minutes up the hill makes it a fun experience. We'll go down the Alder Chute, then pick up the first week's trail back into Ester. You'll spend about 40 minutes pushing your bike up the steepest part, but when you get there, you have a seven or eight mile ride that is at least 95% down hill. Note: Riding down the Alder Chute is not a good idea for the faint of heart. This is a very difficult and challenging descent requiring above average bike handling skills. This will be the most dangerous trail we will ride the entire summer and if you are not fully confident of your abilities, you should walk your bike down this hill -- about 3/10 of a mile. Figure three hours for this ride. Difficulty level of this ride on a 1 to 10 scale is 6, but all of the difficulty is concentrated in the first third of the ride. This ride has been moved back in the schedule by two weeks to reduce the difficulties with mud.

5/29/01 Meet at 7PM at the Ester Community Park. Tom Clark will lead the group, probably getting us all lost. Tom says that this will be a lot of fun, and to expect to ride for 2 1/2 hours, with a difficulty level of 6.

6/5/01 We'll meet and park at the intersection of Cripple Creek Road on the Parks Highway, about two miles past Ester. We'll do a boring five mile ride up the Parks Highway to the Rosie Creek wood cutting road, just past the intersection with the Old Nenana Highway. This will take about an hour, but it is a gentle climb. Then the fun begins: about six miles of downhill riding, some of it on very fast wood cutting roads, some of it on fun and technical single track. We'll come out on subdivision roads at the very bottom of the hill, at the Quist farm. From there it's about five incredibly long miles or so back to the cars. On our 1 to 10 difficulty scale, this ride is a six. It will take about three hours. Many of our serious crashes have occurred on this ride, so be careful.

6/12/01 This ride will start at 5 Mile Chena Hot Springs Road, at Steele Creek Road. We'll ride out Chena Hot Springs Road for a couple of miles, then go out Amanita Road clear to the end of it and beyond, an amazing continuous climb, riding the trails and section lines until we hit the Gilmore Trail. We'll follow Gilmore trail to West Hubernite road, and follow the Death Ride course back to the start. This is a difficult course with a lot of elevation gain and technical riding. I'd put it at 7 on the difficulty scale, and about 3 hours.

6/19/01 Start at 5 mile Chena Hot Springs Road and ride the Death Ride Course. We'll put out the course markers for the Death Ride race which happens the following Sunday. Be prepared for a LOT of elevation gain (about 2500 feet), two stream crossings and a mile long swamp that can run thigh deep in places. What with laying out the course markers, this will be a 4 hour ride with a difficulty level of 7.

6/26/01 Start at Ivory Jacks on Goldstream Road. We'll go up O'Connor Creek trail to Old Murphy Dome Road, follow it over to the powerline that leads to Moose Mountain ski area. We'll follow the trails and a very steep section line down to the subdivision roads that go by where Rocky used to live, and from there back to Ivory Jacks. Sometimes this can be a very muddy ride. If it’s a dry year, we'll make it in 3 hours, with a difficulty level of six.

7/3/01 Don't miss this ride! Start at 31.9 mile Chena Hot Springs Road at the Colorado Creek turnout. We start on the Colorado Creek trail, but a few miles in we leave it and take the Four Mile Ridge trail which puts us back out on Chena Hot Springs Road about 5 miles from where we started. This is absolutely the best ride of the whole season from the point of view of challenging riding, fun trails, great scenery, and an exciting descent. You'll really be out in the boonies on this ride, which will run about 4.5 hours, 24 miles. If you only do one of my rides all season, make it this one, provided that you are in reasonably good condition. The difficulty level is 8.

7/10/01 This is the infamous Standard Creek ride. It's too long a ride to make a loop out of it, so we'll work out some way of keeping cars parked at both ends of the ride. It's also too long a ride to start at 7 PM. We'll start it early: say 6 PM instead of the normal 7 PM. We'll meet at the gravel quarry just before the end of the pavement on Murphy Dome road, then we'll get everybody loaded into as few vehicles as possible and drive out the Old Nenana Highway about 8 miles to Standard Creek Road. That's where the fun begins. We start with an eight mile descent on a dirt wood-cutting road, then a few miles along the bottom of the valley where we'll leave the road and pick up an old surveyors trail that finally dumps us out on the Lincoln Creek subdivision roads. There has been enough new road construction that the difficulty level is considerably less than before. Total distance is about 34 miles, and it will take us 4--5 hours to do the ride. This is a really good ride if you're in shape for it, but it will leave you dragging regardless. You will want to be in better-than-average condition for this ride. Difficulty level is 8.

7/17/01 Start at the Pipeline Viewpoint on the Steese Highway just before Goldstream Road. We'll go up Gold Mine Trail to Gilmore Trail, (that's quite a climb on good gravel subdivision roads), take Gilmore Trail to the Trapper Trail which goes along the ridges to Cleary Summit, then it's pavement all the way back to the viewpoint (unless we decide to take the long way down using the fun descent that dumps us out by the Pedro Monument, which nobody ever wants to do.) Estimated time: 4 hours, difficulty level is 8.

7/24/01 We’ll start where the Elliott Highway crests the hill out of Fox, by Old Murphy Dome Road. We'll go out Silver something-or-other road (I can never remember the name of it) over to Cleary Summit and part way back we'll take a marvelous descent that goes all the way down to the Steese Highway about 4 miles North of Fox. Then it's road riding back to where we started. Figure about 2.5 hours for this ride with a difficulty level of 5.

7/31/01 Meet at Two Rivers School at about 18 mile Chena Hot Springs Road. We'll play follow the leader on the ski trails behind the school. There are some really excellent trails there and this is not a ride you'll want to miss. We'll ride for two hours, and the difficulty level will be as easy or as hard as you want to make it. Call it a 4.

8/7/01 We'll meet at Valley Center, about 24 mile Chena Hot Springs Road. From there we'll go up Burgundy Drive, a ferocious climb that is rideable, but granny-gear low all the way up. From there, we take the left fork at the top of the hill and eventually end up back on Chena Hot Springs Road near the Old Grange Road about four miles from where we started. We'll ride a loop around Jenny M hill, then take dog mushing trails back to Valley Center. This ride has a higher than average fun factor. Figure 3--4 hours, difficulty level 6.

8/14/01 Up the hill behind the Vallata on Goldstream Road. We'll follow an old ski trail over to the Old Murphy Dome road, go to the pipeline corridor and take the second downhill to Goldstream road and back to the cars. This turned out to be the Ride from Hell in 1995, lasting until 2 am, difficulty level 9. It was a lot better in 1996 because we knew where we were going, sort of. In 1999 we took the wrong downhill trail and ended up thigh-deep in a swamp. This is a very bumpy trail - suspension is a good thing to have for this ride. If you have to be at work early the next morning, better skip this one. Figure 4--5 hours, difficulty level 8.

8/21/01 Meet at Dave Kramer's house on Sherwood Forest Drive off of Knightsbridge, off Chena Ridge Road. We'll explore a lot of really good trails up on Chena Ridge. (Note: NOT Chena Hot Springs!) Three hours, difficulty 5.

8/28/01 Meet up at the gravel pit at 2 mile Murphy Dome road. From there we'll go over to the Moose Mountain Ski Lodge and take a "forgotten" access road most of the way up to the top, the regular roads/trails the rest of the way up. At that point, we'll have done 10% of the distance, and maybe 65% of the work. We'll follow the power lines over to Old Murphy Dome Road, follow it west on a long, shallow descent that can be ridden really fast, go through a few really deep puddles, and look for a tiny trail to the left that is immensely technical, and a challenging downhill all the way back to the ski lodge. Rocky's Mountain Bike Stage Race used this downhill. If you have lights for your bike, you won't absolutely need them, but you'll be glad you had them. Figure about three hours, difficulty level 7.

9/4/01 We'll meet at the Ester Community Park, then ride out the Back Door trail and up to the Marathon Trail. We'll follow the Marathon Trail UP the alder chute, then follow it all the way down to St. Patricks Road. We'll ride St. Patricks Road over to Henderson Road, up Henderson to the mine, and ride an old mining road through the mine area back to Gold Hill Road. If you have lights for your bicycle, bring them for this ride. You really, truly will need them. By general consensus, this was the second-most fun ride (after Colorado Creek) that we did last year. It's about three hours, difficulty level 7.