The singletrack descent from Freel Meadows down to Meyers, is absolutely - gauranteed the best mountain bike ride in all of Tahoe/Truckee. I think it's almost 15 miles of constant downhill. Only not your normal downhill skid trail. Your dream trail. Meadows, creeks, granite, tons of banked turns, views of real mountains, lakes, and of course Tahoe.

I call this loop the High Ride. Definately the most climbing and descending you can do in Tahoe in a one direction ride. My rough guess is about 50 miles and 5000' of climbing. I don't really know from studying the map or computer however.

Put the loop aside for a second. The easiest way to get the full downhill I'm talking about is the following:
Leave a shuttle car in Meyers and drive yourself up to the Tahoe Rim Trail on Luthier Pass. Ride up to Freel Meadows, and go just beyond to a clearing where you can see Hope Valley and the surrounding peaks. Turn around, and don't forget to bang a right when you re-cross the Saxon Creek Trailhead. This is the only turn in the ride. Saxon Creek Trail is Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. Turn left on Pioneer, the highway you find at the end of the ride.

Back to the killer loop you need to do now. Rode with Mark Chavez, who helps run the Truckee Store service department.

I like to park at the Casinos near Stateline. We ride up Kingsbury Grade to Dagget's Pass, 7340'. Turn right at the top of the pass, and ride another steep mile through a world of condos. The Tahoe Rim Trail is at the very end. The TRT organization did an incredible job building this trail. Much of it is on very steep slopes, yet the trail has no off-camber. Tons of small granite rocks are built into retainer walls all along this ride.

After a few miles of climbing, you reach Monument Pass and this view. Get used to false summits. Next will be Freel Pass, and finally Armstrong Pass.







You've done quite a bit of quality riding by this point, mostly up, but some great down. Job's Sister is on the left, and Freel Peak is on the right. The trail goes to the low point just right of Job's Sister. Star Lake is burried at the bottom of Job's Sister. Right now there is NO dust anywhere, the flowers are fully out, grass is very green, and the creeks are flowing.




Check out this Bristlecone tree. 500 years old? The base is huge.


Star Lake is beautiful, and swimming would have been nice. We did this ride on 7-19 and it was very hot.








Freel Peak is on the left in this shot. We didn't walk over much snow, but it was fun to cross a big snowfield just beyond here.


After freel pass, you've got a long way to go before Armstrong. The ride is killer. Down/Up award winning singletrack with no one around. In fact, there is only one option to bail out along this entire ride. Just before Armstrong Pass, you can take a right and descend to South shore. The sign says "Oneidas Street". Anyone been down this trail who can tell us about it? I keep saying I'm going to do it, I know people ride it, but I haven't wanted to miss out on Mr. Toad's.


I didn't take any more pictures. We rested at Armstrong Pass for half an hour and ate everything we had. At 4pm we hit the downhill, and it took an hour to get onto the pavement. None of these pictures really do the trail justice, and the downhill is unbelievable. Now that I've done the ride 5 times, I've finally realized that this could easily be Bike Magazine's next nationally famous epic story ride.

Here's a shot of Deslolation Wilderness, which you can see from much of the ride.


Another note. Expect to walk your bike uphill at times, especially near Freel Pass. The downhill is pretty challenging as well. Nothing your 5" travel disc brake bike can't handle of course. It is truly amazing what modern bikes can do.

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Mike Schwartz
www.thebackcountry.net
mike@thebackcountry.net

Nice trip report! Yea, TRT from Kingbury to Armstrong/Toads/Big Meadow is by far my fav ride anywhere I've been. Tried to do it today starting at Mt. Rose and ran out of time again. Next weekend I'll get an eariler start.

Dropping down from Armstrong to Oneidas is a fast way to get down if you're short on time or fried. It's about 4 miles of sweet, steep and pretty smooth single track before reaching the top of Fountain Place Road. Fountain place Road is paved and about 7 miles back to Oneidas. You can take Corral trail off on the right of Fountain if you want 4 more miles of single track. I prefer staying on Fountain as it's a crusier and Corral is very sandy. If you take Corral, take a left at the bottom to get back to Oneidas, or you can check out Trout creek to the right. Flat 2 mile single track that is as wide as your tires. Very nice, especially for beginners.

I pref doing Mr. toads loop by climbing up Fountain Place to Armstrong and right on the Rim Trail. Armstrong to Saxon is way less crowded and nicer than Big Meadow to Saxon.

Brett

thanks for the locals tip and directions. Now I know what my next ride is.

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Mike Schwartz
www.thebackcountry.net
mike@thebackcountry.net

Forgot to mention that you can also bail out of the ride at Star Lake. Just before you see the milemarker sign at Star Lake there is a trail that heads down right. This is single track and turns into Cold Stream Canyon road in about .5 miles which takes you to Power line. Take a left on Power line to get back to Oneidas. Took this down earlier this month as there was too much snow after Star Lake.

There is a way to drive up to almost a half a mile from the top of Armstrong. This rode is on the left after you pass Waterhouse Peak heading to Hope Valley on 89. I think it's 051. Rough road and the trail start isn't marked. There are usually cars parked there and it's just after you cross I think the second bridge. The trails starts out on the left across another bridge. Starts out as a road then turns single track.

Brett

Wow great minds think a like or is it demented minds :twisted:

Saturday July 22nd I attempted this ride but ran out of time and bailed at Armstrong Pass. Tried it again last Friday July 28th and finished it. 61.4 miles to the bottom of Toads, 8:47:07 of on bike ride time. BTW I did the Flume and not the TRT above it to save on a extra climb and time.

you elevation guys ride this whole loop (kingsb - starr - toads - powerline) without the car shuttle, right? any tips on getting a ride to avoid the xtra road miles? of course, we'll ride it anyways...

that 60 mile ride is :twisted: thanks for this thread mike, but where's the old destination guide?

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oaklandish

Did this ride Yesterday. It's 34 miles and 11,460 feet of climbing. Kind of an MF!

Anyway, that's a Big Mountain Juniper on the trail, not a Bristlecone.

We parked at what we thought was Fountainplace, and it might have been (gated road with big mounds of asphault?), but ended Toads on Oneidas and had to ride back. The pavement riding isn't so bad.



-M

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I've got the kind of beard that dissappears when I dress in leather.

I'd be interested in knowing your route, trying to figure out how you got that much elevation gain over 34 miles.

Picture looks like Freel Meadows near Hell Hole Overlook, one of my favorite's when it's firing with flowers with killer views out towards Hope Valley.

And dkj2hike I normally do this ride as a shuttle, I've done it without one, but it's not as much fun!

I just sent it to the email in your profile.

Basically: Oneidas-Poinier Trail-DaggetPass-TRT Head-Monument-Star-Freel-Armstrong-Toads.

-M

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I've got the kind of beard that dissappears when I dress in leather.

I'm curious with your milage and elevation too. I was guessing 5k climbing and 50 miles, but I didn't do any real map computing. From S. Lake, you climb 4 passes in the 1000 plus or minus range.

The ride back on road is easy if you leave your car at the casinos. Pretty much flat the whole way back. However, there is no place to get food or water between the end of Toad's and S. Lake. Steal water from someone's hose if you're dying I guess. (Okay, I did this once)

thanks for chiming in Wolfy

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Mike Schwartz
www.thebackcountry.net
mike@thebackcountry.net

We're going to do it again and bring a GPS. Before winter. Plus we'd like to do it w/o a hangover. Thinking it'll be easier. Also would like to do it with a new derailleur and a tight BB for a chainsuck free day.

My mileages were based on a DeLorme TOPO plot, but it was fairly coarse.

-M

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I've got the kind of beard that dissappears when I dress in leather.

It's 7000 feet to do the loop, check this link for a motion based GPS map

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/episode/view.mb?episodePk.pkValue=1061813

If you have two cars for a shuttle but you what the extra milage, it's a lot more fun to start at Spooner summit and ride the bench section of the TRT. There is a store on the way to the Stagecoach lift that you can resupply at before hitting the trail again.
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/invitation/email/accept.mb?senderPk.pkValue=53872&unitSystemPkValue=2&episodePk.pkValue=1088492

so 8/11 my buddy and i tried to make this loop... parked at ski run blvd and cruised up Stagecoach. well, this is insane, but climbing (yes, uphill, 4mph) near Monument my buddy awkwardly taps a 5" rock, his frnt wheel swings 90degrees and he just nails his chest on end of his handlebar (yeah, it was capped, but...), he kinda freezes, falls off the trail 5' down into the bushes and starts moaing. he fuckin' cracked his sternum :!: of course, we didn't know this... but after 45 minutes of debate & evaluation we confirmed 911 works out there, and the Douglas Co S&R guys and gals kick ass. he got a painful ride out from the bottom of Mott Cyn lift after shuffling down. just insane. any one heard of anything like this happening? timeline for healing likely precludes trying this again b/f 2007.

the following day, went with new unbroken friends (our sternum friend enjoyed vicadin blur) to ride from Luther Pass via 051, Armstrong Pass, and TRT down to 89. great compact ride as noted elsewhere. would be good to do from Hope Valley on other dirt roads/trails. made me want the Kingsbury - Toads all the more. next time...

Another option to this epic ride is to park your car at the end of South Upper Truckee Road. Take the route as described but continue past Mr. Toads and ride the single track down to Big Meadow Trailhead parking on Hwy 89. Cross the highway and continue through Big Meadow up to the Round Lake Junction. At this trail marker turn right and head down the great Christmas Valley drop which is a spctacular downhill in itself. Come out on South Upper Truckee Road to your car, have a beer or two and think about what the hell you just did !

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" Do the thing you fear the most and the death of fear is certain"

Reading this brings back fond memories from 12+ years ago(when I live in Myers) of full rigid bikes, super rocky technical sections on Toads(before they cleaned it up a bunch) and nobody on the trails. All of my favorite loop variations were mentioned here, plus a few more. I like the link up from Rose (never thought quite that big back then).

one more fun one, more for locals than north shore folk, is ride of the backside of Armstrong Pass towards, Hope Valley, into Horseshoe Valley(or some similar name). The only thing I really recall of this is a great gap jump off a tongue of granite over a creek