Loon Lake Bike/Hike

On Forest Service Road 13N11

I recently spent a couple of weeks camping up in El Dorado County at Loon Lake. I brought my Mercian shod with 650B tires for an occasional ride. My normal ride was out to the dam on the north side of the lake, then over to an outlook on the highway for cell service then back to camp. Barely 8 1/2 miles but it kept my legs spinning. Shelly and I were doing a lot of hiking so I wasn't worried about losing conditioning. One of our hikes started at the Loon Lake Chalet and went up to Chipmunk Butte. On this walk we would pass a Forest Service road marked 13N11 and I was curious about it. Looking at a map, I noticed it looped back to Ice House Road leading to the campground so it seemed to be a nice little circuit for riding.

Loon Lake Chalet

I decided to give the road a try on the Mercian. I hoped the 38mm(1 1/2") tires would provide sufficient grip and protection from pinch flats. In the end, I would guess I had to walk about half of the dirt section. I think a mountain bike could have done more...and a skilled rider could have perhaps ridden it all on a suspension equipped bike. Neither case applies to me! I looked at this ride as similar to those of the "Rough Stuff Fellowship" type rides the English used to do before the dawn of the mountain bike!

Start of the gravel just past the Chalet.

At the turnoff for USFS Road 13N11

Small lake along the route.

The way gets rough!

Do NOT take this turnoff!

This was one of the hiking parts!

The road follows the power lines at this point. I had to skirt around this puddle to the right.

The road finally swings away from the power lines and onto the paved Ice House Road road.

As you can see from the pictures, quite a bit of this road was very rough indeed. It was in interesting ride though. I'd like to try it with a wider tire sometime. Also, it was pretty wet this year, maybe I'll have better luck in a drier year!

Still, it was a nice little ride, but only 9.5 miles! I was surprised it was so short a distance. The bike did well, no mechanical issues, but it was definitely not the perfect bike for this ride, although it was good for that last uphill grind up Ice House Road.