Pamestique 

Last Friday, 12-9, was my ride buddy's birthday. Her wish? To do Fremont/Blind/Weir. If you are not familiar with this area, it's just east of Irvine Park, goes past and under the toll road and back. It's a beautiful, pristine area with good challenging trails for most ride levels.

I consider myself to be an OK low intermediate rider. I have skills, but lack endurance, plus I am old and fat and lazy and don't train enough. The first mile of this ride, we start inside Irvine Park and after going through a locked gate, we ride out on pavement to the Fremont Staging area. When we started it was freezing! I had on two thermal layers, a jersey and my heavy gloves and was till cold! However, once we started the Fremont climb I was immediately down to my jersey, it got hot quickly.

The Fremont climb is for me a challenge. My ride buddy is able to do the whole thing on her bike. My other buddy and I walked here and there, mostly because I would just crap out. I think some of the grades are close to 15% with an average gradient of 8%. Thankfully on the Fremont/Blind/Weir ride the climb lasts only 3 miles. Just past the old "Coal Mine" area, we take a left west and travel down Blind Canyon. Fun ride down but due to some landslides, we had to watch for large rocks on the trail. We had a couple of close calls.

After goingback under the toll road and we climb back to Weir Canyon. This is my favorite part of the ride. Although there is some climbing, and I am old, fat and lazy, these climbs were doable. Finally we make it to the downhill into Weir Canyon. This downhill is an e-ticket. Lots of ruts, tire tracks, errosion... and its steep. You really have to watch your line down. Finally you reach Weir Canyon which is a lovely oak riparian area, just east of Santiago Oaks (You can see the Chutes B trail). The ride back to Irvine Park was easy and downhill. I believe the distance is around 12 miles with 1800' of climbing (mostly in Fremont).

Even though the climbs up front are hard for me, this is my new favorite ride. Lots of great scenary, epic climbs and descents, thrills etc. Kathy (my ride buddy) will be offering this loop as a docent led ride on January 28, 2012 if anyone is interested. It will be a "slow-paced" intermediate ride, great if you just want to first explore the area before trying some of the faster paced rides. To register go to irlandmarks.org/activities - look for a red bike symbol on 1/28 and "slow paced intermediate Fremont/Blind/Weir".

If you have any questions, shoot me a PM.

Rumpled

Nice that you guys got to do that on your own. See any wildlife? Dave typically leads that ride once a month or soon Sundays. I was signed up to go yesterday, but two parties on Saturday night got in the way.
In about 8 rides for me, I've only cleaned Fremont once. Usually have to HAB a little.

How about a few maps? Click on player to see bigger maps. Remember, these are all docent led and you must sign up first.
Basic Fremont/Blind/Weir
Fremont/Blind/Weir
There are a couple of extended routes as well.
One option goes out to the edge of the Tecate Cypress forest - mostly burned, but recovering.
Fremont/Tecate/Blind/Weir
Another extended ride takes the route you did and then goes up Weir Canyon to the rocks, not all the way to the toll road viewpoint.
Fremont/Blind/Up Weir
The first time I did Fremont/Blind/Weir it was "backwards" - up Weir first. In a way it was tougher, even though the climbing was a bit more broken up. The Blind Canyon climb is pretty steep.
Weir/Blind/Fremont

Pamestique 

Jim:

Dave's ride is alittle faster than we (I!) can do. Some other folks have asked that we do a slower paced ride.

As we were guiding down Blind Canyon, we saw tons of scat - coyote, fox and bobcat but it was fairly quiet. Just as we made it to Weir Canyon and started towards the gate two large deer jumped across the trail. I shouted like a little kid - it was a nice ending to a great ride. I believe Kathy's ride will be the basic loop - no side trips to the Tecate Cypress or out to Indian Rock. We want to keep the route fairly close to the Limestone Loop, about 12 miles.

If I don't see you before, have a Merry Christmas and thanks for posting the additional information! I have to try the loop backwards sometime but I think that Blind Climbs will kill me (as if the Fremont ones don't!).