 Okay, let's do this. Hey there, this is my story about riding the SoCal Desert Ramble in Southern California. I'll start by saying that this is one of the most beautiful bike packing trips that I've ever experienced. There's a nice mix of terrain including washes, a bit of single track, isolated dirt roads, a jump through Joshua Tree and even some high alpine. Oh and Slab City is definitely worth a visit. The ride is 500 miles long, there's some solid elevation gain totaling 30,000 feet and bikepacking.com rates this a 7 out of 10 on difficulty. The route starts in San Diego and finishes in San Bernardino near Los Angeles. I rode this on a hardtail with front suspension, my Priority 600X, a dream machine that I designed with my friends at Priority Bicycles. What makes it really special is the pinion and gates low maintenance drivetrain. If you'd like to learn more about this bike, I've shared some links in the description. If you want to watch my complete in-depth experience on this route, I made an entire series which I will link below. In this video, I tied together all the best moments and left only the natural sounds, exactly the way that I experienced it when I was out there. And if you're a fan of adventure and far off places, I have tons of videos from all over the world on my channel. Please help me out by subscribing and if you really want to keep this channel going, consider joining my Patreon. Okay, that's enough blabbering, let's get to the adventure. It feels really good to be here by the ocean. It's calming for sure and I'm also grateful just to be here in the warmth next to the Pacific Ocean. I'm a Colorado boy, you know that, this is pretty special for me. Ah yes! Woohoo! Alright, this is my beautiful Priority 600X all dressed up. Let's go. Let's start this thing. I'm ready to pedal. Up and over some mountains and into the desert and sleep under the stars. Let's go take one more look at the ocean. Check this out. Woo! Yeah! Getting closer to getting out of the city, I think. I love this bike path. I'm in Chula Vista, heading into the mountains. Oh yeah. Look at this. Going up a little hill and I'm feeling good. I'm getting further and further away from the metropolis. There's no way anybody's riding up this thing. It's a little steep here. That awesome tree. I'm a big fan of trees like that. That's the kind of sign I like to see. Okay, so it looks like I'm definitely going to get wet here. Check it out. That's a lot of water. Oh, God. Oh, it's so deep. Oh, God. I'm going to regret this. Oh, my God. Whoa. This is actually pretty strong. Oh, God. Come on. Well, if it was like middle of the summer and I knew it was going to be super hot all night, I wouldn't worry about my shoes being wet, but they're going to be wet for a while. And this is where I'm heading. Get up that steep area. What's up, Shadow? How you doing, bud? Uh-oh. You got some dogs coming and they look angry. Hey, hey. Hey, leave me alone. Hey, get out of here. So I just got off the road. This is the route now and it turned into a super steep, rutted out trail. It must have gotten a lot of rain recently. Maybe that's why the river's raging. Love, Shadow. Just a little bit more. Oh, I'm not camping. The sun went down. It got cold. It was, I couldn't find any camping. I asked some people, went to a bike shop. They said, yeah, not happening. I'm so cozy. And I think this is the best part of the room. All right. It's peanut butter natalatai, mana tortilla. Mmm. That was pretty darn good. So I just looked at the weather for alpine. Uh-oh. This is no good. High wind warning. So the Santa Ana winds coming in from the desert. And you know, we'll see how bad it gets. So far right now it's manageable. Here we go. Just got a smile. That's all I can do. That's the best way to fight wind is by smiling into it. You can see the big buildings of downtown San Diego. All I'm on now is tucked in here a bit, which is nice. It's blocking the wind and full force. The wind has chilled out a bit and I've just got my head down. I'm thinking about life, all the beautiful things. You know, when I come on these rides, it allows me a lot of time to just think, think about the people I love and what I love and, you know, I have Thanksgiving coming up in a week and I'll be home for that. And there's always a lot to be thankful for. And sometimes it's just easier to walk. I don't exactly know where the trail is going to go, but I have to go up and over those mountains right in front of me. Not bad. Nice view up here. I'll give you an idea of where I've come from. I've been riding that little skinny trail right there. And over there and now right here. I have a feeling when I get to the top of this mountain, I'm going to get demolished by the wind. This trail is much flowier than the last one, which is nice. The other one was full of rocks. Who put all those rocks there? So I'm at about 5,000 feet above sea level. Yesterday I was at zero and it's a lot colder up here. Here we go, Anza Borrego. Just got my first view of the Anza Borrego Desert. It looks nice down there. Beautiful. Yeah, technical here. That sun feels good. It's crazy. I don't know how any vehicle could deal with this. There's a lot of loose rocks and it is steep. Former down here, which is nice. The sun has set. There's a little bit of sun left on those mountains right there. And I'm pedaling hard because on my map it says there's an RV park with hot springs. And I would really, really love to jump in some hot springs. It also says that it closes at sunset. So I'm trying to get there before the office people leave. Okay, I made it to the RV park, which is great. But the bad news is the hot springs are closed. I got here a little bit too late. Ah, what a bummer. Life is funny. I am sitting at a picnic table in the dark about to eat my favorite beans, Amy's refried beans. And check this out. I even have a little bottle of chalula, fatty burrito. It is 6.30pm and I'm about five minutes from crashing. Today was a day. It was hard. It was long. I started at 6.45, ended at about five. The single track uphills were very difficult and certainly the wind did not help. That was some serious wind. I thought we had strong winds in Colorado, but the Santa Ana's maybe even stronger. Buenas noches, amigos. Good morning. It's about 5.45. It's still mostly dark. Buen provecho, amigos. Food always tastes better when you're outside. This little head bob there. This is a great place to sleep. Thank you, soft piece of sandy ground. Alrighty, let's go. Ah, the sun is up. The sky is blue. Looks like it should be a nice day. Alright, my friends, let's have another beautiful day on planet earth. No flaties, no crashes, no whammies. And today I'm going to be heading through a wash called Canyon Sin Nombre, which means the canyon without a name. And that should be a good adventure. And then I'll head up towards Borrego Springs. Here's my turn off. I've had about 10 or so easy highway miles, and I'm taking a turn into the dirt, a sandy wash, Canyon Sin Nombre. And this is about 20 miles, and depending on the conditions of it, it can be very slow and sandy. If there's been rain, it might have packed it down. I have no idea what the conditions are. But time for some adventure. Here we go. Woo. Reminds me of the white rim. This little sand surfing. Oh, God. At least it's downhill right here. Oh, yeah. It's definitely deep. I have 2.4 inch tires, which is a little wider than the average, which should help. But yeah, this could be the longest 20 miles of my life. We'll see. Oh, God. Woo. I'm going to let some air out of my tires, which should help with traction a bit. If I can stay to the side, it's a little harder. The sand is all out there, where the cars go and rip it up. Very reminiscent of the Baja Divide. Oh, getting deep right here, for sure. Okay. Okay. Woo. Come on. Come on, buddy. I can only hope that the conditions will get better. Or maybe they'll get worse. I have no idea. You know, this reminds me of the very first time I did the Baja Divide in 2017. That was my first ever bike-packing trip. Up until that point, all of my big adventures had been on pavement. And then I hit the Baja Divide and hit the sandy stuff, and I was like, oh my God, this is so slow. This is excruciating. And it really took a while of riding the Baja to realize that, you know what? When this kind of stuff happens, you just embrace it, and you just go slower. You know, most of my trips, I'm used to just hammering and going fast. But sometimes you just can't. And fighting it does not make it better. So this is one of those moments where I'm just going to be going slow. And that's okay. Because this is where I am, and I have this whole place to myself. Wow, look at that. I'm being aided by the fact that this is all downhill. So momentum is taking me through. Once I have to go flat or uphill, that's going to be a lot more difficult. Woo, woo, woo, woo, woo, woo. Oh, yeah, this is like my own private canyon. I'd be surprised if I see anybody today. We'll see. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's not so easy. I feel like I'm going to Star Wars plant it out here. And it's amazing to think that yesterday, less than 24 hours ago, I was riding in the Alpine Mountains above San Diego. This couldn't be more different. Oh, here we go. There's some sand for you. Oh, okay. Going into an Ocoteo forest. These plants are beautiful. I love them. This is the sandy sand. Oh, man. Check this out. Open expanse. Man, that's stunning. So there's a reason why I'm doing this in the winter and why everybody does it in the fall or winter. There's nothing out here. And in the summertime, forget about it. It would be insanely hot. Even right now, I don't even think it's 70 degrees and it feels pretty warm. Now we're going to go down this steep, steep, choppy road. I made another little canyon. It's amazing how many roads are out here. Four-wheelers definitely get after it. I think there's a lot more of those than bike packers. Oh, come on. You can do it. Come on, buddy. How you doing, Shadow? Keep charging, bud. Keep charging. Look at that. It's pavement. I'm psyched to be here. I'm about 15 miles from Borrego Springs. Once again, I'm racing sunset. It's going to be a close one. It sure does get dark early here. And this area really holds special meaning because I think it was this road in 2009 that I pedaled on when I rode the cruiser bike across the country. You hear how quiet it is? All you can hear is my little twirly thing spinning. Okay, so I'm about five miles outside of Borrego Springs and I rode by this American Legion and I saw some RVs set up and I thought, you know what, maybe I'll stop and ask them if I can camp here because the last two nights I've been getting in at dark and I would like to have a little bit more time to chill. So I stopped by, $5 camping. They've got water and food and all sorts of good stuff. All right, thank you soft piece of ground and thank you American Legion for letting me stay here. This is kind of hilarious. Here's some subtle desert art. It looks like Wiley Coyote on the road here and a giant blood stain across the highway. I already ate this morning like 45 minutes ago but I can't pass this up. Look at this gigantic bean burrito from Los Gilberto's. I'm excited. I just stopped at this mega gas station. Look at all the stuff they have. They have Cinnabon Pizza Hut, KFC, Yogurtland, Taco Bell. What? They have it all. But you know what I got here? My favorite Mexican cookies, the principes. Now I'm on this rowdy highway for a bit. Luckily I have a nice wide shoulder. Hopefully the cars are respectful. I'm heading down towards a town called Westmoreland and I hear they have amazing shakes made out of dates. So let's boogie 30 miles away on this thing. Alright, I made it to the date shake capital west of the Mississippi no less and I'm really excited about this. It is so good. It really is fantastic. It feels like summertime out here. It's very warm and there's lush fields. I think of alfalfa being grown and right now I'm heading straight toward the Salton Sea. I am kind of close now to the Salton Sea. Back in the day, it used to be big and it probably came all the way up to right about here. This area is an interesting story. In 1905, it flooded and it was a beautiful sea and then developers were like, oh this is cool. We're going to build up a Riviera and it's going to be a place for all the Hollywood big money people to come and live a luxurious life. I think that happened for a time but the water has been receding and receding and receding and there's not much of a sea left. Just a tiny, tiny bit. Alright, it's 3pm. The sun over there is going down and I need to start looking for a place to camp and it's not going to be at this factory. I'll tell you that. No thank you. You see that right there? That's my room. I haven't even gone in yet. I'm not expecting a whole lot. I'm just excited to have a safe place to stay and it's right there in room number three in Nyland, California. You know how to make a peanut butter, nutella wrap, deluxe. You throw a banana in there. Here we go. No crashes, no flaties, no whammies. Off to Slab City. I've been excited about Slab City for a while and all the art that I'm about to see. So there's a lot of different art, at least from what I've seen online but the most well-known one is Salvation Mountain and it's right here. This is fascinating. It looks like a post-apocalyptic movie set. So here I am riding along, wondering what I'm doing here. Nobody's around and then this very happy smiley face comes out. It's Dr. Spencer. How are you doing, my friend? Hey, I'm doing great. It's a beautiful day. We got a little wind but the sun is shining. It sure is. We're in Slab City and we get 350 days of sunshine here. What do you do here? Well, I plant right over here if you'll take a gander over here, you guys. I have over 6,000 plants there. It's a botanical garden. I've got seven different types of spinnages, five different types of kales. I've got bamboo from all over the world, from Burma, from Thailand, from Vietnam. I grow almost all of my vegetables that I eat right here and last summer I put in a swimming pool. I've got a solar oven. The solar oven is big enough to cook 12 large pizzas at the same time and we have amazing dinners here. I like this. The Galactic Please Patrol. You could spend hours, days in this entire city checking out everything. There's so many little intricacies everywhere and most things just put a smile on your face or make you think about something differently and make you appreciate the beauty that artists put into all their creations and yeah, it's all good. Like this. Look at this little alien speeder bike. Yeah, kind of feel like I'm in Star Wars out here. And right next to East Jesus is Dot's place. Dot, how you doing? Pretty good. How are you today? Doing great. What's the story with your installation? Well, just like a lot of other people, the desert inspired me to create artwork and I've made kind of like an art camp. We call it amazing art. When you travel around and look through it, you'll see how it's a bunch of trailers kind of mishmashed around each other, looping on each other and each one has installation work inside of them. Like this one that you're going to explore called the Skeletrarium. Let's start with my mummified mermaid and then moves into all sorts of bones and weird, what not, some things that I've collected out here and then some of the other trailers have like books in them or a tax attorney or a party. So pretty popular one too. Why do you think this area in specific inspires artists? The desert air. It's got to be the desert air and just like the freedom, the vast expanse of being able to see so far and I don't know, it's just inspiring. And you're always adding to it I'm guessing? Oh yeah, yeah. We've been here for years and I'll just keep adding and keep adding and keep adding until I'm completely bored with it. Very cool. All right. Taxidermy dinner party. Oh, look at this. So sometimes you wake up with plans and then sometimes those plans change especially when you're on an adventure. I came here in the morning, think I'd spend a couple hours check out some art and continue on about 65-ish miles but then I met Dr. Spencer. Fascinating human, loving human, kind human, my kind of human and he's like just stay here and the itchy part of me was like I gotta keep going. I'm on a tight schedule. I gotta make the miles and it took a while to be like you know what? I'm okay with it now. Like this is what life is all about. This is what being the boss of me is all about. I can take a day off and explore a fascinating place and connect with a wonderful human and that's what I've done and so I'm gonna stay here in this little RV back here and I'll get up tomorrow and ride hard. How's that sound? And I would have had like a 20-mile-an-hour headwind all day so it would have been a miserable day of riding that way when instead I've been hanging out here having the time of my life. My heart is happy. This is why I travel. This is the exact reason why I travel to connect with amazing humans and I'm really happy to have met Dr. Spencer. Buenos dias. This is where I slept on this open-air mattress right here. Super comfortable. I really appreciate all your kindness in meeting your smiley face warmed up my day yesterday and I stayed the whole day because of it. That's fantastic. Yeah man. You have a good one out here in the desert. I love your little piece of paradise. Yeah. It's a good one. Beautiful. Have a good trip. Thank you. Watch out for the big rigs. Yeah, you know it. Goodbye my friend. Goodbye Church of Enlightenment. That was an amazing 24-hour stay. We shouldn't have as much headwind today and I'm feeling good and rested and my heart is full. No crashies. No flaties. No whammies. We got three dogs running over to say hi. Hopefully they don't do anything. Hey. Hey. Get out of here. Get out of here. So as I'm bumbling along on this road I'm thinking back to my conversations with Dr. Spencer back there and he said something that was really poignant and simple. And he said if you don't like something change the way that you think about it. So in this moment my initial reaction to this road is I don't like this. This is hard and annoying and it's slow and it's making me tired. But if I take his advice and change the way that I think about it it's great. I get to go slower. I get to enjoy this longer and I'll end up where I end up and that's where I'm supposed to be. Extend that thought to lots of things in life. You know. If you don't like something just figure out a way to flow with it. Doesn't mean you have to like it and force yourself to smile or something. But just look at things in a different way. You know throughout my life when I would be confronted with the challenge I would used to tend to fight it and force it and that only affected me negatively. Now I try to look at other solutions to every problem and the other positives of when things are hard. And I always have to remember that I get to be out here. I get to ride my bike. I have a body that's strong enough to do this and the time to take off and go spend 10 days out here and that is such a gift. And it's Sunday. What else do I have to do but pedal. That's pretty awesome. This is a good spot to chill. What do you think? Nobody that way. Nobody that way. And as slow as this road is at least I'm not on that busy highway on the other side of the Salton Sea. That was kind of nuts. Out here all I can hear are planes flying overhead and the sound of my tires crunching gravel and my jaws slowly gnawing on hard cliff bars. Look what I just found on the ground. Free food. It's a lemon. Bitter. Woohoo man. That'll make you pucker up. And these palm trees behind me right here are date palms. One of my favorite things about Southern California is that there's great Mexican food everywhere. I just got a bean and cheese burrito. A quesadilla. Chips and salsa with fresh salsa from this area. And a Fanta. That's where I'm headed. Up into those mountains right there. Here's my turn off that will take me into Joshua Tree National Park. I won't get there today because I'm going to go look for a camp spot pretty soon. But here we go. These aren't fireworks you're hearing. This is like a target range. I'm pooped. And this looks flat even though it's full of shotgun shells. I think I'm good. Alright, I'm all set up. It's crazy to think that this morning I woke up in Slab City. Completely different world from where I'm at now in Gun City. What a day. It really was a beautiful day. I say that every day but man it's just a privilege to be able to ride a bike and that's all I got to say. So I thought they'd be done shooting guns in the dark but they seem to keep going and this is going to be real annoying if this carries on all night. I hope they run out of bullets. I tried to get far away. Most of them were down further so I came up but there's a few rascals up here just shooting guns and drinking beer. Thank you nice soft piece of flat ground full of shotgun shells. You know I understand shooting guns but why litter the natural world with all of this junk and plastic. I mean this is a wasteland out here of refrigerators and lawn mowers and stuff people are shooting at. It's so weird. Anyway, I'm off. Gonna have a great day. It's beautiful. Heading into Joshua Tree. So I camped at about a thousand feet above sea level and I'm going to be climbing today up to about four thousand. Got a little bit of uphill to do but that's alright. It'll warm me up. Can you make it? Well yes I think I can. I'm finally seeing the famous Joshua Trees. They're pretty cool looking. They look like something out of a Dr. Seuss story. All gangly and you know just different than the average tree. Okay I had to lean my bike up against one of these Joshua Trees. It's like school picture day. Yeah looking good. Gotta check out these rocks. These jumbo rocks. I don't think I've ever seen a landscape quite like this. I've been to the desert, many different deserts but these piles of rocks everywhere really. That's something new to me. It looks like a giant came and just dropped them all. Huge Joshua Tree. That was a great day and a new national park to me. I made it. Pioneer Town. This is wild. It definitely looks like an old Wild West Main Street. I love when things work out. I was hoping there'd be room to camp here. They have a little campsite called the Corrals and there is plenty of room and I'm going to be right behind the mercantile. Woo and it's going to be chilly. I'm already cold. This is the coldest I've felt on the entire trip. I feel so good to be here. I got my igloo set up. I put the rain fly on tonight to keep heat in. I think it's going to be a little chilly. I just watched the informational video in the museum and so this place was founded in the late 1940s by Hollywood guys, even Roy Rogers who wanted to build like a Wild West set for their movies so they didn't have to travel so far to Arizona and stuff. This is what they built and a lot of the old timey movies were filmed here and still to this day there's a lot of modern commercials and stuff filmed here in music videos. I know this is all fake. It's not a real Wild West town and it's kind of cheesy but I love it. I love cheesy stuff. You know me. It puts a smile on my face. Ooh, it sounded a little weak. It's cold. So today I'm heading up, up, up to the snow-capped peaks and then hopefully down into the backside of LA. What? Oh yeah. A little uphill to warm up the body, warm up the core. Feels good. I'm going to be going a lot of uphill today up to about 8,000 feet. It's time for my morning thoughts and I always do my best thinking on the seat of a bicycle. It's kind of meditative and I've been out here riding for seven straight days now and I'm really grateful that I'm here right now in this moment and I get more in tune with my body and just the sounds of nature and birds overhead and the sounds of my tire slipping through sand. You know, bike creaking here and there it really is quite special and then when I get home from a ride like this I feel recharged and I feel like my heart is bigger and I'm more loving and caring and compassionate which is always a good thing, right? And when I'm on a bike adventure it really forces me to be hyper present in the moment at all times and when I'm in the present moment at any time that's when I feel the most alive for sure. Oh, I see some white stuff on the top of those mountains over there. Oh, the air is crisp up here. Tastes like Colorado riding through some icy slippery patches here. I imagine with just a little bit more snow this road is completely impassable. I lucked out. I was riding by this hotel Fireside Lodges and it was one of those spontaneous moments where I'm like, yeah, yeah, I'm gonna go there and so I'm sitting here loving life you heard me talking about gratitude this morning well I'm very grateful to be here right now and this is my Thanksgiving gift to myself and of course my bike is right next to me it has to be, right? Look at that beautiful sunrise and that cold snow Okay, thank you amazing bathtub and bed Yeah It's cold there's no doubt I am at a ski resort and people are skiing today It smells really good out here you know that pine needle smell Christmas tree smell and that's what it smells like Oh, bummer All right, nice day for a walk in the woods I guess Good news is I have all day Okay, some of this is packed hard enough that I can ride it it's kind of like riding through the sand Woo, well that's a pretty big Well the good news is there's no way I'm going to get hit by a car out here It's actually not too bad The snow is pretty hard easy to walk on Going top speed here Man It's like sledding Yeah, buddy Look at that view That's where I'm heading right about there Who put this tree here? I can't bunny hop that high Okay Carry on I thought I was done with you snow Back in the sun Oh boy I might be getting wet here The snow has turned to water Bit more uphill here It's not a free ride all the way down Pretty It's pretty down there Every time I think I'm near the top of whatever I'm riding up It's not, it just keeps going And the worst part is there's all these little flies that are following me and they're biting I need to go downhill to get away from them but there just isn't any downhill That is quite the wall of rock right there So I just looked to my right and I see this and I'm thinking is that a mirage? Are for Ryan Look at that Los Angeles There's the dirt There's the pavement I finally made it Today was way harder than I thought it was going to be I figured seriously 3 hours to go 45 miles downhill That's pretty reasonable right But man this took almost 7 hours And it was beautiful And it was fun And I got to reminisce about how wonderful this adventure has been In so many ways Tomorrow is Thanksgiving And thanks And now I'm here in LA at some They're going to be building some cookie cutter houses here It looks like It's fitting that I pop in on the edge of LA And I'm not here alone This is really the best part of today I have a new friend Dave How you doing buddy? Doing good, doing good And this is Karen And they came to say hi They knew that I was in the area So I can pack my bike And this means so much And we have a cute doggie too You want to be on YouTube? You want to be on YouTube? Thank you so much for being here This is amazing A little welcoming committee Means the world to me Can we go get some bean burritos? Absolutely Oh yeah Look at this And look at that Hey there my friends Check it out I wrote a book And I'm really proud of it It's called The Long Way Home And it chronicles my very first bike adventure From Honduras to Boulder And how that journey led to a life Of being an adventure storyteller I'm really excited to let you know That it is for sale now At dozerbook.com Also I printed this In my beloved hometown In the most eco-friendly way possible No trees were cut down To make this book And check it out If you don't like all the words There's even photos So go on over to dozerbook.com And pick yourself up a copy I promise you It'll put a smile on your face