2025 - Our Rides in Words, Photos, Maps and Videos
- Thread starter Saratoga Dave
- Start date
Jeremy McCreary
Bought it anyway
- Region
- USA
- City
- Carlsbad, CA
Does your wife know that you're out cavorting with Floris?
Shortly after we moved to coastal SoCal from Colorado, I took a Coast Highway thrill ride in the first part of a big Pacific winter storm, when it was still mostly just wind. Exhilarating!
Then I got to the dip where the highway comes down to sand level at South Ponto Beach. Hadn't figured blowing sand into the equation.
There were already drifts across the road. And within seconds, eyes, ears, nose, and mouth were all full of sand. Turned tail to wash out my eyes at home. Lesson learned.
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DaveMatthews
Dave's not here. Cheating since 2018
- Region
- Canada
Have experienced this in Oregon around Cannon Beach etc.
Chargeride
Well-Known Member
I wear full motorcycle offroad goggles, lesson learned.
Chargeride
Well-Known Member
The sand was really soft and climbing into wind was exhausting even in Turbo.
Climbing with the wind was like having another 1000 watts.
Jeremy McCreary
Bought it anyway
- Region
- USA
- City
- Carlsbad, CA
I can imagine. Both my bikes have hybrid tires, 38 mm and 2.3". Neither has any chance of staying up in loose sand, let alone making forward progress in it.
I know, that's what fatties are for, but I don't have the garage space.
If I ever have a hard fall at speed, it's likely to be from hitting a stealth pocket of loose sand at speed on an otherwise hard-packed dirt road on my gravel bike with 38 mm tires. Get a lot of those pockets around here — even miles inland.
Oh well, every paradise has its sand.
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Chargeride
Well-Known Member
Tyres by Ozempic, stay on the road skinny boy.
Jeremy McCreary
Bought it anyway
- Region
- USA
- City
- Carlsbad, CA
No, no, the 38 mm gravel tires obviously aren't for hardcore MTB stuff, but they otherwise do just fine offroad 99% of the time.
No problem at all on damp low-tide beach sand.
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Stefan Mikes
Gravel e-biker
- Region
- Europe
- City
- Mazovia, PL
As I have to ride "Mazovian Engraver" 
(Mazovian everything but gravel) often, I'm used to riding sand. While a proper e-MTB on 2.6" tyres just cuts through the sand as if a knife cuts butter*, I nowadays have to do with 700x42 mm and 700 x 47 mm Specialized Rhombus Pro. Riding the sand is especially easy for my big Vado in full Turbo.
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I had a chance to experience a rare phenomenon called "soil storm" on the West Coast of Sweden back in 1997. I drove my brand new car; I gave her a wash in Sweden on the entry as I heard Sweden was as clean a country as you could drive your car for a month and the car would be still impeccably clean (it is true!) However, as I was returning from Oslo via the West Coast motorway, I could see a wall of yellow-brown fog in front of me! As you must not stop on the motorway, I just slowed down and lit the anti-fog lights. I was driving very slowly at zero visibility only to keep the car in the lane and not to veer off the road. After some time, my car emerged from the fog. My Nexia was completely covered with a thin layer of soil! Of course, it required washing very soon. As I could read afterwards, the soil storm happens when a strong wind blowing from Kattegat Strait carries a big amount of loose rich soil; it is a rare phenomenon though.
Necessary to mention, I was on many business car trips to Scandinavia in late 1990s. Once the car was washed in Malmoe, I could drive in Sweden for two weeks in a clean car. Driving through Germany made the car noticeably dirty while the return in Poland made the car totally soiled Yeah but those were the 1990s; Poland is a very clean country nowadays!
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*) @Chargeride why don't you try yourself on the Levo
(Mazovian everything but gravel) often, I'm used to riding sand. While a proper e-MTB on 2.6" tyres just cuts through the sand as if a knife cuts butter*, I nowadays have to do with 700x42 mm and 700 x 47 mm Specialized Rhombus Pro. Riding the sand is especially easy for my big Vado in full Turbo.---------
I had a chance to experience a rare phenomenon called "soil storm" on the West Coast of Sweden back in 1997. I drove my brand new car; I gave her a wash in Sweden on the entry as I heard Sweden was as clean a country as you could drive your car for a month and the car would be still impeccably clean (it is true!) However, as I was returning from Oslo via the West Coast motorway, I could see a wall of yellow-brown fog in front of me! As you must not stop on the motorway, I just slowed down and lit the anti-fog lights. I was driving very slowly at zero visibility only to keep the car in the lane and not to veer off the road. After some time, my car emerged from the fog. My Nexia was completely covered with a thin layer of soil! Of course, it required washing very soon. As I could read afterwards, the soil storm happens when a strong wind blowing from Kattegat Strait carries a big amount of loose rich soil; it is a rare phenomenon though.
Necessary to mention, I was on many business car trips to Scandinavia in late 1990s. Once the car was washed in Malmoe, I could drive in Sweden for two weeks in a clean car. Driving through Germany made the car noticeably dirty while the return in Poland made the car totally soiled
Yeah but those were the 1990s; Poland is a very clean country nowadays!-------------
*) @Chargeride why don't you try yourself on the Levo
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