Missing Mountain Biker in Carbon Canyon

Just a few weeks ago, I went riding at Sycamore Canyon with Jaime, it was late, past 4 pm. we rode for no more than 2 hours and while riding my cell went dead. We got back to our cars we talked for what I thought it was 20 minutes but it was an hour. My wife in the meantime was calling me because it was getting dark, it took me another 40 minutes to get home in the mean time my wife went out to look for me. Needless to say, I got a pretty good tongue lashing when she got home.

 

SPOT is a really good device. And, they sure have improved from the first ones.
Wouldn't work for me - my wife would see me standing still at the trailhead after a ride drinking beer. Lol

 

Been there......but she has called other riders who she knew was out riding the same time as me to see if we had crossed paths. Turns out my phone was having connectivity issues.

 

Married 25 years... I never get those phone calls. I get, "Oh, you're back so soon? I thought you'd be gone longer."

 

And there is the rub, I told her I was going by myself. While driving to Sycamore I text Jaime and told him where I was going. he met me there. My wife was oblivious to that piece of information.

 

Prayers and well wishes to his family. He met his end doing something he enjoyed. Lucky soul.

 

When mine expires I'm getting one of these:



https://www.westmarine.com/buy/ocea...personal-locator-beacon--17112913?recordNum=6


I do realize that a PLB requires manual activation, and that it might not have helped in this case. It's also worth noting that under heavy canopy such as in a drainage, the signal may be impeded. A PLB is a one-time cost with no subscription. You already paid for the NOAA sat it uses upon activation. Registration and two-year renewals are free.

I pretty much always carry it because it could save the life of someone on my team or a random trail user in trouble, and I don't even know it's in my pack anymore.

 

With a 1yr old son and pregnant wife at home when I ride alone 90%+ of the time I think I need this. Been talking about getting something for too long, time to spend a little cash for a lot of piece of mind.

 

My wife has the numbers of all my closest riding buddies programmed into her phone.

I always leave a detailed note with my wife stating where I will be riding, who with, and where I am parked.

Safety first!

 

More info on the rider; looks like the rider was riding the raptor trail when the accident happened. The Raptor trail is a very popular trail, I guess the tall weeds may have compounded finding him.

 

Very good, Corn. If I was in your position I'd probably opt for a Spot tracker. I've had my PLB in some places where if I was not able to activate it, I would not have been found for a long time.

 

I've been using an ICEdot crash sensor for the last few years for the same reason. It's not the right solution for everyone or every situation, but it's great for a lot of the OC parks. It's a small yellow puck that attaches to the back of your helmet and pairs with your phone via bluetooth. If it senses a helmet impact, it triggers an alarm on your phone. If you don't deactivate it before the timer runs out (you set it between 30 seconds and 2 minutes, I think), it uses your cell phone to send out an automatic distress signal with your GPS to everyone you list as an emergency contact.

I have a PLB that I bring into the Santa Ana's where I won't have cell service, but since most of my solo riding is in OC parks, I like that this will send my location out if I'm incapacitated on the side of a trail. I can also say I've had no false alarms with it, and I've had 2 crashes that were enough to trigger it. Then I raced to get my phone out of my camelbak to turn it off before my wife and parents would have gotten a scary call.

https://icedot.org/en/products/41-Crash-Sensor

 

I ride Raptor also, does anyone have information what the cause of injury was..from what I remember most of it is is mellow singletrack and if you roll off I don't recall cliffs or drop offs?

 

Per the OC Register:


"The coroner’s office of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said he was found by an air team unresponsive on a hillside near Faultline Trail. The body had suffered trauma.

Specifics on Pho’s injuries and the cause of death will likely not be available until the coroner finishes an autopsy, which should begin later this week or next week, said Cindy Bachman, a spokeswoman for the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department."

 

Per the SB Coroner Press Release:

Coroner Case #701702953
On Sunday, 04/23/17, Sokha Pho, a 42-year-old male resident of Long Beach, was reported missing by family members when he did not return home after a mountain bike ride in the Chino Hills State Park. Orange County Sheriff's Department Search and Rescue teams were unable to locate Pho during the initial search of the park that was located in Orange County. On Monday, 04/24/17, at 1355 hours, San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department (SBCSD) Aviation team located Pho, unresponsive on a hillside near Faultline Trail in San Bernardino County near Chino Hills. Orange County Sheriff's Department Aviation Paramedics confirmed Pho dead at 1420 hours. Pho was recovered from the park by SBCSD personnel assigned to Aviation, West Valley Search and Rescue, and Coroner Division. San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department is investigating the incident. [04242017 2345 SC]

 

@3mary7 I have no idea where this poor guy ended up but the bottom of raptor can be deadly. If you are carrying too much speed there is a bit of a chicane-type S turn and a ditch on the outside.

 

Remember, Raptor is only the first part of the trail from 4 Corners...once you get in the road under the electrical towers you make the left hand turn up onto Faultline Trail. Faultline is the trail you can carry some good speed on. There are hidden ruts, hidden neoprene/wooden water diverters, probably especially bad now with the massive amount of weeds out there. Not to mention the turn at the bottom as you meet back up with Upper/Lower Aliso.....blow that turn and end up in the trench/Creek to the right.

 

Yea, I've been on Faultline all the way down to the ranger station on the eastside..it does get unbelievably fast but then it was wide open and nothing was over grown at that time..I know that turn.

 

I've slid into the creek bed at the bottom of that turn a few times. Each time it wasn't horrible just a little bit of abrasion on my leg and forearm.

But, yeah you can carry some good speed on Faultline. And, there is a couple of places that if you go down at speed. It's not going to end up pretty. Very easy to cartwheel/rag doll down to the bottom of the hillside. The majority of that trail is off camber. Not gnarly off camber, but still.

 

at faultline, when the trail brush is all gone, and you can see where your going, you can carry some serious speed... but with all the over grown brush, you can barely see the ground....

 

I road Faultline to Raptor on March 10th. It was very overgrown and rutty due to the recent rains. The ruts wer 2-3' in some places. With the overgrowth it was hard to see the ruts until I was right up on them. I was riding the trail backwards (uphill) so speed wasnt an issue. If the conditions were the same and he was going downhill he could have easily hit a rut and endo'd. This photo isn't faultline but was a taken the same day on a nearby trail. The weeds were 6' tall.

 

Wow !! Its a jungle out there...
@Squidler4 @Louis Zegarra and me will be riding chsp on saturday and will say goodbye to our fellow rider.

 

Jungle indeed. I was at Four Corners two weekends ago and the entrance to Raptor looked like a rabbit trail thru 6' tall mustard. Bovinian wasn't much better. A trail runner started up Bovinian and he disappeared like in Field of Dreams

 

Last time I was up there, the overgrowth made it no fun to ride being slapped by weeds. I just stayed on the fire roads.

 

Just curious but do they trim down these trails or just let mother nature (drought) take care of it..doesn't look like fun trying to navigate through stuff like that.

 

If you want to develop a real bad outlook on human compassion and the public's views on mt bikers, read the comments at the end of article....
http://abc7.com/news/mountain-biker-missing-in-oc-found-dead/1911694/
RIP brother, it could be any one of us.....

 

@emejay the last comments are sad....

 

I was at 4 Corners on Saturday. I took the picture below showing the entrance to Raptor . As much as I like riding that trail I wasn't even tempted to ride through all that mustard. There were half a dozen riders sitting at the benches talking. On of the guys said that the volunteer crews will cut back the weeds to make the trails passable again, but not until it stops growing. It sounds like hard work, nobody wants to do it twice.

 

Someone has cut back a bunch out where I ride and left hundreds/thousands of 2-3 inch punji stakes sticking up on the side of the trail. Don't know which is worse, before or after.

 

People who habitually comment on news articles are usually couch potatoes with little to no common sense. The "pay for SAR" comments are the best, like we as humans should stay where there are sidewalks and street lights at all times. Huge difference between being negligent and having an accident/emergency. Flipping simpletons themselves in their daily lives yet they have the gall to make such idiotic anonymous comments over the internet. It's what's wrong with our current state, everything is political or offensive. How about we don't fund their hospital stays when they are rolled in for health issues due to inactivity. /rant