Bikepacking the Yuba River in Nevada City, CA

Nevada City is a cute mountain town nestled in the Sierra Nevada foothills. It is known for its charming, gold rush-era downtown, close proximity to the stunning Yuba River, and for us bike nerds some really fun mountain bike trails. Nevada City is also home to a world-class bike shop that happens to carry Sklar Bikes called You Bet!

This past weekend You Bet! And some pals from Chico hosted a one-night bike camp out and I tagged along for the ride. Last Summer I camped out with these Chico buddies near Redding and had a great time. The pace was chill and the people could not have been friendlier. Travis, the main ride leader or at least the one who welcomes everyone and sets the tone, does a great job of setting up expectations. “If you’re here to hammer or KOM, you’re in the wrong place” he said at our pre-ride meeting. For me, I love to do really hard and arduous rides. But a social ride should be a social ride IMO and this ride did not blur any lines. I appreciated that. The weekend’s ratio of chilling to riding was probably about 2:1. Nice.

As we rolled out of town people speculated about the head count. I heard numbers between 50 and 75 which sounds about right. What a crew! Being in the sun was a nice relief after a few weeks of foggy San Francisco Summer. I was on my PBJ because I was in chill-mode. Riding in sandals, taking it in. Someone asked recently if I would recommend the SuperSomething or the PBJ as a bikepacking bike and the answer is both. This route was probably better suited for a SuperSomething TBH, with some good chunks of pavement and mostly dirt roads. I like that bike for putting in big mile days touring but with our 30 miles spread out over two days the PBJ made sense. More upright to take it easy, have more fun on the descents. Also I wanted to try out my setup for a big tour I am going on in Colorado next week.

Here is a fun graphic I made to illustrate which bike I would choose for different kinds of touring:

Anyhow, after a big descent to the river we stopped for a leisurely hang with some dips in the beautiful Yuba river and lunch on the rocks. Eventually we hopped back on the bikes for a climb up to the old school house lawn where we refilled on water and Kurt brought us all some bevvies to share. We rolled into camp, a cool old mine that felt like the surface of the moon.

Everyone gathered in the middle to make their dinner. We played the can stomping game and eventually a giant game of charades. So wholesome and nice. I camped out just with a sleeping bag, no tent, no bivy and the stars were amazing. I think I saw 4 or 5 shooting stars and had the best camping sleep I have had in years.

In the morning we rolled down to a nice general store where everyone snacked up. I got some fresh blueberries that were really good and Charles shared a jar of pickles. More chilling.

We bombed back down another beautiful descent to the Yuba for another leisurely river hang and then had one last big dirt road climb back towards town where we finished with pizza in the super charming downtown.

This was a really fun route and a really fun crew. I would highly recommend spending a weekend bike camping with a bunch of friends and strangers. It was fun to see a bunch of Sklars out there too! Hope you have a fun trip planned soon.

-Adam