In between bouts of conferencing my ass off at the American Advertising Federation’s Western Region Conference and Filming episodes of Tallcan.TV, ramPaige and I got out to ride trail in Bend 3 Times!
Here we are putting our mark on Phil’s Trail!
This awesome trail is along the Descutes river just behind the Seventh Mountain Resort where we were staying. We rode this at sunset, then sunrise the next morning. Both are the absolute best times to ride almost anywhere I’ve ever ridden.
The trail in Bend, at least what we rode, was smooth, rolling windy singletrack. Easy for the most part, but the trees and the scenery was unbeatable. If we had persisted in riding until the scenery started to tank we would still be riding.
I didn’t get to hook up with any locals. Bummer. But I did get out to the Brew pub downtown for a cajun bacon burger…. Bend is now on my list of places to move to. Damn nice up there!
-M
How cool is this! The Silver State Striders are going to be running The Bacon Strip! And they know it’s called The Bacon Strip! Some of you may not know this but our very own Sphincterboy used to run this race back in the day and I believe he even won it one year! The below is an excerpt from a note sent to Dale of the Poedunks:
-M
Just an FYI on a future event taking place on Peavine (using trails you guys have worked hard on!); the Silver State Striders will be hosting the Silver State 50 mile trail run on Peavine, May 17th (www.silverstatestriders.com). The finish of the race (last 10 miles of so) will use “the bacon strip” trail all the way down to the new stuff that we worked on at the end of 2007. I’m letting you know just in case you may be able to get the word out to other users of this trail that they may see course markings showing up out there and to kindly not remove them! Hate to have some tired runner not from around here getting lost up there!
It’s always nice when you can singlespeed something you use to suffer up on the little-ring. Juni and I went up cow canyon yesterday AM. Weather was great! The morning sun coming over the ridge from mogul was beautiful and even though there is all that building going on that area still seems almost remote.
Only intrusions are the sound of the Interstate, the one house poking over the hill from Mogul and the trenches, braids, stutterbumps and mudboggs cut into the trail by ATVs and motorbikes.
What used to be a sweet fast flowy and technical downhill is now unrideable in some spots thanks to motorbikers riding up the hill under full throttle in wet to muddy conditions. Now I’m not going to say those guys have no right to the trail (cause the USFS has already said that) but this could have been, and still could be, a good area where we can share the trail. The only thing we ALL need to do is concede this one simply tenant of two wheeled fun: If you can’t get up or down something without dragging your rear wheel, or digging a rut up a climb then you’re a hack and need to slow down and learn how to ride. Or am I missing something? Is that the goal these guys have? Do they see a nice trail and say, “Wow! how awesome would it be to obliterate that and make it almost impossible to ride!!!!!”
That said, this trail is not well aligned and is completely unsustainable even under the best of circumstances. Perhaps the Poedunks will get to it one of these years. I can’t help but think that when citizens look up at areas like that and then consider weather they want the City / County to limit development they think, “what’s the point? It’s just road warriors tearing shit up out there anyway…”
-M
Yesterday Nooner, Bustigator, The Restless Ape, Aron, Juni and I found a new trail out in Sparks thanks to a tip from my buddy Martin. It was RAD!
It starts off a dirt road behind the new softball fields near Red Cock Gold Course. Follow the pink BLM access signs for now. It starts with a cool singletrack, then climbs about 900 feet over really short distance. It’s a lung buster for sure but most of the switchbacks are really well built and fully ridable.
We ran into one of the builders @ the top. Thanks man!!!
The trail loops around from the top there by the chicken sign. Suggest going right for the loop. There is some seriously technical stuff on the back side. Steep, loose, tight, rocky and super fun! About 10 miles all together.
There was some fall-line trail on the back side and some in-sloped sections with no drainage, but it looks like these guys are out there working fairly frequently and are on top of it. Great trail. Lots of potential. I’d like to see it go all the way south to I-80…
Also: check out all the new trail work being done over on Peavine!!!
-M
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