Shred Oregon Day 8: Oakridge Day 2: The Force in the Forest

Our 8th day of vacation was what we had really, really been waiting for and the main reason we chose the southern Cascades as our vacation destination. As I said in day 7’s post, Drew had done the Cascade Creampuff 100 mile mountain bike race here in the summer of 2004, just a few months B.L.  Specifically, that race was run on the Alpine Trail, the same we would ride today.  It was memory lane for Drew, so I was happy enough to tag along, but then I read this article.


in this magazine.


The article talked about how the town was hit hard by the end of logging and how the residents were trying to rebuild as the “mountain bike capital of the Northwest”.  The trail descriptions sounded good and the pictures were enticing, so I had to see for myself. 

The day started out with some downtime.  Relaxing and wandering for Drew



And blogging over the park’s good WiFi for me.



Then into town. We went to the Willamette Mountain Mercantile, which is the local bike shop and general mercantile at once, for a map and advice. We knew where to find the shop by the picture in the article.

Yup, same store.


The bike shop guy and gal were super helpful.  They warned of where the poison oak would be and didn’t try to get us to shuttle, as it seems most shredders do in these parts.

To prepare for another big day on the bikes we went to Dairy Queen, where they make real, not fast-food type breakfast (even DQ has to diversify in this town).

Then to the Office Covered Bridge in the nearby lumber-company owned town of Westfir to start the ride, but 50 feet into the ride I realized my pedal, which had felt funny on the decent yesterday was broken beyond repair. Oh no!  I use Crank Brothers Egg Beaters, a relatively common pedal in Utah, but probably not as common in the big northwest.  Would the shop have a replacement?  Back to town to inquire and sure enough he one used pair he sold me for $25.  Whew. 

Alpine Trail, woot woot.

OK, so getting on 1 PM now, we finally got underway on our big day.  We only made it a couple of miles before we had to stop and watch an expert pilot moving logs by helicopter.  The helicopter was unlike any I had seen in that it had no tail rotor and had two top rotors, each rotating in different directions.  Very cool.



Here is a video of the helicopter picking up 3 or 4 logs and transporting them a few hundred yards to a transfer point.  You should watch it ‘cause it is cool.

Helicopter logging near Oakridge, Oregon.

We could put off the nasty business of the fire road climb no longer.  From Hwy 19 we rode up FS 1912. It looks like this and steeper.


4500 feet of climbing over 15.6 miles of 95% fire road.  Please shoot me for not shuttling.


One downside to big thick forest riding is the paucity of clear views of the scenery. There were only a couple of spots for views on our 15 mile climb.


At Kate’s Cut-in we finally found skinny trail which joins to the Alpine Trail.  A bit more climbing and then at the top is a nice open meadow.


And then the 12 mile downhill commences.


My favorite part of the trail is called the Jedi Forest because you are zooming through super tall trees with little undergrowth so you feel like Luke Skywalker (or Leia in my case) on a speeder bike being chased by Imperial Stormtroopers through the forest like in the chase scene in Return of the Jedi.



Another special place on the trail came unexpectedly through the thick forest. 


What a view!


We also saw fauna


and flora.


Lots of tall flora!


Our hands hurt from all the breaking and Drew was starting to wonder if he had boiled his hydraulic break fluid by the time the red Office Covered Bridge came into view again.


And a few minutes later we were taking the post-ride photo at the bridge where we started. The bridge was built in 1944 by a lumber company to replace one that had previously washed out. It is the only covered bridge west of the Mississippi that has a separate pedestrian walkway. Nice bridge.



So IMO, the Alpine Trail lived up to its reputation.  It’s a great trail – even worth three hours of climbing on fire road. Here's the Garmin file for the ride. You can pan around and change to satellite background for more fun.


5+ hours, 27.5 miles and 4700+ feet of vertical.  Time for some R and R after that!

A Good Night

Back at the RV park, the idyllic river confluence scene beckoned us and our refreshment beverages. 



After a long chat with the park owners and a quick shower, we drove back into Oakridge to check out the only brewhouse in town, Brewers Union Local 180. 



Who needs more than one brewery in town if the one you have is an authentic English public house and brewery with excellent atmosphere and food!


In this small town on a weekday 800 miles from home, who would expect that the only other couple dining on the patio would be a couple that had just moved to Portland from Salt Lake City.  And what cosmic coincidence is it that the female half of that couple was a one-time participant on a women’s only group ride that I led a few years ago, whose contact info I regretted never getting so that I could recruit her for our race team.  Maybe The Force Was With Me that evening.




Whatever the case, we had a great day in Oakridge!!

Dewey is home and working for us

The first night on the road I stayed at Abilene State Park.  I pulled in after dark and hit the road moderately early, so I didn't see any of the park, but I must say it was rather convenient to plug into the "shore power" and hop back into my cozy-mobile to fall asleep to the sound of rain pitter pattering on the pop-top.  I slept very soundly. Much more so than on the ground in a tent.  And getting up to answer the call of nature in the middle of the night - oh, so convenient when you have a toilet in house!

On my second day of driving I made it from Abilene to Castle Rock, Colorado, where sister Di lives.  I almost didn't want to sleep on the very soft, clean, warm bed because sleeping in Dewey is so much fun.  But the shower - oh yeah!  It was great to visit with Di and Tod and have a civilized glass of wine with them.

Day three was Denver to Dinosaur National Monument on the border of northern Utah and Colorado.  Again, I was lulled to sleep by the sound of rain, but the morning looked moderately promising for my planned hike.  I took off out of the campground,

Camping at Dinosaur National Monument

And motored to the Split Mountain campground.  Wow, the geology!!!

Flatirons (yellow) and tilted strata (red) are exposed on the south flank of an anticline

About a quarter of the way into my 5 mile hike, the rain started again.  I was determined to get some exercise after so many hours driving, so I persevered.  I got pretty wet, and more than a little concerned when thunder and lightening broke out and I had to hike in the drainage, which had obviously flash flooded during the previous week's tremendous storms.

I lived another day to drive the home stretch to SLC.

Max meets Dewey

Dewey did not get much rest.  5 days after coming home Drew and I took him up to Park City to camp out while we coached our team at the 2nd high school mountain bike race. It was around 30 degrees at night.  Dewey has no heat other than the van engine.  It was very chilly.  Will have to work on that.

Bedding down to enjoy a 30 degree night.

Our little van is fun to play house in.  Even more fun is kicking back int he swivel captains chairs to enjoy a cold one from the in-house fridge after a long day of coaching.  Now you know the real reason we bought him!

Still trucking

Just hit the New Mexico state line after 9 hours of driving, and I didn't even start on the other side of this huge state. I don't know about Dewey, but
I think this is new territory for me and Jean Luc.

Dewey and me

We just bought a campervan! I am in the road right now driving it home from Austin, Texas, were it was being sold on consignment at Sportsmobile Texas.  The previous owner was a college professor, Mr. Dewey, thus the name, from Fort Worth. from the looks of it he hardly ever went camping and took very good care of it. the van has just over 37,000 miles and all the cities for Drew and I to go to mountain bike races away from home in comfort!

Here are a few pictures. I was really excited picking it up!

It is not easy on gas though. Good thing gas is cheap in Texas. Still, $93 to fill up.

Drew had to work this weekend, so I only have my faithful companion Jean Luc Piccard to take in the Texas panhandle's many historic sites.

The inside has a sink, microwave, water heater, toilet, and two beds, although one is took short for either Drew our me. 

My first night was at Abilene State Park. It rained a lot and I was cozy and dry with hot water. The luxury! At least compared to a tent.

Taking a little break in Lubbock right now before I push into Colorado. Big day of driving today. Dewey take me home.

12 Hours of Mesa Verde v. 2.0

OK, so updates did not follow that last post in a timely fashion.  Because neither Bobke's cigarette lighter nor AC outlets work, we couldn't charge our phones easily so had to restrain from unfettered remote blog postings while on vacation like we usually do.

We are back now from our trip to Cortez, Colorado where we raced in the 12 Hours of Mesa Verde MTB race for our the second year in a row.  Last year we decide it was one of the funnest races we've ever done so we, along with 28 other official or unofficial Revolution Peak Fasteners teammates signed up again this year. 

If you recall, last year's trip to this race was to be Bobke's maiden voyage. Now, finally nearly two years after we rescued him from certain disintegration in an Idaho abandoned lot, Bobke was road worthy.  We gave ourselves plenty of time to get to the race early. We left SLC Wednesday evening and made it as far as Salina, Utah by nightfall.  We stopped to put in gas and warm up (no heat in the cab) and noticed a suspiciously large pool of what appeared to be fuel underneath him. We were concerned, but also tired and cold, so we motored on to a primitive campground on National Forest Service land outside of Salina, at the base of the big mountains and crashed out for a very cold, fuel fumey, and worrisome night.

In the morning, the sun was shining and pools of unknown vehicle fluids were no where to be seen, so we chalked last night's episode up to spilled fuel from when I topped off the fuel tank after fill up.  Bobke was ready to take on the Rocky Mountains!

And there were some hills to climb.  This view put knots in our stomachs. Would Bobke make it up the hill without overheating?

But each time we pointed Bobke up a hill, he would quietly down-shift, slow down, and keep motoring.  Did I say slow down?  I meant crawl.  Since the odometer cable doesn't work, we don't know exactly how slow we were traveling on the uphills, but when moths hit the windshield, walk to the side, and fly away, you know you have minimal highway velocity. Loaded semi-trucks passed us easily.  Regular cars went by so fast we couldn't read their license plates.

Oh, and I mentioned no heat.  In fact, it was downright drafty with 40 degree morning air whistling in through the cracks.  This was the required attire for pilot and co-pilot.

So we may not have been speedy or comfortable, but we were stylish.  We chugged along I-70, then Hwy 191 through Moab, then turned east for Bobke's first foray into Colorado under our leadership.  We arrived at the race venue, the Montezuma County Fairgrounds, around 3 PM on Thursday to stake out a large area for our team and pre-ride the race course. The course was even funner and easier than I remembered from last year.  Since we were riding around dusk, we saw lots of animals including this big lizard.

One of my two teammates for this race Leslie and her husband were there to help and pre-ride as well. We had a terrific dinner and beers with them at Koko's Friendly Pub.

Friday Drew and I were both feeling a bit under the weather, so we laid pretty low and waited for teammates to roll into town and set up our Revolution City.  We had 1 huge motorhome, 1 large camper trailer, 1 small camper trailer, two VWs, five big canopy tents, a percolator for our Silver Bean Coffee (that unfortunately did not work), birthday cake, gallons of CarboRocket, and most importantly, several coolers of beer, one full of beer from one of our team sponsors, Epic Brewing.

Our friends and temporary Revolution teammates Jon and Kathy pulled in from Grand Junction in their Westy.  Bobke had a friend to camp with!

Friday folks were pre-riding and getting their bikes ready to go for tomorrow.  Carl, our shop mechanic, was to race solo the next day, but that didn't stop him from generously working on people's bikes on Friday.  He helped me out at 9:30 PM! What a nice guy.

It was early to bed for everyone Friday night.

Saturday dawned clear and mild.  Whitney, my other teammate on the Forty Fillies 3-woman relay team, was ready to go.

 And they're off with a LeMans start!

The first racers were really fast, coming around on their first lap in about 1 hour 10 minutes.  Whitney put in a good time for her first lap of around 1:37:45, even though she stopped for a few minutes to stay with our teammate Brandon S. while first aid personnel came to check him out after a fall.

Then it was my turn to take a lap. I went out feeling pretty good and passed a lot of people, mostly solo racers that were dialing it back so they could ride all day.  The temps were perfectly warm and the trail was in superb condition.  This was my first real test of my bike, Santa Cruz Sam.  Sam performed like an extension of my body except when I would take sharp turns and big hits, and then his rear tire burped air.  I just hoped the tire would hold enough air to let me finish the lap, since I am the world's slowest flat tire changer. The Tallboy in size large is really an excellent bike.  I could not believe how easily I went over rocks and obstacles with the 29-inch wheels compared to last year. On rocks and ledges where I struggled last year with my Blur, which is no slacker of a bike, I simply rolled over this year. I was in awe. It was so much fun!!!  The tires held and I pulled in a good lap time of 1:34:45, which was 1 minute 48 seconds faster than my fastest time last year, when I was training and in good shape. It's all due to the bike!

After zooming by the team tent,

 I handed off to Leslie.  She too was on a 29er and after she came into the timing barn and traded off

to Whitney, she said she was having a great lap until mile 8 (of 16) when her pedal broke.  She had to finish the last half the course without being able to clip into her pedal, which happens to be the most technical and fastest part of the course, where clipless pedals are most useful. She did alright considering, and got a 1:39:10.

The day continued with us taking turns on the course and alternately hanging out at the team tent

or in our respective vehicles trying to recover with fluids and super sexy compression stockings.
 

The next go around for Whitney was our team's fastest lap at 1:31:50.  Rock it Whitney!  I felt good on my second lap even though it was nearly 80 degrees on course. My lap tome was only 28 seconds slower than my first lap, so I'm happy with that.  It helped that I inflated my tires to the proper air pressure to promote optimal traction and prevent burping. Leslie went out for her second lap and finished up in just over 1:40 and then Whitney went out for what would be our final lap.

Meanwhile, Drew and his partner Jon were racing their own race.  Jon was having trouble eating between laps, and Drew was fighting to race with a cold. They did fine though and both said they were having fun.  Later in the day, Drew and our teammate Jim decided to ride one lap together.

Drew ended up completing three laps. 

As the 6 PM cut off time to go out on another lap approached, racers began piling up in the team tent.

Which had beer!

It was fun to hang out and see our teammate finish their final laps. Leslie and I were watching the clock for Whitney. If she rode a decent lap, we expected her to finish between 6:15 and 6:20.  At 6:00 we got a text from her that she had broken a chain! Yikes. We immediately started calculating how long she had to fix it before the big lead we had over the Mad Dog Team ladies behind us ticked away.  We had a 28 minute lead on them. Would it be enough?  Whitney's husband sent her phone videos on how to fix the chain and she said someone was helping her.  We crossed our fingers and watched as racer after racer after racer came in, but none were Whitney, and none were the other team's rider either. Finally at about 6:40, in rolled Whitney with a smile.

We had held on for forth place by 6 minutes, behind two teams of pro or ex-pro women and a younger team from Colorado.We'll take it!

With the drama over, Drew and I hung out with Kathy, Jon and doggie Addy

to watch the last of the racers come in.  Doug did himself proud and finished a second lap without ripping his shorts.   

We ate the very delicious Lotsa Pasta meal provided and waited for the awards. Finally Leslie and I were able to claim our little trophies.

I wanted to bolt mine to the dash of Bobke, but Drew said no. He's just jealous.:-)
We camped out one more night and then packed it up for a leisurely 8-hour, 55-mph drive back to Salt Lake on Sunday.  A very successful maiden voyage for Bobke and great times racing with our team. We'll be back next year.

If you want to get a feel for the race course you can click on the You Tube link below and watch a 10 minute video highlighting some of the course shot by Drew during a practice lap.