An Update

I finally did a ride worthy of mention. I’ve been, how do you say, taking time off of riding due to a dislocated finger and a strong desire to ride my brains out this coming year. It’s been fairly non-stop riding for over a year now, so my legs are calling for something different.

So I’ve been doing some running, some hiking and, of course, trail layout with Mark Flint. I have been doing rides here and there, but certainly nothing serious. And I’m afraid of crashing on my hand.

I find myself in Eugene, OR, where I expected to only catch glimpses of the sun during my entire visit. But, no! The sun shines, the clouds have gone elsewhere and the temperature is twenty degrees above normal. My heart burns to get out for a ride…

So I purchased a high quality steed for $196 (no sales tax) that features 7 speed, a mozo fork and of course riser bars! Mackenzie at Wilamette Mountain Mercantile sold me the beast of a bike. It’s not the best bike on the planet but all I care about is being able to ride while here, not about having a ‘sweet’ ride. I only wish it came with a rigid fork rather than a crapper suspension fork. I’ll swap it eventually.

I was lucky to hook up with Al Bennett who treated me to a superb ride near Oakridge. We climbed agressively for an hour on the Flat Creek trail. The conditions were unbelievable for January. This is the kind of riding I lust after in Tucson. It’s so rare to find buffed and densely wooded trails. You have to earn them, usually by climbing your legs off. But here it’s commonplace–perhaps too commonplace. But for someone jonzing for any mountain bike ride at all, it was pure heaven.

We turned around for a blaster descent, then turned up to climb the Aubrey Wall to the Eugene to Crest trail. The climb was high on the suffering scale, but my $196 bike didn’t seem very sluggish. It’s downhill abilities, however, were not very impressive. Boing boing boing goes the fork and the wide handlebars / poor brake setup do not inspire confidence.

But it didn’t matter. I let Al fly away on the downhills while I took my usual conservative pace down the mountain. We managed a few spectacular views in places. This whole area is a dream come true for mountain bikers, especially those that like mountains — that is, to climb and descent for extended periods as well as steeply. Tucson has made me forget what riding in consistently steep terrain is all about.

The ride was like a breath of fresh air. Running on the river trails in Eugene has been fun, but there’s nothing like coasting down the side of a heavily forested mountain, stealing views at huge river valleys and towering mountains. Cities, no matter how bike/ped friendly, are never as good as spending time in the mountains. It’s so funny how everyone spends most of the time sitting around in cities that drain the life out of them (myself included).

I’m going to attempt to ride ridgeline today (we’ll see how the mud is).

On the TopoFusion side, I’m still very keen on the new Auto-Elevation downloading stuff. Since there have been no reports of bugs on the new beta methinks it is time for a full release.