The Weather And Other Assorted Awesomeness

So today is Tuesday.

 I decided towards the end of last week that I was not going to ride the Eugene Roubaix.  For various reasons really.

First, I didn't want to go flog myself to death.

Second, I just felt like going out and riding my bike with friends and enjoying the weather. Which is exactly what I did.



The ferry ride over the Willamette. With Dick hanging on for dear life. (Photo:Johnny P)


Saturday morning a group of us extended the normal Scott's morning ride and headed over the ferry and through the hills to Amity for an awesome demitasse of espresso and for others in our group, baguettes bigger than them.



It's a bit blurry because Adam is shaking it to death like the wild beast that he is...(Photo:Johnny P)

It was a lovely ride. With a great group of people. The only thing that sucked was our apparent inability to keep track of everyone.

As we were riding the rolling hills back into West Salem I asked a couple times if everyone was there. And as per-usual the reply of, "All aboard!" came ringing back.  Which of course we weren't all aboard... In fact one of out group was off the back by a whopping 10 miles!!! I mean what the hell!? Luckily, other than some good natured ribbing, he was cool about it. But like my SSHW has said in the past, there have been times when I have (accidentally) dropped her and she didn't talk to me for a couple of days afterward.

I'm beginning to think we are going to need a moving buddy system or something...



 Anyway, despite that snafu it was a lovely ride...

Sunday I had been invited (Or more to the point. Invited myself.) to go ride mountain bikes with J, Adam and Adam's brother Luke.

We headed up to the Dallas (The Oregon town, not the Texas one...) area to go play. None of us had been in the area for a couple years and the trails were tough to find before. But now that some clear cutting has happened it was basically impossible.

We rode up the main gravel log road. Which is quite a bear of a climb.



Something like this kind of bear....



Not this kind of Bear (Calm down ladies.)...

Once we were near the top. We started to search around for the entrance of Mud Puddle.

Only we couldn't find it...

So we when down a log road that we thought would intersect the trail.

Only it didn't...

Then there were several other ill advised choices made as to where we thought we might find some semblance of single track.  Only none of them worked out either.

Eventually, dejected, we made our way back up to the road we came in on. Flew down at a high rate of speed. I think I pooed a little feeling my rear tire slide out going around a couple of those corners with loose gravel on them. I'd say the pucker factor was a solid 8.5 for me (I'm chicken shit on curvy gravel descents.).

Once the ride was done the amount of climbing we did really started to set into my legs. As a fat guy, I don't usually subject myself to that amount of climbing all in one day (Perhaps that's why I am a fat guy. Hmmm...). But even though no gnar was had it was still nice to be out in the sunshine on a bike.

Next time we will bring someone who has been around there lately.

And maybe a map...

Rubber side down,

Big E