And... Loving It

Would you believe what a fantastic ride we had yesterday on Railroad; plenty of sunshine, mild temperatures and cleared trails? No? What was your first guess? Railroad Creek?  Yeah, it has a notorious reputation, entirely deserved, but not the whole story.  Railroad has a Janus personality and I have ridden it on weekends after it has been cleared and I keep thinking how great a ride it is, and wonder why it so unpopular.  Usually when Jeff suggests this ride, which has been his personal project the last few year he gets at most one taker.  After this week's ride that may be all gets in the future.

At the culmination of the ride, the dreaded word epic was bandied about.  Most of the criteria were fulfilled: inclement weather ( well not great weather, drizzle and a little chilly),  obligate head lamp use, flailing around in the dark, catastrophic mechanical failure.  Still I think there are three more criteria of which at least one of which is obligate to be classified as an epic.  First, no crimes were committed. No breaking and entering cabins. No trespassing.  Second, no bodily injury. Simple, no blood, no epic.  Third, no Shrek. Self explanatory.

So what we are left with is a top 10 Wednesday ride adventure.  Maybe not a bald top, but probably edging out the previous Railroad headlamp ride and a toss up with the White Stallion fiasco.

So what happened?  Much like the White Stallion fiasco it all starts with trees, downed trees, lots of downed trees, lots and lots of those nasty dead half burned overgrown matchsticks. Like nearly every other ride so far this year, we seem be spending more time drawing that riding.  I beginning to think we need to reclassify  our Wednesday night rides as Logger Days training. After clearing the remainder of Weasel and a half hearted effort on #313, we began am aggressive clearing of Railroad, but it was 9:15 before we even began down, and the farther we dropped the more the trail was littered with the remains of a giant's game of Jenga. With that came the realization that the lights would come out, with the only question being how far could we get first. The answer is the end of the worst of the downfall and the beginning of the lower technical drop to the creek.  Two thirds of the way down came the mechanical, my maxle rear axle gave up the ghost and left my rear tire with only a tenuous connection to the remainder of my bike leaving me a hoofing it for the last bit of trail and 3.5 miles of Forest Service Road. Well that should have been the worst of it, except that by the time we reached the short cut at the creek crossing we were far past twilight and well into complete darkness and just "missed it by that much".  After finally gaining the road and waving goodbye to the fading headlamps  I began my nature commune until the rescue was mounted and John's Subaru returned me to the trail head at 11:00 with the lum cooked and grey poupon dijon awaiting.  No epic can end with grey poupon of a grilled dog.

If a picture is worth a thousand words. Here is the whole post in one shot.

Warm Springs Ridge

I think for this ride I'll let my models Sean, Corey, and Cassie tell the story with their action shots.  I'll just share two comments that summarize the various opinions of the ride.

 "The only thing hard about this ride is getting here on time."

"Fuck You. Fuck All Of You."

As usual context is everything and if you don't know the context, then where the hell were you for the best pure single track ride we do Wednesday nights.

Did you know a bull's penis is also known as a pizzle, which when dried can be used as a whip or as dog treats.  I guess you can also diddle your pizzle, and if you have been bitten by a radioactive spider, you can diddle your fissile pizzle, which sometimes fizzles if you spend too much time on a bike saddle.

We just missed the World Naked Bike Ride in Portland

Weasel Creek 2014

Weasel Creek is one of those trails the elicit strong emotions. Some recoil in disgust, creating every more fanciful excuses to avoid getting anywhere close, "I heard they closed Skalkaho so we probably can't get up Rye Creek",  " I need to mount my new Kodiak in my office so that  it rears up over my desk," "My ferret chewed up my brake cables so she could drink the brake fluid." Some others when the first wiffs of a Weasel ride waft through the ether bounce off the walls like a wrecking ball after a visit by Miley Cyrus's tongue.

Initially I was firmly in the first camp, considering the time a starving, half frozen pine marten took a nip at my dangling  dongles while I was seated in an outhouse for my morning pre-ski tour weight shaving routine to be preferable to floundering through the hidden rocks, roots and water crossing in the creek bottom, or trying to walk my bike through  loose cobbles and washed out switch backs.  With the ride usually ending with me floundering around more off the bike than on and hoping I get out before the night creatures make a meal of me. Over time my feelings have evolved like Hannah Montana from Disney naiveté to bring it on punk rebellion.

To what can I attribute my conversion, could I be rebelling against a stereotype? If so, what stereotype might that be. Possible the washed up wannabe with more money that ability, who goes out and buys the fancy bike and can't ride like crap, kind of like a dentist and his Serotta, or the guys on Kleins I used to pass on my low end Trek back in my younger days.

Hmmm, seems to sort of fit, except I wouldn't considered so much rebellion as evolving into a rider almost deserving of the bike. A little different geometry, a dropper post, more suspension can do wonders for the confidence of even for the most inept klutzes of the world. So now, while I may not have the honey badger don't give a shot attitude of Travis or Jeff, I can usually manage to let the bike roll and release my death grip on the brakes.  Not that he was ever close to being in the same category of bumbling menace that yours truly flails about in, but I have noticed that Ventana Jeff has stepped up his downhill game once he changed his name to Knolly Jeff II.

Not that I don't have a few quibbles to make about the ride.  I continue to detest the road we add to the beginning and ending of the ride to make it long enough to be worthy of a Wednesday night.  As usual I attempted to be intentionally late by making chores to do before I could leave: pick up kids, feed kids, feed dog, move pipes; then forget a critical piece of clothing; this time shoes. It almost worked.  Jeff and Dean tried the same scam, but Dean was early enough to catch the group just a little bit down the road, and forced us to turn around and park with everyone else

Given how many trees had fallen, the upper trailhead might have been a reasonable option, and let us ride down the gulley of the beast with a bit more light.  Thankfully Jeff had cleared the downhill the previous weekend and rerouted some of the water back into the creek.

Considereing that we had the biggest turn out of the year, one might think that there are more Weasel lovers than haters.  At least of the riders had been uninitiated so I guess time will tell, and while Joel was there, that was only because he couldn't make up an excuse that lived up to his reputation.

A quick post ride check at Red Barn the next day reported four bikes in for repairs.

Well everyone is in luck, I was planning on a long exposition of the importance of the post ride grill session, but I'm out of time for this post.