Tuesday, August 28, 2012

MTB COB North Fork

Saturday's ride around Bend/Beyond took me from the house, to the Phils network of trails where I followed the trails up to Skyliners and hooked that into the Tumalo connector trail that takes you to the North Fork trailhead.  Once on NF, I crested up in Happy Valley and followed the trail to the junction which gave you the option to head downhill on Farewell (3 miles) or downhill on Mrazek (13 miles).  I wanted to do the bigger loop through Mrazek which would put me over by Shelvin and a little closer to home.  All in all it was a great day to work the cobwebs out of the legs and get some soul therapy in.

Ride specifics: 44.5 miles, a little over 4 1/2 hrs of ride time and a little over 4K of elevation gain.

North Fork is an uphill only trail so it seems to be holding out better than many other trails due to the lack of brake chatter/bumps from bombing downhill.  It makes a lot of sense to me to have directional trails like that, especially when they are multi-use trails that see many a hiker.  I would think part of the concern of bombing downhill on that particular trail is the possibility of launching off the trail into a water fall which would be enough to really ruin a guy's/gal's day.

To date, North might be my favorite local trail.  It is super scenic with some amazing waterfalls along the ride (and I am not talking the little trickle falls but more so the full on loud cascading type) and the best part is it gives you access to the upper elevation trails where you can link to all sorts of sweet sweet nectar.

mental note, take a camera for some pix on the next ride....

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