MTB Flagline

As Sunday approached, I had made plans to go ride starting early morning in order to try to avoid some of the heat later in the day.  The plan was to head up Mrazek, up to Happy Valley, over to Flagline and back down into town from the shelter on the ridge.

The climb up Mrazek was nice and gentle until we got to the burn area where the trail was closed for some sort of maintenance so we skirted the connector road over to road 4601 and rode that up and caught Mrazek further up.  We made our way over to Happy Valley and took a quick break where we re-filled, ate a few calories and then started the slog up Happy Valley through the old growth that occasionally opened up to views of Broken Top.  Wow, I forgot just how beautimous that ride is!  The views are spectacular and the riding is not too far behind.

We linked into Flagline with great anticipation as the trail had just officially opened on Aug 15th due to Elk calving.  What surprised us was just how banged up and loose the trail was.  It was evident that people had been riding the trail extensively prior to Aug 15th.  It was a bit of bummer as the downhills were pretty torn up.  We were expecting nice tacky descending since the trail had only been officially open for 3 days but alas it had been ridden hard for a while.

The ride was still very enjoyable but it was sad to already see it in 'late season' form.

We put in a good day - 51 miles and about 5 hours of ride time and a little over 5K of climbing.

Bend Brewfest

On Friday night, we decided to check out the growing and infamous Bend Brewfest.  In short, it was a little overwhelming!  So much beer, and only so much belly to be able to taste the array of awesome choices.

I think I hit up most of the tents (not even close to most of the beers as there were too many to count) for some tasters.

Some pictures of the sun setting as the night started to pick up:

10 Barrel Brew Wars

The Bend Brew Fest is kicking off here in Central Oregon and what better way to celebrate the start than to head down to 10 Barrel and hit up the Brew Wars.  10 Barrel hosted the event and there were 4 tents that had several breweries represented in each tent.  Weapon of Choice of this event: IPA

Each tent had a geographic focus (Bend, Portland, Seattle, So Cal) and you had a chance to whet the pallet with whatever your choice of IPA.

You purchased a taster glass (as seen below) and tokens and then you got to go from tent to ten trying the brews.  Some of my favorites included the Cruz Outkast, the Green Flash and the Pfriem.  There was a variety of IPA's for whatever your preference is...hoppy, hoppyier, malty, not hoppy, etc

It was a good cross section of IPA's....just another random Wed evening in Bend....

MTB Smoky Happy Valley

The singlespeed is 'in the shop' at the moment - the free hub body and bearings on the hub need to be replaced...TLC for the SS...

Since the SS was in the shop I took the gearie out and decided to drive up to Skyliners and ride N Fork up to Happy Valley and go up Happy Valley to the first lookout spot that overlooks the creek crossing and meadow.  My last time up this section (Happy Valley) was during the High Cascades 100 on the singlespeed and I was pleasantly surprised at how much more comfortable it was with gears!  It is amazing how it goes from being a grind to just spinning!

I was eager to head downhill too since I have always connected that trail going the uphill direction.  Since I was on the full squish, I knew it was going to be a hoot!  Once I turned around, the descent was ON and it was time to let 'er rip.  It was really fun and I can see why the uphill direction is a bit of a grind considering the speed of descent.

The best part of the day was that I ran into one other lone rider.  It felt like the trails were my own.  It was a little smoky out as I could not get very good views of BrokenTop.  I was a little surprised at how loose the descent on Farewell was.  It has gotten pretty hammered and it probably needs the reprieve of winter to heal.

A big thumbs for the after-work ride...a nice steep climb followed by an equally steep descent!

Airstream Jack Upgrade

One of the quick upgrades I did on the Globetrotter this year was to upgrade from a manual jack to an electric jack.  It will make hitching, un-hitching, and set up at camp much easier.  As long as there is electric juice from the battery, this bad boy should alleviate the circle cranking while trying to get the trailer level, etc.

It took all of about 30 minutes and was pretty straight forward.  The biggest question was just finding wires to be able to use to connect.  Fortunately the quick release pin/brake is in the same vicinity so I could tie into those pretty easily.

 The old jack is lying on the ground...out with the old, in with the new!

Easing back into the Saddle

It is a good sign when the mental fatigue of training and racing starts to subside and the allure of the bike starts to call out.

This is probably the week where I turned that corner...I managed to get out for a nice ride on Saturday, another ride on Tuesday after work and yet another ride on Thursday after work.  The legs don't have a lot of snap but more than anything it is the lungs and aerobic intensity that have slipped off.

A quickie summary of the Tues MTB sesh and the Thurs roadie:

Making Up

The HC 100 has come and gone...the Oregon 24 has also come and gone and as a result things are returning to some semblance of normalcy.  The activity of life post HC100 has thrown a monkey wrench in the riding as of late and perhaps whatever catholic is left in me is feeling guilty for not spending much time on the bike.

Saturday rolled around and all the stars aligned to be able to go out and enjoy some saddle time.  I decided to ride to Shevlin and catch Mrazek up to the viewpoint and then head back down.  It was an enjoyable ride in the sense that I was not trying to hammer or trying to ride for X amount of time.  It was a ride for riding's sake.  

I got to the viewpoint and chillaxed for a bit and took in the views - there was no rush to get moving, no agenda to meet and no distance to cover...just a shameless selfie with Bachelor in the background.