RR: The hardest 10 miles I ever biked.

gabrielle said:

ER & I have been trying to set up a camping/biking trip together for about
9 months now - our schedules & the wind's have never meshed until this
weekend. With all the tourists, she wasn't about to go sailing, so we
headed up Mt Hood for an overnighter.

Grabbed ourselves a clandestine campsite off of 44 (the road that connects
35 with Dufur). Perfect spot: car was hidden, tents were hidden from the
road up on a ridge that gave us a perfect panorama for both sunset &
sunrise, away from the madding crowds with their screaming children.

I needed to try out the brake pads I'd received from beyondbikes.com -
they'd screwed up & sent me DH pads instead of XC & I wanted to get used
to the Improved Stopping Power these babies would give me. We rode on
over to Eight Mile & did a quick out-and-back on the lower section. Both
of us were nervous about the wildlife - I'd seen a bear here the week
before, and ER's been stalked by cougars twice now. (She's smaller than I
am, and a perfect Cougar Snack Cake.) Impressed with my braking power, we
headed back to our campsite & the cold beers, local cherries & dark
chocolate that awaited us.

6 am wakeup call & a brief discussion lead to the decision to sleep
another hour. 7 am and coffee for ER, pineapple juice for me, we find
that both of us dreamed about bears during the night. (Nervous, party of
2?) Coffee drunk, granola eaten, camp broken within the hour and we are
on our way to the Fifteen Mile trailhead.

(Note: like Eight Mile trail, which is named after Eight Mile Creek and
is in reality only 6.2 or 7.2 miles depending on whose odometer you use,
Fifteen Mile trail is named after Fifteen Mile Creek and is only 10.8
miles.)

Although they share the same Ponderosa forests and fields of wildflowers,
every trail off of 44 has its own personality. The quirk that
distinguishes Fifteen Mile from the rest is the rather unique view of
Adams with Rainier right off its shoulder. I've never seen them lined up
quite like that.

<Insert standard PNW mtb trail description: Ponderosas; fields of lupine,
paintbrush, comumbine, crimson sage, and cascade lilies; scarlet tanagers,
monarch butterfiles & hummingbirds. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we've heard it
before.>

Another fun *cough* quirk is that Fifteen Mile is basically 5 miles down,
then 5 miles up. The trail was in good shape & I'd still rate the
downhill part as probably the most hairball thing I've ever ridden. The
last 1/2 mile of downhill is really steep and is already dusting up this
early in the season. (I actually turned back to look at one point &
decided I was better off not knowing how steep it was.)

We crossed Fifteen Mile creek at the halfway mark & took a brief break at
the meditation garden someone had thoughtfully set up next to the creek
amongst a grove of old-growth cedars.

Thus began The Grind.

We never figured out what happened - nobody in the area knew of a
rainstorm that had come through the night before, and we hadn't seen any
clouds - but this section of trail was recently watered & perfectly tacky.
Of course, all of the vegetation had been recently watered too, so due to
the "carwash effect" we were soaked to the skin in a matter of minutes. We
were grateful for the extra water keeping us cool on the (mercifully
brief) sections of trail that traversed open rock gardens.

One last push through one last steep section & the crux move is over a big
rock. I get my front tire up & miracle of miracles, my back tire follows
it. And I'm out of gas & off the bike. I made the move, but couldn't
ride out of it. Next time!

gabrielle Gone to the Hood you should have took Hood instead. Sream for ice cream.

Dang, and I was going to post my PNW ride report....How about a different
angle?

Spent the weekend in eastern Washington hosting good friends, who shall be
named Bob and Sue to protect the innocent. Sue was celebrating a birthday,
plus her release from medical purgatory since she recently had surgery and
hasn't been able to do much since (including most basic cardio exercises) .
Saturday rolls around as a hot one with clear blue skies. We decide to do
the little 8 mile loop of semi-forest roads near our cabin as a social ride.
Sue is really working to climb the steep 3/4 mile ride out of our canyon,
which is a tough warm up for most folks. She is tuckered and really wants
to turn back, but we encourage her with outright lies about being "halfway
there", "all downhill from here", etc.

The result is that the ride goes really slow. We take turns hosing Sue down
with some spare water, and riding slow with her. We all know what heat
stroke can be like, so we aren't pushing her at all. As we ride and talk
with her to distract her, we have fun getting caught up on all the news too.
As a side effect of riding slow, the sounds and smells of the area really
filter through; fine redrock dust, strong pine, light breeze in the trees,
birds and squirrels chattering <enter Gabrielle's previous caveat about PNW
flora and fauna>. This is a side of social riding that we don't do much -
usually most of the yammering goes on at the trailhead before or after, or
during rest/water breaks.

So for better or for worse, it certainly wasn't my hardest 10 miles ever,
but it might have been Sue's. We all stuck together and she pulled through
like a trooper. We rewarded her by dunking her in the creek later and
fixing her a birthday dinner to remember for years. Here's hoping next year
she smokes us all on that hill...

Next time I get a particularly good or tough ride in, I need to remember
that I could be in Sue's position at any time. Doesn't take much of an
injury or unlucky life-event to get you off your feed an execise long enough
to make the comeback tough.

Gary

p.s. We were biking because of wind issues too ;-)

"gabrielle" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
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Quoted message said:

<Insert standard PNW mtb trail description: Ponderosas; fields of lupine,
paintbrush, comumbine, crimson sage, and cascade lilies; scarlet tanagers,
monarch butterfiles & hummingbirds. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we've heard it
before.>