Sunday, April 16, 2006

Spring riding makes my hands sting

I've been geting some good day's of riding in despite the off and on rain that spring in the N.W. brings. So it seemed like a good idea to get the big bike out and head for Hood River in the columbia river gorge to do some jump filled riding at Post Canyon. The Flyin' Hawaiian went a couple of days before and said " it's good to go" So we(Me, Chipped, Whiplash and the Flyin' Hawaiian)went. The day before the weatherman said the whole state of Oregon was going to be socked in for rain and up to 2 feet of snow in the mountains. What do they know. It's almost may ya know? SO it rained all night at my house and rained almost all the way to Hood River. Not too bad though. We dropped off Chipp's truck at the bottom and headed up. Chip say's " The snow level is 2300 feet today. How high we going? I say " 2300 ft probably. Then Flyin' J say's " Hey it's snowing! Yes once again i'm riding in the snow. 1st it was in Bend w/ Jason and Erin where we rode from the Mountain back to town. (on my Stinky) Then it was with MTB John and his buddy at Waldo lake. (21 miles in the snow) and now Post canyon. The first part of the decent is really fun as there is a lot of ruts and holes. But i couldn't see 'em. Fallen tree's were also fun to crawl over when covered with snow. After decending a while we get to the section where the trail is covered with lot's of rocks. (softball,football sized) I love this kinda stuff. When you can see it. I tried to ride as fast as usual but one rock got me and i got side ways, flew off the bike, flipped and landed on my back. Did i mention how fun i is riding fast in snow? And oh so quiet. Anyway..everyone was really cold at this point and we realized we weren't going to be hitting up a bunch of drops and jumps. Once we got below the snow line the mud started. The mud at Post is lame but a litle more predictable. I ended up hiting two 6 foot drops and ruining my brake pads.
The moral of the story? Every ride has good parts to it. Even if you can't figure that out until your out of the shower. and if you go home after riding , not to the hospital then it's a good day afterall.

1 comment:

StageWest said...

Hack,
I always enjoy your write ups! One of these days our paths will cross to ride.

Hey, I'm going to put a link to your blog on mine, OK?