Bend it like Roadrash

Saturday we went to Bend to ride some killer trails. We rented some sweet bikes from Sunnyside Sports — Bjet rode a Top Fuel and I rode a Gary Fisher Rumblefish. They are a top notch shop and the bikes were tuned to perfection, it was a blast to ride a bike that is better than my own and 1000 times better than the clunkers we rented in the McKenzie River Valley.

We left the shop and rode out to the Phil's Trail Complex, a great trail system that can probably be ridden nearly year round. Lots of flow, lots of climbing!

Bend is on the east side of the mountains, and more arid than the typical Pacific Northwest environment. It felt a bit more like Denver than Portland. But trails like "the Helipad" would feature volcanic rock (in this pic we took a break on a little volcano).

We started out around an elevation of 3600', rode up to the trail head at about 3900', then up to this awesome shelter at about 4750'. The shelter is a great safety feature for Winter Warriors, I could imagine hiker, cross country skiers and even maybe some crazy snow-mountain bikers and huddling around the fire having a wee "Après. or after party.

I wish I had a better camera, but here is a view of Mount Bachelor from the shelter area. Stunning! The valley leading to the mountain was lined with rocky Buttes, I wish I could have ridden out there for days!

After the shelter we rocked a fun downhill called "Whoops," full of table tops and up-and-down rollers. We climbed Phil's trail up to the "HeliPad" (and very small clearing with rocks arranged in an H symbol, I don't know if this is actually used to evacuate injured cyclists) at about 5000'.


We then went down a fun descent called "The Storm King,' then onto a more technical trail called "C.O.D" (Cause of Death? yikes!). Unfortunately we ran out of food and water at about 4 hours of riding so we were forced to head back and stop by a time-share resort for calories.

It was fun to ride back and forth from the trail — it's great to have trails you can easily commute to (i.e, Hurray for Devou in Cincy!). There is a possibility that we could move to Bend someday, and it was great to use the commute as a way to see the town and get a sense of what a typical training ride would be like if we lived there. Even along the road there was a multitude of off-road options, Bend is a town that's great for outdoor enthusiasts.