bluekat's Journeys

The search has been on for a new mountain bike. Full-suspension, hardtail, 26er, 29er, so many options. I've been tracking Peak Sports bike inventory and had noticed some price drops on the 2011s. Hmmm, for the price of a Stumpy, we could get a couple of Trek X-calibers. And they have both our sizes. I should mention this decision came to Ron and I while we were miles away at the coast. (How fast can we get back to Corvallis...) We didn't rush, but we did get back in time for Ron to take a test ride on an x-cal, since he hadn't tried one. I went along as well, my third ride on this particular bike. He liked it. I liked it. We gave ourselves 24 hours to think about it, and went back after work on Monday to pick them up. We swapped out the pedals and removed offending reflectors. So what do you get when you put 29 inch wheels on a small frame bike? You get no room for a fender, no room for a rack, the itty-bitty seat bag appears to fit, but forget about any bikepacking...

Rockhopper with original fork I wanted to compare how the Rockhopper rides with the steel fork, so we did a repeat of our last ride down Dan's Trail. The suspension fork that we added a few years back gave up the ghost this fall, and rather than keep the leaky old thing, Ron changed it back to the stock fork. It really makes no difference to the ride and the original looks sharp. Just a little frosty Three Sisters (I think) I wouldn't want to ride a rigid all the time or for very long miles, but dang, it's a kick for an afternoon ride on easy trails! Dan's trail was a little snotty in spots from the last rains, but most of the trail was perfect for riding. Another good day in Mac Forest. Dirty Goodness, but the wrong day to use water bottles in cages

...Just because I need some riding to tide me through the holidays... We haven't been down Dan's trail since last summer. With time constraints for the day we decide a familiar ride would be best and Dan's fits the bill. Besides, this will give us a chance to explore a few of the road and trail offshoots we usually pass by. A new (to me) trail has appeared shortly up Patterson Road,  Ridge Trail. The lower trail head is graveled. The upper trail head, muddy. Ron and I rode a portion of the upper trail, but decided not to slog it out through the mud. Save it for another day. The trail is marked as year-round, all users.  Ridge Trail We also followed the 620 to Alpha trail head, just for kicks. We didn't explore farther down Alpha. Back to the main route, we've always gone to the top of Dimple Hill via Dan's Trail, but decided to continue along the road and see if it wound around to the top. Indeed it does, with some pretty scenery thrown in. Road up to Dimple...