Rat Pack Trail

It was pouring rain in Seattle today, so I didn't think I'd get a chance to go riding. That changed when Matt and Dan gave me a call to see if I wanted to ride the Rat Pack Trail in Cle Elum. Cle Elum is on the other side of Snoqualmie Pass, and gets a different weather pattern as a result. So while it was raining in Seattle, it was amazing over there - time to ride...

My bike is in Vancouver right now, so Matt gave me the chance to try out his Nomad. Wow, what a great bike. It's not much heavier than my cross country bike, but tough enough to hold its own on most downhill courses.

The riding was great! Some of the structures over there are pretty shady though... Recent logging in the area made it a bit hard to find the trail at one point too. Hard enough that Matt and I got lost, and had to do some serious hiking to try and find our way.

We shuttled up a few times before calling it a day and driving back to Seattle's rain.

More North Shore

Rode Seymour up in North Vancouver a couple of times this weekend. The weather was sweet, the trails were dry, and the riding was fast.

The trails we rode include: CBC, Neds, Aftertaste, Dale's, and a few others I can't remember.

The bearings in my pedals went out on me, so I bought some new ones before riding. I really spent too much money on them though. I got the Crank Brothers 50/50 pedals. I think the pins that come in them by default are too short so I'll probably need to spend money to get a longer pin set before I'm happy with them.

Whistler is open in full force. This past weekend was the Crud to Mud race where racers start at the top, snowboard/ski down to the bike trails, and then bike the rest of the way down. It's an amazing time, and my friend Matt won second place in the solo category!

Tiger Mountain Tuesdays continue...

Tiger Mountain Tuesdays have been going well. We had a great turnout this week: 6 people and one dog. Problem is the dog had a bit of a rough time making it around the trail. So, what would otherwise be a 1 or 1.5 hour loop turned into a 2.5 hour ride.

That wouldn’t have been too bad, but we started late, so the last section of the loop was ridden in the dark. Singletrack can get pretty difficult to ride when you can’t see anything. I actually turned into a wall that looked more like the trail at the time.

To make things worse my chain broke. Good thing I only had about half a mile left because it was too dark to fix it without a light.

It was a pretty fun time anyhow, I hope we get good weather for the next Tiger Mt. Tuesday!

Whistler's A-Line: Top to bottom

One of my favorite bike trails in Whistler is A-Line. It's a sweet long flowing run with a lot of table tops, and a couple of drops. It's a very well known trail for most people who've heard of downhill biking.

In honor of Whistler's bike park opening this weekend here is a video of someone doing A-Line from top to bottom. For those of you who don't plan on checking it out in person you can at least watch the video :)

Biking: Fromme, Tiger Mt, Duval

Wow, I’ve really had some good biking over the last two weeks. Went to Vancouver and rode two long rides on Fromme with Jen and Glade (Saturday and Sunday). Came back and started out the first Tiger Mt. Tuesday™ ride with Todd (GPS info here). Then from there went out to Duval with Matt, Dan and a slew of other folks to ride a fairly hard to find downhill trail that had some pretty sweet flowing sections.

I’ve decided to try and ride every Tuesday. My favorite trail nearby is Tiger Mt, so if you hear me talk about Tiger Mt. Tuesdays it’s nothing more than a good excuse to get out and get some exercise which I’ve been sorely lacking lately. Dan already made a logo for it, so maybe we’ll get shirts someday...

Cheryl’s planning on buying Jen’s old bike, a 3 year old Santa Cruz Bullit. She might even take a break from studying to hit the hills this weekend. Good times.