This morning I headed to Brice Creek for a ride. ��After navigating my way through the 2200 roadies taking part in Cycle Oregon (which I may try to do next year, just found out about it this morning), I arrived at the trailhead, where it was 52 degrees. ��Luckily, the slight rain had let up, and the trail was likely to be in perfect condition. ��I was riding my Niner 1x9, and was excited to see how the 1x9 worked out on this trail since it's a rough trail (check the potential chain jump), and has some extremely steep climbing.
I took off and immediately began to work up a good sweat. ��I had arm warmers and a vest on and shed the vest pretty quickly. ��The trail was feeling great, and I was going nicely. ��I made it to the trail junction for the waterfall in 45 mins, and started up the climb. ��The climb was brutal, and I walked at least half of it. ��It was like doing intervals, because the pitches are so steep (even to hike), and then you get a short breather, and then another bitch of a pitch. ��All of a sudden I reached the falls, and quickly realized, I'd screwed up again, just like when I rode it with Matt! ��I went up the descent! ��Argh--I'd promised myself not to do that. ��The problem with this direction of climbing, is that it is 700' of gain in 1 mile. ��Yep kids, that's a 13% grade on average. ��Uh, huh. ��
However, I was actually pretty psyched that I'd done this in 25 mins, as memory says it took Matt and I like 40 minutes (of course that day it was also in the 80's, and I know I was suffering on the hike much more). ��I thought for a moment that I'd turn around and head back down to enjoy the descent, but then said, no, I want to see how I screwed up and turned too early, so I headed down the other side. ��This is a fun descent as well - rolling on the top half, and steeper on the bottom. ��Got down, and now know that I have to ride the trail until I get to pavement, then make the 20' hop up the pavement to where the proper entry into the climb lies. ��
Now is where I start getting pretty excited about my ride though. ��I was feeling good, and so I turned around and rode back up to the falls again! ��Ya baby! ��Climbing this direction it's also 700' of gain (probably more like 850' given that you do a few mini-descents in there, which I saw were 50' of drop or so), but in 2.5 miles. ��As an interesting comparison, this climb I was able to ride much more of, and it took 27 minutes - much longer mileage wise, but the milder overall grade means it only took 2 minutes longer. ��Sweet.
I proceeded to ride the full rock wall section, and then up and under the falls, and then ripped the descent. ��This side of the descent, being a lot steeper, is just a ton of fun. ��And at this point, I was truly in the zone. ��I was just flying, and maneuvering the bike like nothing else existed, really working the front end hard, and at one with the bike and trail. ��Combine this feeling with the happiness of being able to want to do the climb again, and I was quit high (no Rich, not like that). ��
At the bottom of the climb, I could smell the campfire of a nearby camp, and boy did that smell good. ��Just added to the buzz. ��I also realized how little time it'd taken overall so far. ��With that in mind, I put it in race, and flew over the remainder of trail back to the car. ��I finished up the ride, in a total of 2 hours, 44 minutes, for 2800' of climbing. ��Not an epic by any means, but very stoked. ��Further, during various points in the ride, I was doing a lot of standing up and hammering, and it was the first time, in, well, I can't remember, that I actually felt I had some power in my legs. ��This was a really big deal for me, and I am just so psyched! ��It has no doubt helped, that I've ridden 4 times in the preceding week (which is about 3-4 more times than normal ;-)
The weather was extremely helpful for me today. ��As folks know, I don't like the heat at all, so the temps today (stayed in the 50's all day) were outstanding. ��I did wind up putting the vest back on on the first descent, and never took it back off (even for the 2nd climb). ��Again, just an outstanding ride for me as everything came together, and it is the best I've felt on a ride in a long, long time. ��To top it off, I wasn't even tired when I finished, and had contemplated going back out for another lap, but knew that I wanted to save some juice for tomorrow, as I'm hoping to go ride Waldo Lake, which I hear is about 4-5 hours. ��
Lastly, the 1x9 worked out just fine. ��There were a couple sections I could have ridden if I had a granny gear, but the majority of the super steep pitches I'd have had to hike even with a granny gear. ��I had two close calls crash wise: one where I hit my pedal pretty hard going round a corner at high speed, throwing me a good bit, but rode it out, and second where I lost the front wheel in a fast corner, having it slide a ways, but then I think it caught on something and carved out the rest of the turn. ��A very good day, can't wait to see what tomorrow brings...
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