Our good friend Jeremy came up to visit from Oakland in late July, and Jeremy likes to ride bikes. He likes to ride bikes so much, in fact, that he rode his bike the entire way to our wedding in Winthrop, WA from Seattle (the rest of us rode from Newhalem, which was rather epic all by itself). His plans for this trip included a solo 200 mile effort from Seattle up to Vancouver, BC, then a second one from Seattle down to Portland. Slacker. To toughen him up, we thought we'd add a 20+ mile, 5,000 ft climb on dirt to the mix.
We had a great crew of 7 assemble to tackle this IMBA designated Epic Ride. Present were myself and Chad, Jeremy, Tye H, and team mates Jilly B, Theresa H, and Brian T (Chase came too, although we left Lexi to take a nice snooze in the truck, which we parked in the shade). We had bikes spanning four decades in age. Jeremy rode the grandaddy, a mid '80's rigid steel Stumpjumper, Theresa rocked an early '90's aluminium bike of unknown branding, and I rode my trusty late '90's steel hardtail, Rocky. Chad and Tye broght us to 21st century with Chad's mid-2000's steel Soma and Tye's full suspension Trek of the same age. Jill and Brian had the newest, shiniest steeds in the mix, Brian on his sweet Intense (4 or 5 years old) and Jill riding her gorgeous Indy Fab 29'er, custom built last season.
We camped the night before at the Greenwater, WA airstrip (just a bit north of Crystal Mountain, these trails are off of highway 410).
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| The ladies looking so fresh and so clean pre-ride! |
