About a mile into the easy uphill.
We spent the day riding the Phil’s Trail area, which is a complex of trails just west of Bend.
We started at the original Phil’s Trail trailhead, which begins at 3,900’ and is a gentle climb through the Ponderosas on a buffed trail virtually devoid of rocks.
Easy rolling.
The trail is so smooth that most of the riders we saw were on hardtails; we even saw a few people on 10-speed city bikes.
Hard rolling.
As you approach a point called the Heli Pad, things suddenly get very steep and technical for a brief section.
“H” = Heli Pad.
We took a break at the Heli Pad, the high point of the ride at 5000’. It’s just a point on a mound that serves as the intersection for several trails.
One drawback to these trails is that you’re always in the trees, so you never get a good view of the nearby Cascade volcanoes.
Whoop-de-doo!
After heading down the wrong trail for a mile (there’s trails everywhere), we found the Whoops trail.
The Whoops is a two-mile section that is filled with features—jumps and banked turns and whoop-de-dos—that’s the equivalent of anything at the Northstar bike park.
Still whooping.
After Whoops, we continued down Bens Trail back to the Phil’s Trail trailhead. It’s a fast and flowy downhill.
There are some log features on Bens Trail as you approach the parking lot. A local rider talked me into trying one of them.
Getting logy.
Also recommended—a cold beer after an 18 mile ride.
I highly recommend checking out the Phil’s Trail trails. It’s a lot different than riding around Tahoe—there are few rocks and few steep sections, just a lot of low-angle fast cruising—but a lot of fun.
Reflecting.
After riding Phil’s Trail, we spent some time in downtown Bend, going for a walk along the Deschutes River.
No comments:
Post a Comment