Location: Syncline
Weather: 40s/50s and partly sunny
Ride for the day: 2012 Specialized FSR Comp 29er
Had an old college buddy in town for a week for work, which was awesome since most of my friends these days have become the married type that don’t do a damn thing. We spent the week eating, drinking and recreating our way around Portland. After reintroducing him to powder days (apparently they don’t get that many pow days in Charlotte, who knew?) and introducing him to the Outback, I figured for his last day in town I’d show him Hood River.
Hit up the Fat Tire Farm sale, sadly not early enough to get one of the demo bikes they were selling off, and quite frankly the rest of the sale was unimpressive. As we were walking back to the car we were throwing out ideas for the ride, knowing that the snow would probably be a hindrance on most of the trails. John’s rental car guided us to the obvious answer.
Driving out through the Gorge the weather looked as if the ride would be ‘interesting’, but as we turned the last turn into Hood River you could see the sun was shining on Syncline. High-5!
We ended up having a blast, soaking in the weather and the views. Wildflowers starting to do their thing (which means the poison oak and ticks are only a few months away as well…). Trails were in good shape in most places, but muddy and rutted around the new diversion about 1/4 mile below the brown house. We ended up doing two laps, one up the Jeep Trail, past the brown house and down Hidden Canyon, the second up the same trail but cutting off at Little Moab instead. A third lap up to hit Little Maui on the way down got vetoed by the call of the Double Mountain beers. Siiiick.
On the drive back John was looking for jobs in the area and telling his wife it’s time for a move. He wore the GoPro cam for an hour or so to show his lady how the riding is, should have that vid posted later this week once I get it converted over. Hopefully they can make it happen!
 These guys were everywhere, and when the sun came out full-time looked insane when backlit  oh hai sunshine!  John on Little Moab  recovery meal  Doppelganger?
An old college buddy was in town this weekend before he started his new gig, figured as Saturday was supposed to be spring-like that I’d bring him out to Syncline as 1) it would be dry relative to anything else around 2) I like Double Mountain and 3) wanted to check out a few bikes at one of the shops in town that he was going to rent from.
Late start on the day as we had to wait a bit for breakfast in the city at Tasty n Sons (BTW, great hostess, great service, great food, worth checking out). Loaded up the new Rockymount Pitchfork for it’s first ‘further than 5 miles and freeway speeds’ test, into local shop for a rental (their rental fleet consists of Camber 29ers….not bad for $25!), onto the trailhead. Quick change and onto the ride.
Distance: Longer than usual due to world’s slowest rider not being there, but far from difficult – about 11.5 miles.
Weather: Heh. Started off nice and springlike, though a touch windy. Turned into what I can only imagine it feels like to ride into the eye of a tornado. 35+ sustained headwinds, rain, hail, thunder, etc. for the last 4 miles or so. Awesome.
Short summary: Good times with a touch of adventure. Tried a new way, had to bushwack for a bit + the full frontal weather assault finish made for one of those days you won’t soon forget.
The up: Just the usual low speed/enjoy the scenery and bullshitting with old friends climb. Lots of wind, at points you’d had to stop as it would push you off the trail. Pretty nuts, the shaky vid below doesn’t show nearly how it was. Doubletrack/Jeep Trail up the the brown house, left up the singletrack, onto the fire road, got bored of that so turned around and hooked a louie back at the brown house to explore a bit.
The down: Welp, not as fun as it could have been had we gone down Little Maui. Tried a new trail that was fun and flowy for a bit, eventually the trail just disappeared – conveniently right about the time the weather went to hell. Little bit of bushwacking here and there, one banged knee and some racked nuts, couple mile spin down the road, back to the blackhawk.
In what’s become a ritual, post-ride pizza and beer DEVOURED at Double Mountain Brewery. Yes, I’m a sucker for wood fired pizza and it’s a proven fact that beer tastes better after riding, snowboarding or surfing.
 Route overview. Same ol' same ol' halfway with a finishing twist  Elevation summary. Still need to do a hors catégorie climb  Captain Spandex shows how the bright Camber pops against a dark background
Two quick ride reports (well, reports light on verbs and photos) from the weekend.
First up, Tacoma city ride/bar hopping. Rolled up there to shoot photos of the muay thai fights on Saturday night, dragged the bike along planning on riding the Dash Point trails. I failed massively in my Tacoma knowledge, for some reason thought Dash Point was in Point Defiance and not up in Federal Way so bike ride turned into bar hopping.
This sign seemed out of place/very Route 66 roadside attraction-esque/Trees of Mystery/Drive through tree/etc. as a kid. Now that it’s surrounded by strip mall sprawl and is in an REI parking lot it seems even more out of place.
Two good friends, IPA and my MTB. Harmon IPA and Rockhopper Comp 29er. Sure, I’d rather this photo be a Pliny the Elder and something like a Camber, but hey…
Up early Sunday AM for the ride back to PDX to pick up the womanfriend and a buddy and head to Hood River to hit Syncline yet again. Total shit show* to start followed by world’s 2nd slowest ride ever.
The oaks were in full bloom/yellow ribbon plumage. Of course since everything blurs together with my iPhone camera you can’t see the yellow ribbon that each of these oaks were wearing so this isn’t as funny as I imagined.
Mt. Hood was doing it’s ‘look at me I’m a Cascade volcano’ thing in the distance
Ride ended with a substantial part of the downhill being walked. Found what it appeared to be some fun, flowy sidehilling singletrack that quickly turned into halftrack and rock gardens. Our ability levels weren’t up to the consequences on the right (aka 150′ tumble down 45 degree slope into a creek) even if the Dart3 would somehow absorb some of the hit in a confidence inspiring way. So yup, emasculated mountain bike hiking. Made the Double Mountain Vaporizer and pizza that much better though.
*buddy hit the lever on his hydraulic brake when loading so had to pry the pads apart. Then he had to fill his tires. One valve was broken. His bike was ghost shifting like crazy and rather than just man up he went back to the car to fix. 30 min later I roll down the trail and back to the car to see what’s up and he went to town to get it fixed. F* him, I’m going riding.
Spring finally (temporarily) sprung in the PNW on Friday, figured I’d best take advantage before another five day stretch of gray+rain pain. Decided to head out to Syncline again as it is in some weird Bermuda Triangle of weather that allows it to stay dry when the rest of the world within a one hour drive are building arks and rounding up two of every animal. As the GF had the day off decided it’d be a good day for her to get out on her newtoher Giant XTC2 courtesy of Fat Tire Farm’s rental sale and get her a first taste of ‘real’ mountain biking (she’s done a few Forest Park yawners, but I don’t think that counts as mountain biking).
Distance: Short, damn short. ~7 miles or so.
Weather: Dope. 65ish. Perfectly clear with a slight breeze to keep you cool on the uphill.
Short summary: Slowest….ride…..ever. When you get passed by 70 year olds out dayhiking….only 1/2 kidding. To be expected though as Emily hasn’t been on the bike much nor ridden any trails since age 7 on a My Little Pony bike.
The up: Nothing like a crawling speed fully clipped in fall before even getting on the trail. Skills. Always forget I’m NOT on my city bike with flats. Dry trails. A bit rutted about 1/2 mile from the infamous brown house. Beautiful views at a pace slow enough to take them in. It took Emily a bit to get into the mentality of it, to settle into a pace that was comfortable for her, and just get comfortable on a bike in non-fire road situations. After she shook off the initial fear/hesitation from doing something new she ended up doing well and enjoying the day. To make it a bit more interesting for myself I’d ride ahead 1/2 mile or so and wait for her to catch up.
The down: Again slow, but to be expected with the n00bidity (yup, that just happened, made up a new word, call Merriam), getting a feel for bike control, where the brakes engage and how much pressure is needed, shifting weight around, counterbalancing, etc.etc.etc.
Post-ride pizza and beer DEVOURED at Double Mountain Brewery aka Cheers – seriously, everybody that came through the door knew the servers, hostesses, etc. Insane pizza if you’re into high heat, wood fired, chewy with char pizza goodness.
Was trying out a new app ‘iMapMyRide‘ and outside of it’s hunger for battery life I’m impressed. A couple screenshots of the type of data it gives you on the free version below.
 Mountain bike walking due to pulling a Schleck  If the sky wasn't blown out you'd see Mt Hood standing tall in the distance. Unimpressed by the massively overhyped camera in the iphone  Posing near the syncline of Syncline  Walking for a second after hitting a pedal on a boulder  Moments of walking interrupted by short bursts on the bike
Preface: these photos suck.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you. I was too busy having fun riding to try and dig out my double bagged (last phone died from water getting penetrating my ‘water resistant’ bag) phone from my seat bag to snap any interesting photos.
Distance: Not very long as I’m out of shape, but the area has potential for killing hours exploring
Short summary: Cool spot! Lots of options to challenge yourself with the reward of sick views of the Gorge from the top and fun singletrack on the way down. Props to the private property owners that let us use their property.
Spent last week in SF in meetings, which typically means drinking lots of beer and eating the food version of Newton’s third law as applied to a salad – basically the equal (not really) but definitely opposite. Plenty of Patxi’s Pizza, Q, etc. was consumed. While others were carb loading I was carb bloating.
Came back home with the urge to ride, but the biblical downpour I arrived to seemed to put the kibash on the idea of doing any sort of fun rides. Dreading the thought of hitting the yawn inducing fire roads of Forest Park again I decided that I’d head out to Hood River and hit the Syncline area. Due to some weird time/space continuum the weather there seems to be dry(er) than here, and the trail seems to dry out quick.
Drive through the Gorge was INSANE! Waterfalls in full plumage. Waterfall gangbangs, just hot waterfall on waterfall action the whole way. Was nuts. I didn’t take any pics because there’s no way my phonecam could do justice to the scenery.
Showers on the way there. Ominous, stoke sucking gray clouds hung overhead. My exit was 64, hit milepost 60 and the earth shifted, the clouds lifted, siiiiiick. Let’s do this!
First run went halfway up Little Maui, had some technical difficulties, back to the car to fix real quickly. Next run went up the Jeep Trail, about 1/4 of the way up ran into two cool cats Clinton and Andrew. Shot the shit for a few, they offered to let me tag along to show me the way. Siiiick.
The up: Up the doubletrack Jeep Trail, peeped Little Moab for a bit, over here, over there. Think ‘Son of a Gun’ by Nirvana, or at least the first half of the verse and not the chorus since there was no bedroom play. Windy in parts (as in blow you over wind, insane!), touch of mud in spots (not bad at all), beautiful everywhere (spring in the NW).
The down: Fun, flowing, smile inducing singletrack interspersed with filling rattling spots (my guess is due to the Dart3′s lack of any sort of compliance). Forearm burn in parts due to lack of confidence in the fork and shaking the rust off. Only fell over while clipped in twice on some tight switchbacks on the way down. I’m blaming the 29″ wheels and not my skills though….
Long story short: can’t wait to get back up there and explore a bit more. With my consulting gig over I think I’ll go Friday…
 World's cheapest toll bridge? $.75 to cross.  Looking back to the parking lot from the cliffs of Little Moab  The wind was HOWLING straight up the cliffs here, was so nuts  Horrible, non-scale giving photo of the cliffs
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