Mountain Bikes and Snow, Portland Winter 2008!

This morning I did something I haven't done in a very long time. I rode my mountain bike. It was a toss up - I almost took the cyclocross bike, but DW wanted to ride mountain bikes and one look outside at the accumulating snow confirmed that mtb was a better choice. And it was epic.

Three of us met at the coffee shop and then rolled up to Forest Park. It's probably been over a year since I'd ridden the mtb. Everything felt weird. 175mm cranks instead of 170's. Slack angles everywhere. A spongy shock on the front end. And small wheels with fat mtb tires. Those tires were killing me. I felt like every pedal stroke was ripping velcro, so slow.

It was tough to hold back the grin, though. We were riding in a winter wonderland. The snow has been dry and fluffy, Colorado-style, not the wet Portland melt-as-it-hits that we usually get (when it snows once a year). Very few cars were venturing out and we pretty much had the whole road to ourselves.

We hit Leif and it just kept getting better. There were lines, and if you didn't take them all of a sudden things got very slow, crunchy and a bit squirrelly. We stopped for an adjustment and lo and behold, a gaggle of 'cross riders were rolling up - the new Hammer team. Very nice crew, so we joined them for a while. But 'cross bikes were not the weapon for the snow-laden trail so we eventually cruised through.

At some point we turned off the main trail and all fun broke loose. We turned to the black market of off-limits hiking trails, but it was totally deserted out there and no chance for trail destruction. And so the next few hours were spent. And neither the snow nor the grinning ever stopped. Even with a few nice endos as my mtb skills reluctantly returned. Yep, I'm still smiling hours later. Very tired, but smiling.

White Christmas in Portland - I'll take it!