Got back from a predominately soggy MBO in Oakridge, OR to find the same damp weather in the Columbia Gorge. Not heavy rain, but enough light to medium showers to make everything wet, but not muddy. Nothing to stop mountain bikers from riding.
Everything is really green and the smell of rain and damp earth is in the air
The rain leaves water on the plant leafs and bends them down, nearly obscuring the trail
The forest is cool and damp
One positive thing about the late, wet spring has been the extended wildflower bloom
The rear wheel on my 2009 Giant Trance X2 was getting pretty beat up, so I ordered a pair of wheels from Bicycle Wheel Warehouse. These guys built me a nice set of wheels for my road bike that have been bombproof, so I went back to them for a set of mountain bike wheels. I installed them the same day I got them and headed out to see how they rolled.
The rims are 32 spoke Mavic XM 719 Disc with Bicycle Wheel Warehouse brand Pure hubs. The front hub is a Pure XCR 15mm QR
The rear hub is a Pure XM 375 with a steel freehub, this is their “heavy duty” hub
I’m using the Nevegal 2.35 DTC tires I’ve been using, but I don’t think I would use a bigger tire on the Mavic XM 719 rims.
Took the new wheels for a workout on one of the local mountains; lots of climbing and challenging singletrack downhill. There is a healthy dose of climbing on forest service roads, about six miles of uphill
You come to a fork in the road, there’s two ways to go; up one way or up the other
Today I went looking for a rarely used trail that is really hard to find. I managed to find it, but it took some looking. Nobody has used this trail for a long time
One of the reasons it was so hard to find the trail is that it was overgrown with flowers
This trail is hidden in the dense woods near the mountain summit; overgrown, steep and dark
The view from the summit is spectacular
From this mountain peak, the trail drops into a small valley then kicks up again to another peak. This is what you see when you get there
From here, it’s downhill singletrack all the way home
The next six or seven miles looks pretty much like this
The new wheels passed the first ride test, got some great riding in and took plenty of photos. Pretty good couple of days.