This time of year in the Pacific Northwest, unless specified otherwise, it is raining, about to rain, or just stopped raining. Bike riding is all about getting out between storms, with short winter days, that takes some dedication. To leave a nice, warm house to go riding when it’s cold and wet, well, you have to be pretty motivated to ride your bike. Still, after a few days cooped up in the house, when it stops raining, you get out there.
This day, it rained most of the previous week, all of the previous night and most of the morning, but when the sun peeked out from the clouds, we were out the door. Some of the trails around here drain pretty quickly, especially if they are decomposed rock instead of dirt. When it rains non-stop, even if the trails are too wet to responsibly ride on them, there are hundreds of miles of gravel/dirt logging and Forest Service roads, so that’s usually where we do most of our riding during the wet season.
When we got to the trailhead of our favorite local singletrack, a quick look confirmed what we already knew; the trails were too muddy to ride. Sure, people were riding on it, but they were wrecking the trail by doing so. Everybody wants to ride, but there’s a point where everybody who uses a trail needs to take some responsibility and not destroy the trail, weekend or not. There are other trails nearby that are decomposed rock, not dirt/mud like this trail and endless backcountry dirt roads that you can ride all you want without damaging anything.
Taking a pass on the muddy singletrack, we headed higher into the hills on a dirt/gravel road. We got to a kind of “point of no return” where you leave the mountain ridge and drop into a valley on the other side of the mountain and had a look around to see if it was going to be a 15 or 25 mile ride. Even though it was not that late in the day, it was starting to get a little dark and storm clouds were blowing over the mountains. It’s not a good time of year to be riding in the dark, especially when it’s cold and raining, so we turned around and headed home.
Hoping for a few dry days this week, the long range weather forecast is for snow, so we’re keeping our fingers crossed and GoreTex ready…