Ashland to Hood River

The Black Rock Trails in Oregon are outside of a small scary town called Falls City. We got to Falls City after a downhill race in the early evening. We found the trail area easily because of all the racers but finding camping was not so easy. There was a campsite this biker guy named Evan ran, but we couldn't get a hold of him, and then there was an "RV campground" we checked out. It was easily the scariest camping spot we considered so far. There was a drunk man at the entrance to greet us and people who looked like they were permanently camping, I'll spare you the details. Needless to say... we did not stay there. And luckily Jacob had a family friend in Salem which was only 20 minutes or so away. Thank goodness Mr. and Mrs. Truitt let us stay in their home! Mr. Truitt even took us out to breakfast! It was a great start to a day of riding in Black Rock.

Black Rock was extremely green, smooth and had lots of built up features.

Jacob, Andrew and Jon

Jacob

Jon on the same jump as Jacob's above

Jacob jumpin

Andrew sneaking off for a cleansing dip in the creek

After riding in Falls City we decided not to stay there the night after hearing that numerous cars in the area had been broken into. We drove to Hood River to meet up with Gene Harb, a friend from school. After arriving in Hood River we began looking for camping. On the way we passed numerous orchards. Jacob was curious about the fruit in a particular tree and so he pulled up along side one to get John to grab one to figure out what it was... as he pulled away he also pulled the roof rack and three bikes off his car!!!!

Luckily the bikes, car and roof rack were fine.

HAHAHA so proud

After our adventures with the car and finding camping we rode in Post Canyon, right in Hood River. The Seven Springs trail was at the bottom of a free ride trail. It rode along side a stream and made it a very pleasant trail.

John and Andrew

Jon

John resting after the ride

And now we come to the end of the trip... We are in Bellingham, Washington after spending a night in Portland and a night in Seattle. We are all about to go our separate ways. Jon Angermeier is living in Bellingham this summer and going to school here in the fall. John Pendery is moving to Asheville. Andrew Irby is moving back to Brevard. And Jacob Roland and I are going to India for three weeks. This was the perfect beginning to an adventurous summer.

Jon in Post Canyon

Mount Shasta and Ashland

So after leaving Downieville, we decided to stay in a hotel for a night and regroup since everything was soaking wet and we were exhausted from our long ride in the freezing rain. Also we would have gotten to Mount Shasta at 11pm and we had no idea where we were going to camp. We were able to take showers (some of us took two since it had been a while:) ), do laundry, wash dishes (in the bathroom sink), and sleep in a comfy bed. It was a much needed break from being cold, wet and dirty.

After exploiting all the benefits of the hotel we finished the drive to Mount Shasta. We went to a bike shop and got information on biking and camping. We went to set up camp first since rain was headed our way. By the time we had found a campsite that wasn't scary (we found some sketchy spots) and had set up camp it started to rain steadily. We made dinner and decided to ride the next day, or at least try to. The picture below is one of the only pictures we took in Mount Shasta because the weather kicked us out...

Since we looked at the weather and it looked like the rain would stop in the late evening we didn't set the tent to be completely rainproof... We left the ground tarp hanging out about a foot on each end... IT POURED...ALL NIGHT. And when we woke up we realized we were all sleeping in puddles... whoops. We rechecked the weather and saw that it was supposed to rain alllllll day. When we made the decision to pack up and start heading towards Ashland (which was supposed to have better weather) it started snowing! So without biking in Mount Shasta we headed for Ashland where we ended up riding for three days because we liked it so much. We didn't get many pictures for the same reason, we were having too much fun.

John and me eating before a ride

Me looking at Mount Shasta from Ashland

Driving through Ashland at the end of the day

The second day of riding we rode out of our campsite at about 10:30am and didn't get back from riding until 9:30pm. It was a fun, long day of riding.

Jon all "broed" out hahaha

Camp on the side of the shuttle road

Our campsite was just on the side of the road because there wasn't much camping in the area. We met a bunch of bikers camping there though.

Last ride of the first day

Jacob getting ready to shred the gnar :)

We all loved Ashland, Oregon. Some of our favorite trails included Catwalk, Upper and Lower Link, Marty's Trail, Jabberwokie, Alice in Wonderland, BTI, and Caterpillar. All the trails funneled in to downtown, so you would see mountain bikers cruising after a ride all over the place. The whole town seemed to be excited and knowledgeable about mountain biking. After lunch one day Andrew got surrounded by a bunch of high schoolers who wanted to know about his Kona Stinky hahaha....

Now we are pulling into Falls City, Oregon to ride the Black Rock trails.

The group looking out at Mount Shasta

The group headed down Alice in Wonderland

(Jacob filming followed by Jon, Andrew, John

and Sarah)

p.s. Thank you Mama Dunc (as the boys say) for your help :) and Papa too

Yosemite to Mount Shasta

The past four days have been spent in Yosemite National Park and Downieville, California. After leaving the desert (and we were all ready to) and heading north, we were greeted with snow on the way into Yosemite! Yosemite was beautiful and a perfect place to rest after 5 days of biking.

Yosemite Valley (above and below)

My older sister and her boyfriend met up with us and spent the night! The next day we hiked up a boulder field to El Capitan, a famous climbing destination.

El Capitan

My Older Sister and Me in the Boulder Field

After resting and waiting out some rain in Yosemite we headed to Downieville. Downieville turned out to be my favorite place so far! It was a town with a population of 325! The town had the feel that you had gone back in time with all the old buildings. The Wells Fargo had saloon doors on it...

We got in around 4 in the afternoon and wanted to get a bike ride in before setting up camp. Both bike shops were closed so we split up and asked a bartender and inn keeper if they knew where to bike hahaha. We ended up getting our information from an older lady that worked in the grocery story who printed us two maps for 25 cents a piece. We did the Third Divide trail to the Second Divide trail. About 8.5 miles an hour of riding, it was beautiful single track and followed a river most of the way. After that we set up camp in Tahoe National Forest.

The next day we went into town and were surprise to see that the bike shop looked closed again, but as we walked towards the shop the owner approached us and let us in and gave us some guidance on where to bike. He was incredibly helpful and very excited about biking. We knew a winter storm was coming (8-12 inches of snow in some elevations) and needed to hurry, so we set a shuttle in case we go caught in the weather. We rode the Downieville River trail and then went down the road about a mile to Hall's Ranch trail which lead to Fiddle's Creek trail. The Downieville River trail was all single track and we got a lot of great pictures and headcam footage (see videos at the bottom) including a great crash of Irby's. Then after we climbed up Hall's Ranch which was sooo steep (it took us 45 minutes to go 2 miles uggh) it started to rain and hail.... the rest of the ride was cold, wet and muddy, but I thought it was the most fun and beautiful trail we've ridden so far. We went 18 miles and it took us 2 hours and 50 minutes.

Below are some pictures from the Downieville River trail.

Jacob followed by Irby (above)

Sarah (below)

The Crew

Below is a picture of the view from top of our 2 mile climb on Hall's Ranch. We came from the road that runs along the river.

After riding 6 miles or more in the freezing rain we had to get out of our wet clothes. We changed under the porch of an outpost that was closed (a restaurant/bar/little grocery store). The owners eventually came down while Jon and Andrew ran shuttle (thank goodness we set one) and let the rest of us in. They made us the most amazing cup of hot coco with whipped cream, fed us some danishes, let us throw some clothes in the dryer, gave us a bag of ice for our cooler, and tried to give us groceries (since the store in town closed at 6pm). They were so hospitable and we were so grateful for that.

Jacob and Sarah enjoying some hot chocolate.

Downieville had the nicest people I've met in a while and some of the best single track I've seen so far. Now we are on the way to Mount Shasta. This trip has been unbelievable.

Jon Angermeier following Andrew Irby

Jon Angermeier following Jacob Roland

Irby's Crash

Moab to Yosemite

As usual this post is written on another car ride, from Bakersfield, California on the way to Yosemite. We will be spending the weekend in Yosemite exploring and hanging out. After Moab, Utah we headed for Mt. Zion National Park to spend the night before riding in Bootleg, about 4 hours away in Nevada. We are all used to the awesomeness of Pisgah and the ability to just show up and camp, we didn't realize that half of the U.S. lives in RVs and books nights in National Parks 6 months in advance. So when we asked a big ol' ranger in Zion if there was camping, he laughed at us. Not Funny. So after blowing $50 on park entrance fees we were forced to turn around for camping...

On the way out the ranger gave us a list of commercial campsites (ugh) but then told us there was BLM (Bureau of Land Management) Land on mile marker 20... so we turned onto a dirt road called Dalton Wash and found possibly the best camping spot so far. There was even a nice spot to push the bikes up right by camp.

View from our campsite

Biking by the Campsite, Jon (black) and Jacob (black and white) tearing it up (Below)

After Zion we went to Bootleg Canyon, NV to ride. We were going to spend the whole day and camp the night there but the wind was so bad (40-50 mph gusts) we pushed on to California after one run, three flat tires, getting a little lost, and taking no pictures. We had an 8 hour drive to our next destination (Yosemite) and we left Bootleg around 6pm. So I got couchsurfing.com and found a place for use to stay in Bakersfield, CA, a little more than halfway to Yosemite.

For those of you who don't know what couchsurfing is, it's an organization that you can join to find people to meet and places to stay all over the world. You have a profile like facebook, however you cannot change anything anyone says about you. This way you can find people who have had multiple people stay with them and have only good things said about them. This is how we found Isaiah. He was kind enough to let the FIVE of us stay with him, with only 5 hours notice. He even cooked us an amazing breakfast the next morning. It was so nice to get a break from thermarests and the blazing sun at 6:30 in the morning...

Delicious Breakfast!

Thanks Isaiah!

And now to Yosemite! Jen's (my older sister) is meeting us there for a night!! Woop woop!

Fruita to Moab

Ok so now this post comes to you from another car drive, but this time on the way to Mt. Zion National Forest in southern Utah. We were thinking about riding a second day in Moab today but decided to give ourselves a break since we road 19.5 miles in 2 hours and 20 minutes yesterday. For a total of 45 miles in three days with some pretty good crashes.Driving into Moab

We did most of the Whole Enchilada (the rest was covered in snow) to Porcupine Rim, possibly the most famous trail in Moab, and for a good reason! It was so beautiful in Moab. There are a ton of videos of Porcupine Rim on youtube if you want to check some out. Here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure.

Getting ready for Porcupine Rim

The bottom part of the Whole Enchilada

Jon on the Whole Enchilada

The Whole Enchilada

Porcupine Rim (above and below)

And quite possibly the best action picture taken so far by a guy who just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Luckily Andrew was not hurt and has this sweet picture to remember this by.

Til next time....

From Brevard to Fruita

Hey ya’ll

You are receiving this email because someone you love is on a trip across the country to see beautiful places and ride their bike! I was planning on keeping my family informed and the boys wanted me to pass the message along, so I will periodically be sending updates. YEEHAW!

As I am writing this email we are driving to Moab, Utah from Fruita, Colorado and it is Tuesday May 18^th. So far we’ve already biked in three awesome places and have been having a blast. Here’s where we’ve been…

This was our last stop before we headed out. The Hub in Pisgah Forest, NC.

The drive took 27 hours but we were traveling for about 29 hours because of the breaks we took, including a stop to see the Royal Gorge in Colorado. The Gorge was created by the Arkansas River an

d has the world’s highest suspension bridge.

The suspension bridge above the Royal Gorge

After our drive we met up with Jacob, the final part of the group, in Gunnison. Even though we were exhausted (some of us only getting 3 hours of sleep the night before) Jacob and his endless energy convinced us to go for a ride. It ended up being a great decision, because even though we were all exhausted, maybe even delusional, it made us feel better, physically and mentally. The ride we went on was in an area called Hartman Rocks. It was the first ride of the trip…

Hartman Rocks, CO

Jacob on Tiger Wall

The Crew

The next morning (Monday) we left for Grand Junction, Colorado. We road about 12 miles and it took about 2 hours. It was desert, hot and dusty, and pretty technical riding. We actually ran into some Brevard locals, small world huh? Some of the trails we were on were the Gunnison Loop and Holy Cross.

John in Grand Junction

After riding in Grand Junction

That night we went to Fruita, CO to sent up camp. We had a delicious pasta dinner. We were able to ride out of camp in the morning. We road 13.5 miles in an hour and a half. The terrain was hard-packed dirt and pretty smooth. The wind was INTENSE, it caused the first crash of the trip (see video). We got to try out the new head cam for the first time, hopefully more videos to come…

Jon and Sarah cooking dinner and Irby jumpin around haha

Delicious breakfast burritos with chorizo and peppersssss

Zipideedooda Trail

So now we are arriving in Moab, Utah for more adventures. Keep you posted…

Sarah