One of my favorite parts about Bend, Oregon is its incredible community of hardcore ladies who mountain bike. I was fortunate to bond with a few of these amazing gals at a mountain bike clinic last year, and since then, we've torn up the local trails ever since. Even though Bend is a mountain biking destination in and of itself, we wanted to cross the mountains to check out the misty cool jungle-like trails in Oakridge.
So five of us loaded ourselves into a gigantor truck and my Honda Fit to invade the sleepy town of Oakridge for a weekend of mountain biking. We nicknamed ourselves the Shredding Shorties because we all stand between 5'2" and 5'4" and make for a hilarious posse when tromping into bike shops. After consulting with the friendly folks at the local bike shop, we decided to set up our own shuttles to the top of Dead Mountain (aka the ineptly named Flat Creek Trail) and the iconic Alpine Trail. These two rides provided us stunning views, sweet fast flowy descents, and just enough challenging sections to keep things interesting.
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| View from the top of the Dead Mountain! Ask a local for intel on how to find the viewpoint, lest you miss the short hike to this nearly 360 degree view of the area. |
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| First views from the Alpine Trail... gorgeous exposed ridgelines! |
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| The Shredding Shorties take a minute to enjoy the views. |
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| Back to work! |
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| Yours truly coming tearing down... or rolling sorta fast down. |
After 5000+ feet of descent and 2000+ feet of climbing over 15.4 miles, we had huge grins on our faces as we zoomed off the trail. The ride was perfect in every way, including the blackberries at the bottom. We stopped for 15 minutes to stuff our faces full of perfectly ripe blackberries before heading back to Bend.
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| Mmmm free blackberries. |
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| The whole Shredding Shorties crew celebrating a great ride before we headed back to Bend. |
