Mountain Bike Bill, The Dirt on the Dirt

Tag: Seattle

Dirt Time in Washington

So I have been in Seattle for a couple of weeks on a work gig but just managed to hit the dirt. Man can not live in the dirt alone so I have been enjoying some of the other wonders of the Pacfic Northwest, thier great microbrews. In addition to the 10+ brewpubs in the Seattle area I have swelled hoppy goodness at, I attended the Bremerton Beer Festival. The following weekend was spent in Portland for the 24th Aniversary of the Oregon Brewer’s Festival. In addition to the madhouse that was the Brewer’s Festival some of the local goods were also sample directly at the source. Deschutes, Bridgeport, Widmer, Tugboat and Amensia Brewing were on the “tour”. Needless to I was stupidly happy about sampling some of the best beers around. My liver on the other hand felt differently after taking more than one for the team.

So I have been in Seattle for a couple of weeks on a work gig but just managed to hit the dirt.    Man can not live in the dirt alone so I have been enjoying some of the other wonders of the Pacfic Northwest, thier great microbrews.    In addition to the 10+ brewpubs in the Seattle area I have swelled hoppy goodness at,  I attended the Bremerton Beer Festival. The following weekend was spent in Portland for the 24th Aniversary of the Oregon Brewer’s Festival.    In addition to the madhouse that was the Brewer’s Festival some of the local goods were also sample directly at the source.  Deschutes, Bridgeport, Widmer, Tugboat and Amensia Brewing were on the “tour”.   Needless to I was stupidly happy about sampling some of the best beers around.    My liver on the other hand felt differently after taking more than one for the team.

As part of the MTBBill Liver Recovery Act of 2011, it was time to get some pedals turning.   The I-5 Colonnade MTB Skills Park is less than 10 minutes from where I’m staying so it is always good for a quick afterwork fix.

Working part of the weekend is part of the work gig for this project, but Green Mountain was close enough to where I was working to allow for some grunting and grinning in the dirt after work.

Air Time

Duthie Hill Mountain Bike Park is the Seattle areas second MTB Skills Park and it is simply awesome.   With 120 acres to work with they are produced a trail network that caters to nearly all types of riders.  Wither you are looking to get your wheels in the air…..

Or wither you want to get that natural outdoor experience on a meandering trail through the trees.   This place has all of that right in Seattle’s backyard.

 

One of the lines I did not hit out here 🙂  I believe this trail was Semper Dirticus.     The freeride double black diamond trails here are quite impressive.  On this trip it was mostly from a spectactor perspective.   I got the bike, I just need to develop the skills and get some testicular growth happening.   I did hit some of the stunts and tagged my largest gap to date to thier is hope that I will get intouch with my inner hucker at some point.

One of favorites from a trail with features perspective was Ryan’s Eternal Flow.  It is more of XC trail with stunts and features more so than a series of features with a trail between them.  Considering how close this place is I will certainly be back a few more times before this work trip is done.

Seattle Area – Surprises On Day Once

So yesterday, I left SoCal bound to Seattle for a few weeks of work and if I got lucky, a little bit of play.  Of course there is a mountain bike involved.   I decided that the 6.6 would make this trip with me.  It is the first time I have flown with this bike and I was a little surprised when I went to put it into my handy dandy bike box.  It did not fit!   Being a long wheelbased bike both the bottom of the fork and back of the rear triangle were pushed against the ends of the box and flaring it out a little.  This was not the way I wantws to travel with this thing.  After many permutations, I finally had to take the fork out of the frame and lay it next to the down tube.  

After this the rest of the box packing when smooth.  Now there was absolutely no way to keep this bike and box under 50 pounds and avoid the overweight charge.   So I put a bunch of other stuff in there as well to get my money’s worth.

The flight went as planned and I was surprised to see awesome weather in Seattle.  Sunny and in the upper 60s, low 70s.  Freaking killer.    From the airport I went right to the job site, and did all my start day stuff: Check-in with folks, chase down equipment that was shipped here, smooze and talk up with the folks I will be working with the for the next three weeks, yada yada yada….   Several times when I was walking between buildings I was thinking this is too awesome of a day in Seattle to be working.  Surprising enough, before I knew it all of the stuff I needed to do and pretty much everything I could get done that day, was done.  

I get back to my hotel and looking out the window I could not help but think, man the sun is mighty high in the sky for this time of day.  Then it dawned on me,  the further north you are in summer the longer the days are.   Cool, I might just have enough time to squeak in a ride.   So off I went to whip the bike back together.  Before long, the big was built back up and I was rolling away from the hotel towards a perspective trail I had got some e411 on a few months back.

Well what do you know, there was a trail after all and I was surprised that it was not at all bad.  While on the short side, it was still dirt.  Dirt that I had not planned on being on today.   After riding this trail, I decided to poke around the various neighborhood streets. 

I was once again surprised when I managed to find a few neighborhood trails that meandered through the woods between the various streets and neighborhoods.  It was nothing you would want to drive but it was an incredible spring day full of sunshine, blooming flowers, green woods and I was on singletrack.   What a killer surprise.

When I got back to the hotel room there was still some daylight left in the day.  I was once again surprised when it did not get dark until around eight.   You gotta love the northern lattitudes heading into summer.  This was a mighty fine start to this trip.