MOUNTAIN BIKING POWELL BUTTE, OR

After taking a short walk in the Powell Butte Park with the kids a few days ago, I realized that would be a great place to also go mountain biking. I spoke with my nephew Oleg about this idea and he said that he always goes biking there and its great riding. He agreed to barrow his friends bike, who lives down the the street, and I would use his.

Both bikes needed some brake adjustments and other minor things but after about 30 minutes we were set to ride. With the GoPro mounted on my helmet we set out with a plan to ascend from the northwestern side, check the summit out, and find a nice trail going down hill.

The ascent started within 5 minutes of being on the bike, and without a previous warm up it became the first challenge of the ride. The trail winded up the mountain. It was dry all the way to the the top except for a couple small wet areas. At the top, there was a nice lookout recently constructed that had labels and direction of the mountains as seen in the horizon. It was a cloudy and visibility wasn't that great, with all of the high peaks in complete cloud cover.

From the top we took a trail downhill that would have been a lot more fun if my brakes were better. It had awesome hairpin turns and even a couple jumps. We rode down to a Y in the road and took a left to go wider around another incline. We ended up coming back up to the summit and then we took a gravel utility road all the way down. It was fun on the road because there were several straight aways that allowed for some faster speed. But then we hit some extensive muddy areas that covered us in mud.

Over all it was a great ride and time well spent with Oleg. I had a GoPro with me and got some nice videos on the trail. I will make a short video soon.