Another weakly ride report.

It's getting easier.
I started riding in late June when it was finally dry enough to go outside without a lifejacket and rowboat. I was doing short rides, coming back with sore "seat regions" and aching legs.  My goal for the summer was to work up to 50 mile rides with no major drama. I think that I made it.

This week:
Monday- 25 miles solo, around town with some hills. I pretty much followed the route that Darthweasel and I had taken a few days before.

Thursday- 31 pretty quick miles. DW and I went mucking about some parks and trails. In a hundred yard stretch I narrowly avoided a toddler, a squirrel, a squirrel, and a squirrel. All four had walked right in front of me and stopped. I took that as a sign to slow down a bit.
DW was making the hills bow to him. We went back to the fast narrow twisty trail and endangered our lives a couple of times.

Saturday- 48 miles. I had been wanting to ride the Banks to Vernonia state trail for quite a while. I had ridden it once in 1998 and there had been huge improvements since. I took some pics for your viewing pleasure. Not that kind of pleasure. You sicko.

I'm beginning at the Manning trailhead, which is about 5 miles from the actual start of the trail where there is no parking. It's 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses. (oops, wrong movie)

Most of the trail looks like a green tunnel through the forest. There is 18 miles of paved trail and 3 miles of packed gravel. The first 9.5 miles are gently uphill then a bit of up and down after. With the exception of a few horses and a person every other mile I had the trail to myself.

I suspect someone had smoked some of Oregon's largest export crop before naming the trails. Click the picture to embiggen.

Stopping for a rest. A much older gentleman than myself rode with me for a while then took off up the hill like a weasel-bit badger. I tried to keep up for a while but my lungs caught on fire and my legs melted and came off. Then I turned in to a newt.

After reaching the end of the state park I continued into Vernonia and went around the creatively named "Vernonia Lake". It was like being dropped in to Texas. Everybody was wearing either camo or clothes/hats with flags on them (American and Dixie flags that is). Large, rude, and well beer'd. The lake was nice though, and there is a shooting range nearby, if you get bored fish'n.

The ride back to the car was mostly downhill, fast and fun. Watch out for the horse's (slightly used) breakfasts though. They are hard to spot.

On another subject. Fucking Drummers, How do they work?