I’ve gone out a couple times riding in Annadel with friends from work. On Superbowl Sunday, Josh and I went 16 miles or so, in the rain.
I was a few minutes late, and caught up with Josh on the long climb up Warren Richardson, and we did South Burma – Buick Meadow – Marsh Trail down to Lake Ilsanjo. At Buick Meadow, I went up Quarry a bit, until I saw Josh come out of the trees from Burma, and stopped to turn around. I almost get rear-ended by a guy who had ninja’d up behind me. “JESUS!” I say (it wasn’t Him), “I had no idea you were back there!” He says, “Sorry, I thought you were pulling aside to let me by.” I’m like, “Nope. I thought I was alone out here.”
Josh comes up, and he’s like, “I hate tools who don’t announce themselves like that. It’s rude and dangerous.” I told him I used to do that, just figuring people would hear me coming, and saying something would be intrusive, until I rode with my friend Scott and his daughter on the Springwater Corridor in Portland. Hundreds of bikers, dozens of them overtaking us. Every time someone would slide by silently on the left, Scott would say loudly, “On your right!” Josh was like, “Oh, man, that’s great. ‘On your right!'” I was like, “it took me about five times to get it.”
On the last bit before the lake, I popped a couple little mini-jumps off some rocks about the size of 7 speed freewheels. Just as Josh says, “I’m so tired I’m not even hitting any of those ‘features,'” I landed sort of crooked, and cut right into the back third of Josh’s bike, forcing both of us off the trail, “What? What what what?” onto our sides in the dirt and grass. We looked like mountain biker cutouts that had blown over in a high wind. Josh was like, “WHAT? What was THAT?” as I’m laying on my side laughing. Worst mountain biker ever.
We got up, admired the giant rough boulders we had NOT hit, and rode around the lake, planning to climb to the top of Warren Richardson to bomb back the steep downhill to the cars (you can ride offroad almost 40 minutes longer if you drive to the trail – who knew??). After resting and talking for a few minutes, I got ready to go, and he said, “I ain’t moving.” Okay, that’s funny. I ride halfway up the hill, around the corner and out of sight. No Josh. I wait a minute. Nothing. I ride back down. He’s straddling the bike, staring off into the same point of nothing that he’d been staring at two minutes before.
So we rode back to the lake and down Canyon, around part of Spring Lake and back to the car. All in all, total success.
I was at annadel on superbowl sunday too. We rode richardson, two quarry, marsh, bennet peak, marsh, south burma and out to the parking lot. It was a great day in the rain, probably one of the funnest rides I’ve done in a while.