More Tandem Rambles

Char and I picked up a Tandem from Morgan about a month ago and we’ve been slowly getting into the swing of the tandem thing. We’ve had some problems with the rack but that mostly took some time to resolve… wrestling a 60 lbs 6’+ long bike onto the roof is bound to take a little getting used to. We’ve also been getting a lot of small evening rides in. Last weekend we had a great ride with Fred-da-Trog and family and this weekend was a bit more challenging a ride, we headed for a ‘solo’ run in Auburn… unfortunately we picked a scorcher of a day to do it.

We suspected it was going to be way too hot for sane people to ride so we brought tons of h2o and other liquid refreshments. We started in the Confluence and rolled up the Clementine climb… it was a warm start but we managed to make the climb in a decent amount of time then took a bit of a break so Fiona could get her lungs back. We nibbled a little then took off down the Connector Trail Continue reading More Tandem Rambles

Tandemanium, Mountain Bike Oregon, Fitness, and Exploring

Lots and lots of riding lately. As you can see from our last post Fiona and I have a tandem now so we’ve been trying to use it as much as possible. It’s a little bit challenging moving it about because the rack makes our car too tall to fit into the garage. Just this week we figures a way to work it so we just pull part of the rack off which makes it much more convenient for accessing. In spite of the fact that it’s a huge bike the tandem can be a blast to ride. We’ve been riding it in the evenings on the levee routes near our house. When I first started riding I rode on the levees quite a bit for fitness but now I don’t get on them very much. Lately I’ve been on a kick to drop a few pounds so I’ve talked Fiona into doing some evening rides out on the levees and it’s been great. Riding on the tandem means we stay together the whole time and no waiting for me. Strangely I think we both get more exercise on the tandem than we did previously. She gets more miles in and I ride harder for the same distance.

I also wanted to talk a little bit about Mountain Bike Oregon (MBO). This is an amazing event, this was our third year attending and we have yet to be disappointed. You can read my previous review and of MBO. My only comment is that the popular Middle Fork ride was dramatically altered this year and the results were a bit disappointing. So a huge thumbs up to the event… but next year I will likely skip the extra $$ for the Middle Fork ride and just enjoy the closer in rides.

After MBO we spent a day riding the North Umpqua Trail (NUT) which is south of Oakridge along the North Umpqua River. This is an amazing trail filled with some spectacular views, long flowing downhills, it’s simply an amazing trail. Pictures and a more detailed review here.

Finally, I’m on a big push to get my weight down and my fitness level up right now (some people call this training) for a big ride coming up in September. As part of this I’ve been trying to get some longer rides and doing a little exploration in the Pinecrest area. We’ve discovered some great routes, and explored some really interesting areas over the last few weeks. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to share some of that on the site shortly. Not a lot to share yet, but I should have some GPS mapped routes up soon. Here is a route we did (motion based) that took us up to Eagle Peak and Pinecrest Peak. Some absolutely amazing views from those trails. I pretty much blew up early on that ride and never recovered so it was a looong day for me. I didn’t bring a camera but here are some older pictures of Eagle Peak and Pinecrest Peak
Eagle Peak Panoramic