Corvallis Shows Us a Good Time

Short Version:
We relax, make some new friends, go for a ride, crash, watch football, and eventually leave

Long Version:
We had to wait until Carl finished work for the day to enact the fork transfer, so we spent the day relaxing. Unlike most instances of relaxing that we do, this one didn't involve riding a bike or running or walking up a mountain. This time, we:
- Lay on the grass in a park and read books
- Went to a brewpub and watched the World Cup 3rd/4th playoff (Go Uruguay! Oh. Rats.)
- Visited a secondhand bookstore and bought a lot of good, cheap books
- Ate delicious foods

We picked up Carl and his very cool custom-made (by Carl, from scratch) commuter bike and headed to his place. His garage was full of bikes of all shapes and sizes, many of which he'd made himself, including his flatmate Shaun's 29" single-speed, which I covet. We took a walk through the nearby wetlands on the boardwalk and saw some bats, then back to the house, where Carl committed fork-swap wizardry and showed us pictures of some cool rides we should go and do, and we looked in awe at the gardens. The suburban property has been turned into a major gardening realm, with delicious foods growing everywhere one looks. Except when one looks up the tree in the back yard, because that's where the tree-house is. We loved the place. And, as it turned out, we got to stay there the night, because not only Carl, but also flatmates Shaun and his partner Mary were very very nice people. We chatted a bit, and I read a book about poop, and we showered (praise be!) and then we slept, on a comfy couch on the back porch, near the chickens.

Next morning we were up early. But not as early as we'd promised, so Shaun was already dressed and raring to go for a ride, as was across-the-road neighbor Rob. Carl had left for Portland the night before, so it was the four of us who piled into Rob's pickup for the drive to Mary's Peak, where we parked at the base and set off up a gravel road. Shaun, on the aforementioned big-wheeled one-speed bike, set the pace, with Janine hot on his heels. Wheels. Whatever.
I noodled along at the back, asking Rob questions, which in retrospect was a bit mean, as it meant that I go to use all my breathing for riding up the hill, while he had to answer me as well as try to get enough oxygen into his system to deal with the climb. A while later, we hooked off the road and onto singletrack, which led us up into some really pretty forest for a long time. Shaun and Janine disappeared at high speed, and were waiting at the top for us, chatting to the Ranger. We shot the breeze for a while, said hello to the butterfly-census people*, then hit the trail down the hill. Fast.

The top section of trail was high-speed, was carnage waiting to happen, was a hell of a lot of fun. The locals were flying, and disappeared quickly after each regrouping stop. Janine appeared at one such stop with a pair of parallel gouges out of her shin, made by a rock which had been hiding behind a fern. Sneaky rock! My crash was much more public, and much more the result of me just plain riding badly. In my defence, I was sort of emulating the way Shaun rode the tree-root drop-off. It's just that my wheels are smaller than his. And I wasn't going fast enough. And I was only using my front brake, because my back brake was making a horrible noise.
Whatever the reason, I went over the handlebars, then down the bank a ways. But not as far as my bike. Bruised shin and shoulder, dented pride.

The trail tightened up as we descended, with some narrow traverse sections and some gnarly rooty bits. The end was a flyer though, and none of us wanted it to be over when we arrived back at the truck, despite the imminent kickoff of the World Cup final. And the prospect of beer.

Back at the house, Rob's lovely wife Katie played Nurse Mom on Nene's shin, then we said our goodbyes (goodbye Shaun and Mary and Katie and Rob! Keep in touch, or else!) and set off into town to the brewpub, where the final was 0-0 at halftime when we arrived. By the time we left, Espana were the new World Champions, the Netherlands had been exposed as limited in imagination, discipline, and tactical nous, and we'd eaten delicious foods** and drunk delicious beers.

And it was time to move on, away from Corvallis, which we went to by accident, stayed in longer than we planned, and where we met a bunch of really really cool people and rode some great trails. Goodbye Corvallis! We'll miss you!







* = There are LOTS of butterflies in Oregon.

** = A touch too much garlic on the garlic/parmesan fries, Mr Chef