Oakridge Shows Us a Good Time

Short Version:
Recovery ride cut short leads to new friends, an extra ride, and setting up camp in the dark

Long Version:
Leisurely breakfast and coffee in the sun, followed by a nice riverside ride at cruise pace. Sounds kind of nice. Add in a big gash in a thumb, and one on a back right where a water-bladder pack sits. Throw in some seriously tired legs, and some complainy butts, and the picture looks a little less rosy. Still, we were having a grand old time, and were about fifteen miles upstream when Janine managed to well and truly destroy one of her pedals. Our leisurely ride transferred itself to the quiet, smooth-paved highway, and we made our way back to camp and then into town, to the Local Bike Shop: Willamette Mountain Mercantile.

Last time I'd visited, Derek had hand-drawn me a map of the area's most renowned ride, the Alpine Trail, which was pretty nice of him. This time, we had Eugene helping us, and Richard providing color commentary (Hi Eugene and Richard!). And despite our never-ending list of bike-repairs, gas-cooker and headlamp queries, and trail info demands, not to mention the steady flow of other people in and out of the store, and the barrage of telephone calls, help us they did; Janine has new, blue pedals, I have a non-creaky bottom bracket, we have stove gas, and lamps, and we know some stuff about Oakridge trails. We also know some stuff about the previous day's Creampuff 100, a 100-mile race which almost 300 mad buggers rode in, and about September's Fat55 race, which sounds somewhat more achievable than a 100-miler, and has profits going to the Greater Oakridge Area trails Stewards (GOATS), who do most of the trail-building and maintenance in the region. Thanks GOATS!

One of the other customers during the ages we were in the store was an Australian endurance racer, with whom we had a pint at the local brewpub later on. He and fellow Aussie Claire are doing something similar to us, only with less feralness. And they're following the endurance mountain-bike racing, rather than a completely random itinerary. They were staying with local Marcello, who spends half of each year in Oakridge, and half in Rotorua. We went for an evening ride with them, down the Salmon Creek Trail. It was great. Lots of tricky techy bits, but nothing heinous or truly scary, except that we were riding pretty quick in half-light, and riding stuff at pace that we'd normally have slowed to have a look at before blasting over it. Lots of fun sections, and a great river crossing at a weir near the end. Pretty soon we were back near the centre of town and on to the local Chinese restaurant, Lee's, where owner Jeff is one of the funniest, most charming people you could meet, and who I suspect could easily kill you with his bare hands should he choose to do so. The food was delicious, and the conversation interesting, and it was regretfully that we said our goodbyes and piled into the Reaper for the darktime run into the forest.

Our first ever tent setup in the dark went totally smoothly, and before long we were snoring away merrily in our riverside campsite, dreaming of the riding to come the following day, when our long-standing plans to ride Alpine were finally looking likely to come to fruition.