Short Version:Best trail since the North Umpqua
Long Version:
The Paradise Royale Mountain Bike Trail is 14 miles long, and gains something like 1585 vertical feet along its length. It's far and away the best ride we've struck since the North Umpqua River Trail, which now seems like it was months ago.
Like the North Umpqua, the PR is broken into segments, each of which has its own character:
- King's Frolic: We started at the campground, which is halfway along this 3.9mi segment. We rode downhill on sweeping, flowing sections punctuated by tight switchbacks and occasional blind-exit jumps.
- Castle's Moat: 0.9mi long, the main feature of this segment was a guiderope-equipped stepping-stone crossing (mandatory hike-a-bike) across a stream used for spawning by chinook, coho, and other salmon species.
- Prince of Pain: Up. 2.4mi long, 800ft up. Gradient exceeded 15% in places. Second hill-climb stage victory for me of the 2010 Nene/Puppet Tour d'Offroad Namerika*. Did I mention that this segment went up?
- Fool's Paradise: 1.1mi along the ridgeline. Swooping downhills, sweeping curves. Nice.
- Jester's Hat: Named after a Nathan Miller painting (Hi Nathan and Brylee and Jasmine and Marlon!), this evil segment climbed over 500ft in 2 miles, including one section where the surface was so loose I thought I had a flat tyre.
- Mad Queen's Tango: The payoff. 3.7 miles of down. Lots of jumps, some small stream crossings, one hard-impact high-speed crash for me, one big near-miss for Nene. This segment was so good that we decided to brave the uphill again tomorrow in order to get another run.
- King's Frolic: The front three-quarters of the front half was great, with nice flow and some cool jumps. The final quarter was a horrible grovelly climb from the bottom of the Skills Area up to the campground. Not what we needed at the end of a 14 mile ride done at pace (2.5 hours to do the loop, with minimal rest-stops and a short turnaround on getting the dirt out of my wounds).
All in all, this ride ruled. And we're camped right on it - Yay us!
The Paradise Royale Mountain Bike Trail is 14 miles long, and gains something like 1585 vertical feet along its length. It's far and away the best ride we've struck since the North Umpqua River Trail, which now seems like it was months ago.
Like the North Umpqua, the PR is broken into segments, each of which has its own character:
- King's Frolic: We started at the campground, which is halfway along this 3.9mi segment. We rode downhill on sweeping, flowing sections punctuated by tight switchbacks and occasional blind-exit jumps.
- Castle's Moat: 0.9mi long, the main feature of this segment was a guiderope-equipped stepping-stone crossing (mandatory hike-a-bike) across a stream used for spawning by chinook, coho, and other salmon species.
- Prince of Pain: Up. 2.4mi long, 800ft up. Gradient exceeded 15% in places. Second hill-climb stage victory for me of the 2010 Nene/Puppet Tour d'Offroad Namerika*. Did I mention that this segment went up?
- Fool's Paradise: 1.1mi along the ridgeline. Swooping downhills, sweeping curves. Nice.
- Jester's Hat: Named after a Nathan Miller painting (Hi Nathan and Brylee and Jasmine and Marlon!), this evil segment climbed over 500ft in 2 miles, including one section where the surface was so loose I thought I had a flat tyre.
- Mad Queen's Tango: The payoff. 3.7 miles of down. Lots of jumps, some small stream crossings, one hard-impact high-speed crash for me, one big near-miss for Nene. This segment was so good that we decided to brave the uphill again tomorrow in order to get another run.
- King's Frolic: The front three-quarters of the front half was great, with nice flow and some cool jumps. The final quarter was a horrible grovelly climb from the bottom of the Skills Area up to the campground. Not what we needed at the end of a 14 mile ride done at pace (2.5 hours to do the loop, with minimal rest-stops and a short turnaround on getting the dirt out of my wounds).
All in all, this ride ruled. And we're camped right on it - Yay us!
* = Possibly due to Nene crashing at a switchback and stopping to rebuild the trail so the rock which caused her issues was no longer a danger. But that's neither here nor there, really.
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