Written by Isabella Taylor
The second to last ride in the River City Bicycles // NW Trail Sisters summer ride collaboration was a night to be remembered! As everyone convened around the lookout point while waiting for the group huddle to begin, the early-evening sun cast its rays across the hills surrounding Scappoose and set the stage for adventures to come. We began the ride with a group huddle where we did brief introductions, and assessed the skill levels of all riders. After going around the circle, we found ourselves with a good mix of folks with experience levels ranging from first MTB ride ever (we were honored, to say the least), all the way to seasoned amateur racers.
Instead of splitting up into two groups initially, we decided to stick together due to numbers and followed Sarah of the RCB team up to the newly female-built trail on the North side called “Fanny’s Yer Aunt” (the younger sister-trail of the aptly named, “Bob’s Yer Uncle” on the South side). It only felt right to start out with a female-built trail on our women-led ride. Although, we quickly realized that we needed to reassess and break up into different groups in order to avoid getting strung-out and losing precious daylight waiting for the whole pack to reconvene. The only “dropping” we do on these rides is into a descent, of course.
A smaller group, led by Isabella of the RCB team, decided to sneak over to the south side and get in some cheap thrills starting with Switchblade. It was the first time many of us had ridden this trail since it was redone relatively recently – the rebuilt hips and gap jumps never felt better, based solely on the hootin’ and hollerin’ heard coming down the trail. We then headed over to Mulligans and climbed up to Twisted Sisters. At this point we turned on our headlights and climbed back out on the fire road to lower Julie’s line for a dark and jankey last run of the night. Sarah filled us in on the rest of their adventures when we all reconvened for refreshments and a tailgate sesh afterwards. They peddled their hearts out exploring all of Andyland, only to find themselves in a tussle with an unforgiving patch of blackberries towards the end – fear not, only one bandaid was warranted.
Overall, the ride was a hit! Numbers were exchanged, and future ride plans are already in the works amongst newfound friends. We had so much fun hosting this month, and hope you come join our next AND final ride on October 29th at Sandy Ridge. Click here to read all about it and sign up!