I don’t know about you, but I’ve been having some serious separation anxiety without access to my go-to trails at SRT. So, when the weather got warm this weekend, my partner Chris and I headed up to do a little recon.
(Photo cred: Tim Robbins)
(photo cred: Tim Robbins)
Long story short, on Sunday, nothing above TNT & Little Monkey was worth the effort to get to. The road was pretty much snowed in past that point and unless you were riding a fat tire bike, you wouldn’t have had a great day. But down below? Hero dirt!
TNT & Little Monkey had a bit of snow left, there were a couple patchy spots on Lower Hide & Seek just after the cut in, but after that it was all clear and fast! And Laura’s Line and Homestead Loop were both fantastic!
Not to be deterred, when I unexpectedly got Tuesday free, I headed back up to try again. I got up there around 1:30 and it was 71 degrees out! This was looking promising! I did a quick lap of Homestead Loop and started climbing up the road.
Laura’s Line is always one of my early season favorites for getting my legs stretched back out. And it’s riding super nice right now! I even got on the leaderboard! (I’m pretty sure it was a GPS glitch, but I’ll bask in this glow for a bit before I delete it). Have you joined the NWTA and NW Trail Sisters clubs on Strava?
As I climbed further up the road, I started getting excited that the snow seemed to have receded quite a bit in the last two days. I got made it up to Little Monkey & TNT and bumped into one of my favorite bike mechanics, Johnl from Evo Bikes, scoping out the gap (he nailed it, of course). After geeking out over the awesome plans we have for 2019 (the Evo Dirt and Dinner Series will be back and even better than last year, FYI) I got antsy to see how far up the road I could make it.
The road got too bad just past Hide and Seek to continue. I walked up Flow Motion, but only got a couple switchbacks in before I decided the trails weren’t ready. So, I decided to see how far up Upper H&S I could get.
So, as of Tuesday, the trails from the Lower H&S/Flow Motion junction down were in pretty good shape. I hit a couple snowy patches, but I expect those should be pretty much gone by the weekend.
If your heading out this weekend, grab a Yeti Demo from our friends at Fat Tire Farm! And please remember that it’s early season conditions. Watch for treefall and debris, don’t ride around puddles (it just makes them bigger), try not to ride if you’re leaving ruts, respect any closed trails and, most importantly, have fun!
If you love SRT as much as we do, please join us for some upcoming events:
April 7, Sandy Ridge Trail dig day.
April 13, West Coast Womens Cycling/Trail Sisters WTF ride
July 13, Sandy Ridge Trail Shuttle Fundraiser (get your tickets now!)