Kissing the Trail

As you probably know from reading Troubadour's blog post, we bought new bicycles last Saturday. While he went for the full-on Trek X-Caliber 6 mountain bike, I opted for the hybrid Trek Verve 3 with 29 inch wheels (and 24 gears).  

While the tires aren't as aggressive as mountain bike tires, it does ride very smooth with very little effort.  Something I can actually ride to work easily enough once I find a messenger bag or back pack.  When test riding bikes, I found the traditional mountain bike leaned forward a little too much on my wrists.  The grips and shifters on this model suited me perfectly with a more upright position.  I opted for a step through model so that I can ride it work and not worry about whether or not I can wear a dress that day.

Saturday afternoon we drove to REI in Salem and poked around for a few farkles.  Troubadour needed a water bottle holder and something to hold the light on his bike.  I happened to find a book called Kissing the Trail, that we also purchased.  It is a resource book for single track mountain bike trails in the Northwest and Central Oregon areas.  More than 70 trails are listed by difficulty and location.  Should provide days and months of fun, once we get a bike rack for the car that is.

Sunday, under ominous skies and spitting rain, we took the bikes out for the first time.  (Not counting Troubadour and Polar Bear riding them home from the shop. - Thank you for riding Andy!)

We cut through the tree farm into Grand Oaks and then through the chain link fence and over to Bald Hill Park.  While we didn't do the switchbacks to the top like Troubadour did a few days later we did some time on gravel and dirt track before looping back around to the paved path.  Within 10 minutes of being out the sun came out and decided to end its game of hide and seek with the clouds.

(Troubadour on a Trek)

(Trobairitz on a Trek)

Since the sun was nice and toasty and we hadn't had enough riding time yet, we circled back to the house, picked up a few dollars, and rode downtown for coffee.  We sat outside and enjoyed the sunshine.  After coffee we took a longer way back to the house.  Beginning at Front Street (First Street) in downtown Corvallis there is a paved multi-use path that winds East along/near Philomath Boulevard  all the way to Philomath I believe.

At one point we rode under a railroad trestle.

Further East the path runs through a park where we stopped for a few photographs.

Down from the park a little bit, I stopped by a row of flowers for a few glamour shots trying to hide/disguise the hideous yellow flowers on the frame of my silver bike.  Why manufacturers think women need flowers on anything is beyond me.  I don't see beer cans and lawn mowers depicted on the men's bikes. :-)

(This picture makes the tires look a lot skinnier than they really are)

It was a great day out on the bikes.  We covered about 10 miles or so and I am looking forward to our next ride.  The hard part is that we now have one more hobby/sport to try and fit into the schedule.  Let's see - gardening, yard work, mountain biking, motorcycling, hiking, canoeing, camping...... luckily a few of those can be combined in a weekend trip.

- Au Revoir

"After your first day of cycling one dream is inevitable.  A memory of motion lingers in the muscles of your legs, and round and round they seem to go.  You ride through Dreamland on wonderful dream bicycles that change and grow." - H.G. Wells

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