![]() ![]() Advanced riders can pedal up from the base area another 1,000 feet to the Time Warp trail, the crown jewel of the Mount Ashland network, with 2,500 feet of vertical descent and numerous challenges. You should be, at the very least, an advanced beginner. One caveat: The trails on Mount Ashland are not for everyone. Soon we - Herbst, Thomas Moser, a local tourism representative and mountain biker, and a gaggle of young Portland-area biker bros - were aboard the shuttle for a scenic 30-minute drive to the top or, as Moondog and Herbst say, “as high as Mother Nature is allowing on the day.” (You could ride a dirt Forest Service road up from town instead, but the shuttle is really the way to go, and it’s a bargain at $25 per rider.) Its “mullet” wheel set-up (29 inches in front, 27.5 inches rear) and 160mm front shocks are perfect for the dry, quick turning trails and occasional rock gardens of these trails. The bike shop operates the Mount Ashland bike shuttles and rents mountain bikes, including a Transition Patrol downhill bike that caught my eye. Ashland Ski Area (6,950-foot elevation) so you can ride back down to town. The Ashland Mountain Adventures bike shop offers a Mount Ashland shuttle that takes you and your bike up to the Mt. Over the years, I’ve ridden the trails of Marin’s Mount Tamalpais, where the sport was born, the red rock wonderlands of Moab, Utah and the lofty mountain passes of Crested Butte, Colorado, but nothing compared to my recent downhill riding experience on Mount Ashland.Ī short drive from my comfy digs at the historic downtown Ashland Springs Hotel, the Ashland Mountain Adventures shop is run by co-owners Mike “Moondog” May and Chris Herbst, both sporting a scruffy pirate/lumberjack look that seems to be de rigueur in the Pacific Northwest. Herbst, May and a third partner, Brooke Danahy, took over the business in April from longtime owner William “Wild Bill” Roussel and his wife Sue O’Daly, who started it in 2008. I’ve been riding mountain bikes since the early ‘80s, just a few years after they were innovated in Marin County by a bunch of long-haired, jean-and-boot wearing bike enthusiasts who were determined to create better bikes for bombing down trails and dirt fire roads. Keep reading for the eating and drinking recs.) (So if you’re more of an armchair cyclist than a mountain biker, no worries. You whisk back down through densely forested watershed lands, dropping a whopping 5,600 feet over 13 miles and land back in town, where sips, suds and bites await. Ashland Ski Area’s base area (elevation 6,950 feet). These trail rides start in town, where trailer-equipped vans shuttle you and your bike up to the Mt. But the region’s extensive network of mountain bike and gravel bike trails in the Cascade and Siskiyou mountain ranges are simply out of this world.Īshland, the famed home of classical and contemporary theater and a hub of Oregonian good life, is also a magnet for Pacific Northwest mountain bikers, many of whom travel here to pursue epic, shuttle-assisted downhill rides on Mount Ashland, a 7,532-foot Siskiyou peak that looms over the town. If you like mountain biking on uncrowded trails in deep, dense forest or along pristine lakeshores, I have a secret spot to tell you about.Ī half-day’s drive - or one-hour flight - north of the Bay Area, Southern Oregon may be best known for its wine scene, Rogue river rafting, Crater Lake National Park and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
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