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My Great Big Bend, Oregon Mountain Biking Adventure

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Last week (July 2016) I finished a mountain biking trip in Bend, Oregon. The trip included seven days of riding, camping in a hammock, and exploring the town of Bend.

It was a spectacular trip!

I biked 277 miles, rode 18 of the trails in the Bend area (just a small fraction of the mountain biking trails in the Bend area).

The trip was filled with spectacular mountain trails, high desert landscape, challenging climbs, and thrilling descents. The entire week was a refreshing break.

Here is what I learned…

  • Bend, Oregon is one of the best places to ride in the USA. Hundreds of miles of well-marked trails and a large number of rainless days allow for a wonderful mountain biking ecosystem. In my seven days of riding, I only rode a small fraction of the vast number of trails available in the Bend area.
  • People in Oregon are kind and helpful to visitors. I always received a kind greeting and a helping hand wherever I went.
  • God gave me good health and allowed me to the encounter another small slice of the vast universe he created. I am thankful to God and acknowledge his wonder, power, and creativity. It is his world, and he allows me to live in it.

Below are my daily experiences, filled with photos, maps, and descriptions of my rides. I hope that you use my experiences to gain a perspective about Bend and that you benefit from my experience …

Day Before the Bend Mountain Biking Trip

Day One – Eugene to Bend

Day Two – Into The Wild

Day Three – Mountain Biking is Art

Day Four – Moving Day

Day Five – Dirt Paths of Life

Day Six – Marianne and Houdini

Day Seven – Easy Day

Day Eight – Last Day (Perfect Day)

Oregon Bikepacking Trip – Maps and Navigation

Going into some back country in the Oregon Cascades, I have this basic need to stay on track and to avoid getting lost. My wife Susan has many concerns about my bikepacking trip – and my getting lost is one of them. Mobile phone service is not available for about half the area I will be biking, and so I cannot access online maps, or use GPS map-enabled navigation.  And for the areas where there is phone service, the data rate is slow. I decided I would not buy a separate GPS device for navigation.

The U.S. Forest Service has maps for purchase and has downloadable maps. The maps have detailed topography, roads, trails, campsites and land features. I purchased hard copy maps for the Diamond Lake Ranger District and for the North Umpqua Ranger District (ranger districts are one of the ways the U.S. Forest Service partitions/classifies its various forest areas). I took detailed photos of each map and put them on my phone. The hard copy maps will stay home to reduce weight and bulk or the bikepacking trip. Here is one of the map photos of the Toketee Falls area of the North Umpqua River…

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Toketee Falls area map

I also downloaded topographic quadrangle maps from the U.S. Forest Service sites. Each forest is divided into quadrangles for which detailed maps are available. I downloaded 13 quadrangle maps of the area and loaded them to my phone. Here is one of the quadrangle maps of the Potter Mountain area of the North Umpqua River (around the rugged section named “Dread and Terror”).

If I  can keep my phone charged with the solar charging panel, I have electronic maps available without the bulk and weight of hard copy maps. Cheers for a phone that holds maps, for map reading skills, and for navigation skills!