Reno, Flag, Bear, Deadman

That was the ride for today. It’s a good thing the boys are here, I’ve learned a lot. First I’m part ginger, that is fairskined and redhead and since I go out in the sun I’m also a daytripper, at least I think that’s the right terminology. I’ve also learned that being called a shot caller is a bad thing but being called a baller is a good thing. Ive given up on trying to figure out all their x-box game speak. Howie and I had done this ride last year with a bit of an addition. It started with a 1600 foot climb up a dirt road for a bit over 5 miles up to the Reno divide. It was rather chilly there, waiting for the madness to get up so we put on our jackets as we ate some of our fluff sandwiches. I broke another spoke on the way up for no good reason, note to self, get wheel rebuilt when I get home.
I hooked up the helmet cam and down we went, first through and along a nice alpine meadow on very sweet buff single track. There’s a few muddy spots from the motor cycles but over all a great great piece of track. I came upon david and alex stopped just up from a small tributary crossing, david with his chain in his hand, generally not a good sign. It was a pretty quick fix as I had some extra quick links, the only issue was that things were a little sandy and the link was resisting going back together. The trail took a right and headed down a rather narrow creek valley with some cool beaver dams although you couldn’t pay too much attention to them or you might be in one pretty quick. We stopped where flag creek ran into the creek we were following.

Crossing the creek got the boys feet soaked however I took a bit of an alternate crossing and remained dry. We then climbed back up about 1000 feet again along the creek then as it opened up into a larger meadow. Near the top a road crossed and we took that up a bit, maybe a half mile or so to the top of Bear Creek trail. We ran into some motorcycles that weren’t sure of their route but pretty quickly we found out they were going the same way were as we heard their roar closing on us quickly.

The trail followed the same amazing pattern, starting in a large meadow then necking down into a narrow creek valley eventually leading us to our final climb, again up another creek valley, but this time it never really opened up. More beaver dams, this time we could spend a little more time checking them out as we were mostly in granny gear working our way up.

About 800 feet of vertical later we were at the top of the ridge heading back down the 1000 feet on 27 single track switchback (we counted as we watched the helmet cam footage), really fun but a little rutted out from the motos again. Howie and I were quite thankful of the time spent in the gym exercising our fore arms and triceps as the other had to take a break or two to rest their arms and/or hands. Across the bridge and we were back at the truck. Total ride was 20 miles and at least 3500 feet of climbing, almost all about 10,000 feet. We escaped another ride without getting rained on when it looked really nasty as we drove out along cement creek.