Oregon Roadtrip

Words James Oborne

Photos James Oborne

Date Oct 10, 2012

In early June, Dylan Schuetze and I went on a week-long riding trip down to Oregon. Our plan was to check out some lines in the Fraser canyon on our way down; then hit Galbraith in Bellingham, WA with the Transition Bike crew; then Portland, OR to ride with my cousin; Post Canyon in Hood River, OR, just East of Portland; camp and ride with some friends of my Dad’s in Bend, OR; and then over to Black Rock, near Falls City, OR, an hour West of Salem. We would go from not riding very much this spring to getting into some pretty technical terrain. I was stoked when Dylan showed up on Tuesday night with a freshly pressed FBR shirt for me to stunt in.

Dylan Schuetze, Black Rock moto steeze.

The next morning we left early to scope some lines I dream about every two weeks when I drive through Spences Bridge on my way to/from work. Unfortunately the helmet cam footage didn’t work out very well from Spences Bridge, I crashed, and we were cut short on time. Now we know what to expect and it is definitely on our list to go back and ride and shoot that area properly. Unfortunately I don’t have many photos from the first few days of the trip because we were just having so much fun riding that I didnt want to waste any time shooting.

We rolled into the Transition Bikes Headquarters in Ferndale, WA and were greeted with a warm welcome of birthday cake and porters. The new 29ers they are working on are pretty rad, and amazingly versatile. Later that afternoon, we rode with Kyle on Galbraith Mountain. Not only did he pedal up faster than us on his 29er Bandit, he absolutely crushed us on the way down too, airing some big jumps and blasting out of corners. After the ride we got directions from him for a nugget of a spot East of Seattle called Duthie Hill; it’s a city sanctioned mountain bike area that has terrain for all skill levels.

Loading up the bikes in Portland on a beautiful day. Next stop Hood River.

We headed on down there and spent way too long searching for a camping spot. The next day we got up before the campsite attendant, and headed to the Duthie Hill trails. We took our time getting ready and cooking breakfast in the parking lot while tons of 9-5ers went and did laps before work. Ya, we were that early. Eventually we got the cobwebs out of our skulls and saddled up. I opted not to bring my camera again, but we did a bit of filming here with the helmet cams. It took us far too long to find the goods at Duthie. We started out going left from the clearing area and rode some all-mountain laps. In hindsight it was a good warm up.

We made our way across the park trying all the trails and finally ended on the far right side where there has been a ton of work done on the jumps, stunts and features. We tried a few lines and then sessioned the big boy line. It had a sweet step down hip to the right then a medium gap jump, big step down with a long tranny, and then you could pin it into another floaty right-handed hip before the last two really poppy jumps that weren’t so great on our bikes. After riding all the lines on the right side we called it a day and headed down to Portland to meet up with my cousin for an afternoon ride. The trails were so loamy and smooth…

East to Hood River.

The next day was beautiful, and we took our time enjoying the Portland sunshine. We got out to Hood River at about 1:00PM and headed straight to the trails. We never managed to find the top DH section that I had ridden the time before, but we enjoyed the lower trails nevertheless, spending some time at each set of jumps sessioning and filming. I was stoked to hit the backdoor-barndoor line blind. Its a wood to wood step down into a massive booter to a pretty forgiving dirt tranny that I had been wanting to nail since last time. I ended up boosting up into the overhanging branches and landing basically on flat ground past the transition. After that the rest of the trails were pretty easy in comparison.

Camping in Post Canyon.

Whittling some weenie sticks.

Unloading at Scorpion Grove Campsite in Falls City, OR.

Next stop was Black Rock. We camped out in Scorpion Grove in Falls City, and prepared for our last day of riding. I think we saved the biggest lines for last. There are some burly features out at Black Rock. The main stunt line is a roller coaster feature to a drop to a 20 ft gap into a couple berms then onto a bridge that you can air over a down ramp or roll down and drop the last 6 feet or so. That spits you into a long right hand floater hip over a stump and then a big wood to wood step up and a funky road gap with no lip at the end. We sessioned that area for a while and I finally brought out my camera, but didn’t really get any nuggs.

Tent and bikes in Scorpion Grove.