Mountain(finally) Bike Riding

Sara and I acquired mountain bikes from This Land quite some time ago (Thanks Again!). Aside from a ride or two they sat in our garage collecting dust, unfortunately. But, about 4 months ago I started riding to work. I absolutely love it. Great exercise. It's green and it's easy on the wallet. Apparently, the original hybrid gets great gas mileage. And my thighs and butt are a far less geopolitically dangerous part of the world from which to extract energy resources.

For four months I've been riding almost exclusively on concrete. Not necessarily on the street, because most of my ride is on Eugene's lovely Fern Ridge path, but still, it's been on concrete. Yesterday morning, however, I finally took the bike off road. There aren't many places to really mountain bike in Eugene. We are in the heart of the Willamette Valley, after all. There are plenty of places to mountain bike a short drive out of town, but yesterday I wasn't interested in leaving town. But, in Eugene there is a great trail system called the Ridgeline Trail. It has several trail heads all in the south Eugene hills. Most of it is exclusively for hiking, but some areas of the Ridgeline Trail are open to mountain bikes. It was great fun to get out there on the bike and it was a great workout too! I found a section of trail that was only a one mile loop (or 2 miles total, I'm not sure how you say it), but it was quite technical. Steep with several switch backs. Probably more technical than I am ready for yet, but I was careful. I just may be hooked on a new hobby! Here's a pic of a flat section of the trail, when I wasn't sucking wind!