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Round Mtn Ride Report

Heidi

Der hund ist laut und braun
Aug 22, 2001
10,184
797
Bend, Oregon
I will venture to guess that besides maybe two other people on Ridemonkey, nobody has heard of Round Mtn. I picked it off a map and decided to explore on Sunday. Derek and I decided we were up for the "big boy" route which involved some 22 miles of riding, something over at least 5000' of climbing (I'm being conservative), no people, lots of sunshine, some INSANE switchbacks, and a lot of sweat.

The ride starts outisde of Bend about an hour in a mountain range called "The Ochocos". The riding is different characteristically than Bend in that the rocks on the trail are less of the lava type, and more prevalent. It started with a 7 mile road climb, followed by a 4 mile singletrack climb, then lots of descending, mixed in with more climbing! The singletrack was really very tough, and keep in mind, I like climbing. :) I can't remember the last time I had to climb such steep switchbacks...maybe New Zealand? It was TOTAL small ring climbing with intense concentration to keep my front wheel down. I didn't get any pictures of that though, I just got a couple forest shots.

This dude thought we were aliens who had come to take his babies.



We climbed basically to the sun.



After the climb it leveled out a bit and we got some descending in.



That didn't last long, we were soon climbing up to a lookout tower thingie...at 6500'. The views were great and I snapped some pics.





Look where you want to go, not where you don't. :)


One more pic.
.

Awesome day, saw lots of deer, no people, and had a great time riding a new trail.
 

Skookum

bikey's is cool
Jul 26, 2002
10,184
0
in a bear cave
sweet, i feel ya on the climbing, however most of mine on my ride was done "off" the bike! :eek:

For some reason rides that involve cows have always been pretty memorable for me too. :D
 

scrublover

Turbo Monkey
Sep 1, 2004
2,885
6,191
heh! nice one. i've not only heard of it, i've ridden it. though it was about 6 years ago, when i still lived in oregon......

my last oregon ride was the mck-trail, 3 summers back. one of my favourite trails of anything i've ridden. used to ride it about once every month.

nice pics, btw!