Mountain biking.
In addition to trail running, another thing I never really did before we moved to Wenatchee was, well, go biking in the mountains. I did a lot of other things in the mountains. Just never biking. Except the occasional logging road on the approach to do one of those other things that did not involve biking as its primary mode of recreation. That has changed.
Enter: the mountain bike I bought probably fifteen years ago for $30.
A circa-early 2000s Novara Ponderosa SL. I found it at an REI sample sale long ago when I was probably still a fairly new HQ employee. A tenderfoot, in other words. It was displayed in a mix of other, much newer and nicer bikes. A brown paper bag was attached to each bike's handlebars. It was a raffle to win the chance to buy a bike. So my line of thinking went something like this: no one else is going to put in for a beat up, POC bike when there are clearly better options for still incredible deals. I dropped my name in the bag for this bad boy. The rest, clearly, is history.
It was an awesome throw-in-the-bushes at the start of a climb type of bike. Which is exactly what I had in mind for it when I put my name in the raffle, and which is exactly what I used it for. Until we moved to Wenatchee.
Mountain biking on the west side of the Cascades, after all, looks a lot like this:
Epic, sure. Potentially bone-crushing, probably.
I'm more into flow. I'd see pictures of slickrock biking in Moab and think to myself, 'Now that looks fun!' The singletrack trails in Wenatchee, I've discovered, aren't slickrock. But they're fun. Really, really fun.
Today, we asked one of our friends if they'd mind taking Squish for an hour or so while K and I (gasp!) got to recreate together without the toddler. Much to our joy, they were happy to do so. Though a little muggy for eastern Washington, a little cloudy for the end of May, we still had a blast.
Judging by the pics we got from our friends, it looked like the boys also had a blast.
Enter: the mountain bike I bought probably fifteen years ago for $30.
A circa-early 2000s Novara Ponderosa SL. I found it at an REI sample sale long ago when I was probably still a fairly new HQ employee. A tenderfoot, in other words. It was displayed in a mix of other, much newer and nicer bikes. A brown paper bag was attached to each bike's handlebars. It was a raffle to win the chance to buy a bike. So my line of thinking went something like this: no one else is going to put in for a beat up, POC bike when there are clearly better options for still incredible deals. I dropped my name in the bag for this bad boy. The rest, clearly, is history.
It was an awesome throw-in-the-bushes at the start of a climb type of bike. Which is exactly what I had in mind for it when I put my name in the raffle, and which is exactly what I used it for. Until we moved to Wenatchee.
Mountain biking on the west side of the Cascades, after all, looks a lot like this:
Epic, sure. Potentially bone-crushing, probably.
I'm more into flow. I'd see pictures of slickrock biking in Moab and think to myself, 'Now that looks fun!' The singletrack trails in Wenatchee, I've discovered, aren't slickrock. But they're fun. Really, really fun.
Today, we asked one of our friends if they'd mind taking Squish for an hour or so while K and I (gasp!) got to recreate together without the toddler. Much to our joy, they were happy to do so. Though a little muggy for eastern Washington, a little cloudy for the end of May, we still had a blast.
Judging by the pics we got from our friends, it looked like the boys also had a blast.
