Ride Report YEAH, Washington!

All I can say is WOW!!

I spent last week vacationing in the town of Bellingham Washington.
This was my third trip up to the Pacific North West, and my first trip to Bellingham.
It's like being in another world. The riding up there is just unbelievable.
The scenery, the weather, the trail condition's, the dirt, the tree's, the woodwork.....I could go on, and on.

I lucked out with some really nice weather, with temps ranging from mid 50's to low 40's, and only getting rained on once.

Karl set it up so I could get a tour of the KONA building in Ferndale while I was there. He also called and let them know that I dented my frame on Galbraith, and they already set me up with a crash replacement!

YEAH KONA!!

As most of you know, coffee is my beer, and Bellingham has a nice ammount of good coffee house's.

The Black Drop http://www.theblackdrop.com/index.html ended up being my favorite for the trip. They even had a free cupping session going on Friday, so I got to go slup some free coffee, and had a fun time doing it!

THE Bellingham Coffee house......

The Black Drop!


The cupping session was a blast!


If you've heard stories about Galbraith Mountain http://home.comcast.net/~kdunruh/bellingham/galbraith.htm
let me just tell you that yes, they are all true!
We hit Galbraith on three different days, never descended the same trail twice, and still didn't hit everything!



Falling off of this....


leads to doing this...



Bill and Roxie climbing on Galbraith.


Just another natural trail feature.


This was on Evolution, and it was looong!




and lead's into this..


There's quite a bit of this going on a Galbraith..


and some of this..


and NO, I didn't ride this!


But this was fun!


We also did a classic Eastern Cascades ride by riding up Devils Gulch and down Mission Ridge. http://www.dirtworld.com/trails/trail.asp?id=273&trail_name=Devil's Gulch Mountain Bike Trail

This started out with an 11 mile climb up Devils Gulch, then down (you still had 1100ft of climbing on the down) Mission Ridge.





Doug get's ready to cross the creek.


me, same creek...


Did I mention the 11 mile climb?








Once at the top, you get a whole lotta down!







Later on in the week we rode another local favorite, The Chuckanut Ridge Trail. http://home.comcast.net/~kdunruh/bellingham/chuckanut.htm

I jacked myself up on a sidetrail down to, of all things, a spot called Teddybear Cove on this ride. I hit a root, went over the bars, and landed hard on my left side, possibly cracking a rib.
We continued the ride, climbing again for a couple of hours, and descended a trail called Double Black Diamond. Then climbed a bit more, got stuck in the rain and hail, and finished up with a sweet singletrack back down to the bottom.

Doug's always smiling!



With view's like these, how could you not smile!










I took way to many pics to post them all, so here's the link to the alblum they're in; http://www.socaltrailriders.org/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=1812&ppuser=

I have four week's of vacation to use next year.

Anyone want to start planning a ROAD TRIP??

 

wow, looks like you had a fantastic trip Darin... thanks for the RR.

 

Awesome RR and pics, Darin! Being the coffee fiend I also am, I would had been in heaven in Bellingham!

 

Totally awesome dude, you are my hero!!!

 

Nice! Talk about commitment. Looks painful if you miss. If you didn't try it, then I doubt I would. Nice RR and pics D. Good stuff.:bang:

 

Darin great pics. Makes me feel like im back home. I plan on moving back to Washington in a few years. A must do if you are in Washington is go to the Olympic Coast to see the HOH rain forest. It is the only temperate rain forest in the U.S. You will have no words to describe the beauty.

 

Holy cow those are awesome pics! Thanks for sharing.

 

Great pics! Makes me want to move there in hte next 6 months...

 

Damn max you weren't joking this time around...

 

simply amazing darin! did the kona people realize that you are 'mr. kona' in our socal mt. bike community?

 

great stuff. i think there is a vid cam located umm. on your melon protector. does this mean vid forthcoming!!!

 

Do you have GPS course file for that/any of those rides?

 

Great RR of an awesome trip, Darin.

I've been talking about wanting to do a trip to Bellingham (as an old friend lives there). This settles it!
Next year, i'm there... count me in on a road trip.

 

+1 on the roadtrip.

 

Yeah, Karl let them know when he called.:lol:
I had on my Kona hockey jersey, let them know that I have 9 Konas in my garage, and that while Lacey was racing, she was kicking a$$ on a Kula Primo.

Hey Adam, yep, that's a video camera. I got quite a bit of video, but I have to figure out how to put it on the site.:-k:lol:
The angles were a bit off, and it's kinda shakey, but it still look's pretty cool.

Sorry, none of us were running a GPS. I wish we had, I'd like to know the distance on a couple of the rides.

 

Gorgeous pics. I enjoyed alot and thanks!
Coffee is my beer, too!

 

Great RR Maxwell!!!

BTW are you being followed by a black panther? :-k

 

Im jealous

 

Thanks for the great pics and report Darrin.

I have spent enough time up there to know, I like to visit but would not want to live there year round. My Aunt lives in between Port Townsend and Port Angeles in Squim, Wash. That is where they filmed "Fuild".

Dean

 

Dean its not that bad . I lived in Seattle for 18 years.