Thanks Jill. Sounds like fun, especially Phils. Love that area.

I have a little report to share as well. We headed over the river and through
the woods Wednesday night bound for my in-laws place in Redmond, WA. We thought
we'd camp in our van that night to break up the drive a bit. We had stayed
once before at Millersylvania State Park south of Olympia and I had read that
there were some trails there, but hadn't had the chance to ride them. When we
arrived at the campground at about 9 pm, we found the gate to the campground was
closed! Our GPS indicated (incorrectly) that there was another entrance. After
realizing it did not exist, we went back to the original entrance and tried the
gate which turned out to be only shut, but not locked. In we drove and found
ourselves a spot for the night. I woke up the next morning to 35* and prepared
to go for a ride. I hopped on my bike and something felt wrong. A quick
inspection showed my Fox Triad shock was "stuck down"! D'oh! My considerate
wife offered to let me ride her bike, so off I wen
t on her Santa Cruz. After pumping up the rear shock and raising the seatpost,
I enjoyed a nice little ride. The trails were pretty mellow, wide, gently
rolling "fitness" trails, but I was happy to be out exploring on a crisp foggy
day and enjoyed about 8 miles on not too muddy trails before returning and
continuing our drive.

Friday after Thanksgiving, I called Redmond Cycle first thing when they opened
and they said they could fix my bike the same day. I dropped it off and they
called me that afternoon and said it was done. $80 for the rebuild kit and
labor and I was on my way. Now I had no excuse not to ride, plus I wanted to
test the fix while we were still in the area. I had asked at the shop about
trails and checked the Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance website and so decided
to ride at Saint Edward State Park
http://evergreenmtb.org/wiki/index.php?title=Trail:Saint_Edward_State_Park.
This had the advantage of being relatively close and was new to us. We had
previously ridden at Tiger Mountain and Tolt MacDonald, all of these trails are
listed by Evergreen under the heading of "Top 10 trails near Seattle".

Saturday morning we headed for St. Edward and were happy to have, if not actual
sun, then at least a lack of (much) rain. We found the place easily enough and
set out riding. It was a great trail system! Combined with the adjacent Big
Finn Hill Park, there was plenty of interesting singeltrack in a relatively
small area. By taking multiple loops we ended up with about 10 miles of riding
and didn't even get to everything there was to ride. It was pretty muddy in
spots, but also totally rideable. I would definitely like to return and
experience the trails in drier conditions. My shock seemed as good as new, and
we had fun exploring a new trail system.

Happy trails,
Terry




-------------- Original message --------------
From: "Cheddar Shredder" <chick_j@...>
On Friday, Evil Steve and I took advantage of the dry November and
drove down to Bend to ride Phil's Trails System. The parking lot
was empty until the 10:00 a.m. rush. The temperature was reasonable
and we were able to ride without shivering the entire time. Trail
conditions were perfectly firm and tacky allowing for 28 miles of
epic riding. We rode up Ben's to Helipad, and down Storm King, CIA,
and ELV. There were a couple of re-routes that we biked through,
including an intermediate skills park. We finished the ride on
Kent's trail before enjoying beer and food at Cascade Lakes
Brewing. The trails were so dry, our bikes were not dirty.

Sunday, Dallas and I did a couple of laps on 7 Streams at Post
Canyon. The trails below 7 streams, closer to the trail head were
quite muddy and slippery, but they improved as we headed up towards
Family Man. The stunts at Family Man were a bit too wet and
slippery to ride (but I doubt I would ride them if they were dry :)
However, the trails up there were firmly packed and we did two laps
on 7 streams.

Jill




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