Words and photos from DB Athlete Eric Porter.
Oregon is full of amazing places to ride, so when Milo and I were planning our annual trip to the Mountain Bike Oregon Festival, we decided to add in a few bonus rides! We started out by meeting up with our friend Aaron Lutze who has a warehouse for riding trials, which is kind of like rock climbing on bikes. Then we headed to a classic Oregon location, Post Canyon which is by Hood River. The last time I rode there for probably 8-10 years ago, and it has grown a ton since then. While we were in the Mt. Hood area, we had to stop by the ski resort to check out their summer operations, next year we’ll need to bring our snowboards and get up there to shred! Our final stop was Sandy Ridge, which is a Portland locals favorite, and a place I’d never ridden, definitely put it on your list if you’ve never been.
Finally we made it to Oakridge Oregon where we met up with the Diamondback crew for the Festival. We rode our Release 5C’s on all of their fun trails, and of course raced the mini-bikes at night! Oregon was having a records breaking heat wave that weekend, so right after the festival we stopped by the coast to cool off and check out the ocean, a pretty unique part about being in the Northwest. We could have ended the trip with that, but decided it would be worth it to check out one more new trail spot called Alsea Falls, and it was definitely worth the visit! We’ll have to plan another trip to Oregon with even more time, there are so many trails we didn’t get to see on this trip!
There are a few places that I’ve been really excited to bring the family, and Bellingham is close to the top of that list. We decided to head up for the Northwest Tune Up, a really fun MTB and Music festival in downtown Bellingham, and we made a road trip out of it! On the way we stopped by Bogus Basin, a fun bike park outside of Boise Idaho, which is the halfway mark for our drive. We got in a great day of riding with Kyle and April who also have a great YouTube channel and are pro riders. After that we took the scenic route North passing over Mt. Rainier, and of course we stopped by the Diamondback office! I’ve been there a lot over the years but it was special to share with the kids, now they have a better idea how we create the new bikes! Finally we made it to Bellingham for the weekend where we made the most out of every day. The weather was great so we rode Galbraith Mountain in the mornings and at the festival in the afternoon while we listened to live music on the stage.
This is a pretty unique festival because it offers something for the entire family, instead of being just focused on mountain biking.
Overall we had a great time getting to enjoy our mountain bikes in the Pacific Northwest. Stay tuned for more riding, racing, and sight-seeing from the family.