This past week, some of the Revolution Bike Fest Team traveled up to Oakridge, OR to ride some killer trail at Mountain Bike Oregon (MBO) and do a little recon.  We are always looking to create the best immersive experiences on the planet and will happily learn from others in their success.  So we packed up our gear and headed up to Oregon for a “work” trip… and MAYBE to ride our bikes too.

Departure

We left the Orange County area on Thursday at the early hour of 8:20 pm after loading all the gear, the bikes, and Rich’s motorcycle (he was planning on riding back via highway 1).

We drove/slept through the night in the sprinter, and after an impromptu detour ended up stopping for some grub around 10 am the next morning.  Nothing like some homemade corned beef hash and eggs to fuel up for riding epics in Oregon.

Arrival

We pulled into MBO around 12 pm and proceeded to set up camp.  After a quick jump in the river to rinse off, we headed off on our first rides of the trip.  Adam headed up or Lower Alpine for some killer down hill action on a Jamis Defcon 1, one of Jamis’s awesome enduro bikes.  Look for a review on this bike soon.  Matt Rich headed up to Dead Mountain for a few miles of super flowey trail.

Settling in for the First Night

After grabbing some food for the evening (the burgers were awesome) from the food trucks and a few beers from the beer garden to… rehydrate, we headed back to the campsite and caught an absolutely gorgeous sunset.

Day 2

Now that we had a full night of sleep, we all got up to tackle the epic called ATCA which was a chain of three famous trails in the Oakridge area. Alpine, Tire Mountain, Clover Patch, and then Alpine again.  This was roughly 30 miles on Strava with 3600 feet of climbing, 6950 feet of defending, and some of the most beautiful forest any of us have seen in a while.  And in normal Adam fashion, Adam hit the epic in Converse and Flats because he “doesn’t like to be clipped in on downhill.”  Go figure.

Rich got some great shots while we were out there.  Check them out.

After the epic we meandered around the vendor area and chatted with the reps from various shops and bike brands.  Jamis, Felt, Niner, and more were all there.  There was a pump track to play on too and that was awesome.

Later that night

During dinner time we were treated to a pump track race for different groups and various prizes were awarded to the winners.  And again, we rehydrated after a long and fun day of riding.

Day 3

After the epic we all decided to hit a more technical but easier river trail.  We caught a bus to a beautiful piece of trail that skirted a river about 45 minutes away from the campsite called Lower Middle Fork.  1400 feet descending and 500 feet of climbing was thoroughly  taxing for everyone considering the ride the day before.  We met some awesome new friends on the bus ride over and even a few old friends from Over the Hump.

Departure

After riding and packing up on Sunday we hit the road and headed back to Orange County, CA.  And after driving through the night, we pulled in at 6:30 am.

We made some great friends and memories at MBO with only 150ish people in attendance and we can’t wait for you to be part of Revolution on a WAY bigger scale.  We were extremely grateful to do some recon at MBO so we can bring you the most awesome and memorable experience at Revolution.  Be warned, you may leave Revolution feeling more alive than you arrived.