Anyone who spends much time reading The Logging Road Cyclist (like Ryan), or for that matter spends much time out in Oregon’s Spectacular Coast Range gets the importance of navigation. It is really really really easy to get lost. Well here is a nice ride, in that it loops around Mary’s Peak (a worthy goal in itself), but furthermore, the C2C Trail folks have marked all the scary downhill part. You can just park at the end of Woods Cr. Road by the gate and fling yourself off the heights down to the Harlan Valley below and just follow these:

Don’t even bother with a map! There is even a short section of nice single track installed.

But listen up. They don’t want the trail chewed to bits when it’s wet, so follow the rules:

no riding this part Oct 15-May 15 (note the MkIV Panzer saddle peeking coyly out from behind the sign?).

After the single track another mile or so of road until a gate is reached. Turn left on the 30 road, ride to the pavement at the top, turn left, take the second right,  pass a gate and slide back to the car. The climb up the 30 is stiff: 2300 feet in just under 8 miles.

TLRC thinks this is a good ride for anyone who thinks, but isn’t sure, that they will like this kind of riding.

Having just finished his second MkIV Panzer saddle, The Logging Road Cyclist slapped it on the DeSalvo and took off for a tune/fit ride, sandpaper ready to hand. He worked his way up Skillings Rd and to the McCulloch Peak road, stopping here and there to sand away thin layers of seat foam, getting the pads equally thick, getting the shape just right.  At the top, he decided to head home. It was a hot and very smoky day, and, as always of late, TLRC was taking things a bit at a time so as not to hurt himself again in one way or another, and also because he couldn’t quite believe he was riding again.

Near the cutoff to The Forest Estate, TLRC passed a man with a toddler, a girl. TLRC slowed to a respectfully slow pace as he passed, and gave a polite hello. When past them a ways, TLRC heard the man say “I know you!”

Thinking he had misheard, TLRC dismounted, looked back and said “You know me?” “Yes”, the man said, “you’re TLRC.”

“You know I’m TLRC? How?”

“I recognize the bike.” Really. An honest to god aficionado! Turns out this guy had just moved to town, was looking for stuff to do in Mac Forest and had stumbled on to The Site’s page thereon. He said that there was “a lot of useful information”. Hooked, he continued to read, and admitted, after the initial discovery, to having read the whole damned thing. Really, the bike? This guy REALLY read the site!

Aside from the unadulterated joy of being not only recognized, nay praised for the site, TLRC was very, very pleased that someone found all this useful. The original intent of the site, after all, was pretty much just to catalog rides so folks could go do them. The incessant blather that accompanies that was neither intended nor stoppable…