Hey Guys, welcome back to another Oregon ride. Last week we saw the epic descent off Alpine trail, today, we're going just a short distance for shuttle number 2 of the day to hit another great trail called Lawler.
Lawler is in many ways, the best things about Alpine compressed into a shorter, more technical trail. After you clear the first half a mile of climbing you'll be greeted with a first descent, and after another short punchy climb you'll have almost 3 miles of descending with 1300 ft vert. This trail wastes no time in getting fun.
I was thankfully unhurt beyond some scrapes and bruises, but that's without a doubt the fastest crash I've had in the last few years. So, how did it happen? Well, if you listen to this next section you can hear me clicking through most of my gears. I didn't manage to pedal enough to get it jump into the gear I wanted to, so at this point I didn't notice the rock on the trail and decided to pedal once more to get it in the right gear and bam, massive pedal strike with all my weight pushing the pedal down. It really seemed like hitting a wall, I went from in control to flying instantly. It also seems as if I landed right into the GoPro on my chinbar, there's no way to know for sure, but it seems as if the chinbar saved my teeth on this one.
The worst part about crashes like this is that they mess with my confidence. Its not like I was doing anything stupid or being careless, it was a simple mistake in a section of trail where I didn't see a rock because of a change of lighting, and somehow, that makes it worse, if I'm doing something stupid I know what to change, but when I feel I was within my limits and still crashed it messes with my head. In my experience, the best was to deal with this is to completely ignore it and try to ride as if nothing happened, which is what I tried to do for the rest of this ride.
This climb marks the midpoint for the trail, its not very long, but its super steep, including on short little section that I'd bet 99% of people walk.
After the view point and a short traverse on the ridge, the trail reaps more rewards, with another continous 1500ft of descending in 2.5 miles, there's quite a few fast sections coming up, but what really defines this part of the trail is super tight technical switchbacks after long high speed straights.
At this point it becomes pretty obvious you're loosing elevation fast, its super steep, full of switchbacks and you're already deep into the forest as the vegetation changes into more lush shrubbery. That can only be the indicator of one unfortunate reality, we're getting to the end of the trail. I absolutely loved Lawler, specially cause I did eventually manage to get out of my own head and flow better through everything. This trail will throw so many things at you without being an insanely challenging trail that its a perfect playground for most skill levels from intermediate up, there's different things to enjoy about it and there's no mandatory features anywhere. This, is a superbly well built trail.
Lawler on Trailforks: www.trailforks...
8 окт 2024
