On my birthday ride, it was pretty chilly so I wore pants. This is in August! And now here we are in September and it’s smoking hot. I decided to ride the No Quarter Climb up to Seventh Secret. Then down 7th and back up to Lower Oilcan and down to the Baden Powell. Then a hike-a-bike and pedal to Dreamweaver and down.
It was a long ride but I had so much fun. I chose Seventh Secret as one of my trails this year because in 2023 (last year) I rode Seventh Secret for the first time. That was on my Marin. I have ridden it a bunch since. This was my second time on Seventh Secret on my new bike. It was greasy from the thunderstorm the night before (when I heard the thunder, I thought we might have to cancel my b-day ride) and I was very glad that I wore pants because I rode through a lot of puddles. It wasn’t just my Papa and I, Penny came to.
{Photos courtesy of Penny Deck}
A ‘Short’ Description
All the trails that I rode are so fun and now I’d like to do a ‘short’ description of them. We were planning on going to Lower Oilcan after Seventh so we decided to do the No Quarter Climb instead of going up the road. At the start, the No Quarter Climb is mellow. Then it just gets harder and harder. Parts of it are old logging skidder roads and there’s a big rusty old sawblade at one point.
When I arrive at the top it’s always a relief. Then I have to climb all the way to the seventh switchback. As soon as you can see the flat ground up ahead you can also see the entrance of 7th (a steep rock-armoured section). I’m sure I’ve already talked about Seventh Secret but I’ll say some stuff about it. First of all, I love going around those rock-armoured corners. Second of all, there’s still some stuff on it that I can’t ride yet. But my birthday ride was my best Seventh Secret ever.
Then when we found ourselves at the bottom of Seventh, it was time to ride back up to Lower Oilcan. As I said, I probably already wrote about Lower Oilcan but I’m going to write about it anyway. LOC is quite chunky and has lots of rock-armour. There’s one roll that you can either jump or roll it (I roll it). There are lots of roots. There was a lot of fresh work (thank you). Then we do the short hike a bike up to Dreamweaver. Dreamweaver has everything on it, from whoopie dirt corners to rock rolls and wooden ladders.
In conclusion, it was a great b-day ride.
Editor’s Note: The Trails:
No Quarter Climb (Thanks Pete & Joe!)
Lower Oilcan (Thanks Michael, Daniel, & Rob!)
Dream Weaver (Thanks Sarah!)
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