Crook County Crush

Don, Thane, and I attended the inaugural Crook County Crush in the Ochoco mountains Saturday.
I pre rode the course a week ago and took all of these pictures.
This picture is of the independent mine up there. That is a small scale train track coming out of the mine, and a creek flows out now.





















This is the rest of the independent mine.

























There are sections where the creek is on the trail.
The race actually took a different trail than this.




















This is what the single track looks like at the top of lookout mountain.















Then it starts to get sketchy.

















And more sketchy.

The pro/cat 1 race started with 5 miles of paved climbing. I did not expect anyone to show up to this race so I was really just prepared to have fun, not go full blast. Since I planned on cruising pretty easy I thought I might as well blast up the pavement and then slow up on the dirt. So at the start of the race I took off like a rabbit, leaving everyone behind. I lead the race for 10 minutes(3 miles?). At times I would look back and could not see anyone, that was a unique feeling for sure, but soon enough I could see people coming. When they came they mostly went right by me. I did manage to hang on to one guy and we stayed together for quite a while.
The singletrack climbs there are very steep and there was a lot of walking for me and my 1x9 set up.
We got near the top of round mountain and then rode down to the aid station for more steep climbing to the top of lookout mountain. The views were incredible. I walked some of the technical stuff off the top and then enjoyed the really fun single track down to the bottom. Three or so miles of pavement climbing and done.

28 miles and 5000 feet of climbing= a big fun day.