Sunny Skies

For most of the winter in Bend this year we' have seen lots of unseasonably cloudy days. Look up Bend, OR on any search engine and you will find that it averages over 300 days of sun. Well there is a lot of catching up to do this year already...then again it's only the end of February.
This weekend was a pleasant reminder of the beauty that Central Oregon offers. No matter which direction you looked you could see the many snow-capped mountain peaks (Bachelor, The Sisters, Broken Top, Mt Hood and even Mt Jefferson). I decided to take advantage of the nice weather and crank out 7.5 hours of ride time between the two days; 4 hours on the mountain bike Sat and 3.5 hours on the road bike Sun.
Although the trails around Phil's still have a descent amount of snow on them, I stayed on the lower elevation where there was only a few muddy sections. Over at Horse Butte, the trails were in great condition with no snow at all, and lots of fast flowing singletrack. This was the longest ride of the season so far on the mountain bike; I've been splitting time between skate skiing and riding to get in the volume the last few months.
On Sunday I was joined by Bruce Rogers for a "conversational pace" ride out through Alfalfa and Powell Butte. The goal today was to keep the HR below 140 bpm. With mostly flat roads and maybe a 10mph wind it was easy to keep the HR controlled.
Mother Nature is calling for several days of rain and cloudy skies all next week again, who knows maybe Bend won't hit the 300 number this year. My fingers are crossed that it does.

Thanks for reading.