About a year ago, my boyfriend, Clayton, got seriously into mountain biking. He was riding his bike all the time and it became all he wanted to do and talk about. I could hear his passion and energy through his voice and I wanted to love something that much, so I decided to see what all the hype was about. After riding with him a few times, I was convinced and bought myself a Trek Roscoe 7. Since then, I have been chasing after him trying to get better.

I am usually a pretty tightly wound person with a detailed plan that has be done step by step, exhausting I know. But mountain biking forces me to literally go with the flow of the trail. All my stress fades as I’m sweating up the hill and all my worries are gone as I rip down the trails. We have explored quite a few of the Bay Area trails but this time we wanted to really get outside.

We both work in San Francisco at tech companies and needed a getaway from the hustle and bustle of the city, so we were looking to go to a slow town to ride out bikes, drink some good beer and just live stress free and oh man, did we find it.

Bend, Oregon. A beautiful and tranquil town with everything we wanted, beautiful scenery, great biking trials, good beer and great people. It was about 30-35 degrees everyday we were there and we enjoyed every second of it.

While we were there, we attended the Oregon Winterfest, visited the Deschutes Brewery and rode our bikes in the snow.

The Winterfest was an amazing 3 day festival with over 200 creative vendors, beer and wine tents, fire shows and live music. Interacting with the creative vendors and friendly locals was such a refreshing experience. The art and handmade clothing, watches and textiles were beautiful and yet another inspiration to find a hobby.

Deschutes Brewery was one of the top things I wanted to do on this trip. I love the Deschutes’ beer and regularly buy it at grocery stores, so going into the taste room was something I really looked forward to. The food was great and the beer was even better. We got a Sampler and some side beer ;) My side beer was a mix between a hazy beer and a sour beer and it was delicioussss! Ever since I have been thinking about what sort of concoctions I can come up with to match it, but not exactly a normal thing to ask for at a bar!

Biking the snow was something really different! Neither myself or Clayton or snow sports people so we just decided to test our sport in the snow! We both have fat tires so riding in the snow without an actual fat bike was so fun! Fat bikes that had been there before us had paved out trails for us to follow along and wow was it something! Falling on snow didn’t look or feel as intimidating as hard dirt and rocks, so speeding down the trails was insane. As long as our tires stayed within the track, we didn’t have any problem ripping up and down the trials. I was a little nervous in the slippery moments where fat bikes would have kept the traction but the bikes handled it and we had a great time doing it!

This trip didn’t introduce me to a new hobby really, it was just something that got me outside, which is what I really want. Just to expose myself to new experiences, places and lessons. Bend, Oregon really stole my heart the 5 days I was there and have been wanting to head back north ever since.