The fastest I've ever gone on singletrack! | Alpine Trail - Oakridge, OR

In the last video we took a look at the awesome trails of Tiger Mountain in Issaquah, WA. Our road trip continued with a drive down to Oakridge, OR for some shuttled runs. In todays video, we're going to be looking at probably Oakridge's most recognized trail, Alpine. While you can defintely pedal up to hit this, most people prefer to catch a shuttle up to the highest point on the trail and from there enjoy the endless feeling descending at high speed between the beautiful forest all the way back into town.

Alpine starts out on the mellow side, smooth flowy turns with a few short sections that have rocks and roots, but its by no means technical. In this case, I actually think its a great start to the trail, for me, the best part of this trail is that you get to go mind-numbingly fast later on, the start of the trail actually guides you into it, opening up little by little so you get used to the higher speeds.

There's not really that much you need to know from a navigational point of view, you'll be crossing over the main road a few times, but by looking for the trail visually + trailforks there's no going wrong. The only split in the trail you have to look for is the one for Tire Mountain where it splits if you want to do ATCA.

As you can probably tell, this trail gets quite dusty when its dry. The best way of dealing with the clouds of fine dust is to either follow closely enough that you get through before the cloud raises to your face, or give lots of space so that it has time to settle. What you really don't want to do is follow at a normal distance, because the cloud will find its way around your glasses and into your eyes. Not comfortable at all.

Right after this section there's a short climb that will lead to the most open area of the trail with some amazing views of the sorrounding area. While there's more places where you'll be riding next to steep hills, this short stretch is the only completely exposed section of the whole ride, its a slow area where its worth stopping to take some picture and enjoy looking out into the distance over countless ridges. I'm not sure, but I think the snowy peak in the distance was one of the three sisters almost by Bend, OR, almost 80 miles away.

But, no reason to be bummed about that, starting from here is where the trail really opens up and become a playground for sustained high speeds. This is the closest you'll ever get to riding a speeder bike through the forest moon of endor, of course minus the stormtroopers and their terrible aim.

If you couldn't tell, that was one of the awesome member of the trail crew cutting some fallen trees. We were told that they did a hell of a cleanup this year as the winter months knocked down a bunch of tree over the trail. So thanks to the trail crew for making this place what it is.

Despite all the high speed fun, there are however a few spots where you wanna keep your speed in check. As beautiful as it is, there's a bit more consequence to going off here, so if exposure messes with your head, dial it down a bit. The trail itself is not much more challenging here, its just one of those thing where the risk comes from knowing that there's not much to catch you if you do go off.

This section ended up being the fastest point on the trail for me, according to strava the max speed was 38 mph, and although that sounds like data error to me, going over 30 here is quite easily done. I feel there's a chance this is the fastest I've ever gone on singletrack.

At this point there a small section where the trail gets much steeper than the rest and starts to include some winding between the trees and a few challenging switchbacks.

A little while ago I mentioned this trail optionally splitting off into ATCA, which stands for Alpine, Tire Mountain, Cloverpatch, Alpine. As you probably got from the name, ATCA is an extension of this ride that you can do if you want to make it a big day, totalling roughly 24 miles and 4k to 5k of climbing. ATCA is the traditional loop if you're looking for a more backcountry full day single ride kind of experience here.

And so, this awesome trail comes to an end in the same spot you catch the shuttle. Even if you're here to just do this one ride, visiting the tiny town of Oakridge is definitely worth it. At the bottom there's a nice little pump track, which, first time I've this, has a skinny in the middle.

Alpine Trail on Trailforks: https://www.trailforks.com/trails/low...