BEND, OREGON BIKING IN A CAMPERVAN

A lot has been said written about Mountain Biking in Bend, OR and the myriad of amazing trails available to ride. Bend is about a 3 hour drive from Portland and makes for a great four day trip to get out of town. There are lots of places to take our campervans on your next rental. Wandervans was just in Bend with our campervan to attend the High Cascade 100 with a couple of friends. We were on limited time schedule so we were only able to spend three days there, but had a blast riding, eating, and drinking the local beers. We arrived in Bend on Friday and decided to spend our remaining time at the Mt Bachelor Bike Park. The bike park is pretty new, but they already had a pretty extensive trail system and are planning to add more in the future. The first thing you will notice at the bike park is how at the top the trails are just surrounded by lava rock. This really makes you want to stay on the trail since any deviation off the trail would hurt a lot. Also be aware that there are some sharp lava rock on the trail and I ended up with two flats, but was only carrying one tube. On Saturday we rode in the High Cascade 100 and seemed to cross most of the trails in the Bend area. The trails in Bend are a lot different from what I am used to in Boise and tend to be a lot flatter and roll more across the terrain. Lots of great views on the trail and good food in town. So next time you plan a trip and book your campervan, we can help you with trail recommendations and camping spots for campervans.

Here are some of our suggestions for loops in the Bend area.

Beginner/Intermediate:

Deschutes River Trail - This trail is usually ridden as an out and back. This trail is a great beginner trail with a couple short intermediate sections and some amazing views. The trail is very mellow over its entire grade and is butter smooth in a number of sections. The only thing to remember with this trail is that it can get busy during the weekends.

Intermediate:

Funner/Tiddlywinks - This loop can be ridden in either direction, but my preference is always to ride up Funner and then descend Tiddlywinks. Tiddlywinks has some great high speed flow and great table top jumps and drops that are just perfect to ride off of on any all mountain bike.

COD/Stormking - This loop is a very popular loop and has easy access from town. There are no amazing views since you are in heavy forest cover for the entire ride, but there are lots of fun technical sections to try.

Newberry Crater Rim - This loop is a little ways out of Bend, but the views are just amazing. You will be circling a giant volcanic crater from a collapsed volcano. There are two lakes down in the crater that you will see often as you loop around.

McKenzie River Trail - This trail is about an hour from Bend, but defiantly worth the drive. Be prepared for an all day ride and it would be wise to work out a shuttle ahead of time so that way you don't need to ride back up the road. The beginning of the ride has some very challenging lava sections which are the most technical sections of the whole trail. So if you want to shorten this ride a little I would cut out the first section near Clear Lake.