It had been a couple years but we have always liked the Mosier Twin Tunnel trail, east of Hood River, Oregon. You can hike, bike, rollerblade, ride skateboards or even ride horses. It is a beautiful trail along the Columbia Gorge. The wild flowers are in full bloom and vibrant in beautiful colors. The last time we had taken our bikes on this trail, we were both still riding our Cannondale mountain bikes but they had road tires on them. It doesn't matter which you decide to do, because some of the views will take your breathe away.
Depending on how enthusiastic you are, you can either do the easy route (1.8 miles round trip) or the moderate route (9.4 miles round trip). Since it is still so early in the season for us, we decided to take the easy route and am I glad we did.
I have to start by saying we ended up getting to the trail later than we had planned. We originally had wanted to start the trail in the morning, but didn't actually get started until after 2:30 p.m. We decided to grab lunch before the ride. That may have not been the smartest move, but the weather was gorgeous in Hood River and I was excited to be there.
As we started the ride, it was a slow incline and I kept thinking this was going to be pretty easy. The trail is paved and a very smooth ride. We traveled through the tunnels with ease and made our way to the Koberg Beach State Wayside. The air was humid, so we were definitely drinking a lot of water. We decided to start back. The start of the ride back was not as easy as the original start. The incline is higher and with the humidity, it made it even harder. I wasn't going to let this defeat me. I was determined to keep biking up this incline without stopping until I was able to reach the top. Especially, since a young man had just passed me on his skateboard heading up the incline as well. There were times when it felt like my pulse was beating so hard, that my head was going to explode. Plus, since we ate lunch right before our ride, I felt like I was about to have a second glad at my food. We had finally made it to the top and knew that any other incline after that was going to be 10 times better than what we had just gone through.
It was a great ride on a beautiful day. I learned a hard lesson on this bicycle ride and that is not to eat right before your ride. I will treasure that memory for many bicycle rides to come.
