Phil's
Great Rides...Anytime...
Just Like Yo' Mama
Alpine Bike Ride
Phil's Trailhead sits just minutes outside of Bend's south side. A few round-abouts, a brewery or two and you are there. Phil's is a series of interlinking trails out in the middle of a high desert forest. It is mostly single tracks with your occasional dirt road, but the large majority are swooping trails with technical parts thrown here and there. There are some jumps, logs, drops and a fantastic terrain park out in the middle of the forest.
The trails can be as easy as a run out to the Firechicken and back, a nice, easy four miles or take a grand loop and do over 20 miles. Each trail has a personality and you get to mix and match them as you feel like it. The debates in your mind isn't what trail are you going to take, it's what link-ups you are going to do in order to get the best out of the ride. Up Phil's to Voodoo Canyon over to Kent's and coming back on Ben's. It's that easy. Trails I have ridden are listed below.
Phil's Trail
Phil's Trail is the easist of the trails from Phil's Trailhead. It has the easiest uphill sections and the least amount of technical. Two miles brings you to the Fire Chicken and another two miles brings you to the major cutover to Voodoo Canyon down either to Kent's Trail or Ben's Trail. Either of which is a lot of fun to go down and give you a nice eight mile loop. If you continue up Phil's, you come to the Helipad. Up to the four mile cutoff to Voodoo Canyon, it's pretty nice and not real difficult. Continuing up Phil's Trail after this branchoff takes you up four more miles that are significantly steeper, longer and a lot more technical. At the top of this is the Helipad.
The Helipad
Woop De Doos
From the top of the Helipad, you can drop down into the Woop De Doos. A series of great hits, closely spaced and usually well topped off. From here, it is natural to drop down into Ben's trail. I highly, highly recommend hitting the Doos, it is choice.
Ben's Trail
Going up or coming down are easily as fun. A few technical switchbacks, but nothing very difficult. It does have some deeper holes and you can hop off the trail and onto the Slalom Course.
Kent's Trail
Kent's is a nice change-up trail from either Ben's or Phil's. It has larger turns and a nice chute to drop down with a hit or two here or there. I love the middle section of sage and manzanita slapping your shins.
KGB
I took KGB starting from the Cascade Lakes Brewery through the Broken Top subdivision and out to the Fire Chicken. I haven't taken any other section other than this piece. It isn't real technical or difficult and makes for a great diversion ride to and from a brew pub. Stopping afterward for a beer is like believing in God. Either you do, and are riteous, or you don't and know, deep in your heart, you should have a pitchfork in the ass. You don't ride to drink beer, you drink beer because you ride. Unless you are allergic to alcohol, which doesn't excuse you from GOING to the pub and having a coke. But you are required to take the panties off before you do.
Voodoo Canyon
This is a great connector between Kent's, Phil's and Ben's Trail. It has some fun sections. I haven't been on other areas of the this trail except between the other larger trails. Voodoo is a lot of fun to cut across from Ben's, past Phil's Trail and get onto GS.
GS
GS is a much more technical trail than more of the other trails in the immediate vicinity of Phil's Trailhead. You don't get to keep your speed up as it is lots of rocks, small, rocky drops and some fantastic boulders. I want to go back up this trail with some climbing shoes and a pad. The rock formations are fantastic, not really sure if it would pan out for great climbs, but it looks good.
Woody's
Woody's is the gateway to Storm King, Grand Slam and come up behind the Helipad or even over to Phil's if you feel like it. This is an easy trail and not technical at all. It is also a denser, wetter forest area with a springy trail and very little bumps.
