Date: March 20th 2021
Location: Black Diamond Open Spaces (BDOS), WA
Author: KT Breen
Training Stage: N/A
Sport: Mountain Biking
Biking Type: Cross Country
'Twas a short but sweet trip out to the Black Diamond Open Space (BDOS) on an overcast Saturday morning. Conditions were perfect, the trails having just had a light rain which made the dirt just the right kind of tacky.
The BDOS is a bit of an oddity; despite being sandwiched between a mix of cookie-cutter housing developments (think Edward Scissorhands but with less topiary and stucco), arterial roads and a state highway, it still manages to give off a moderately rugged feel. Developed by the Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance (www.evergreenmtb.org), Black Diamond Trail Coalition (https://www.facebook.com/groups/SummitRidgeHerd), Northwest Natural Resource Group (https://www.nnrg.org/) in conjunction with King County Parks, the BDOS is a great spot for people wanting to mostly ride cross country but occasionally break a mild sweat for some short but sweet downhill routes.
Ursala and I met up this past Saturday on a rather overcast, but relatively dry morning, both of us having opted for a reasonable 10am start. Introductions made, we set off, winding through the trees on cobbled, but well-maintained trails. We passed a few groups of riders, but it wasn't especially crowded. After a quick map check, we ducked off the main trail onto Sasquatch to get warmed up and then rode the link-up over to Brain Wave which had some neat drops and technical areas of roots and squeezes between trees that were a very polite reminder to keep your head up and pick a line sooner rather than later. As a newer rider, it was nice to get some riding in that forced me to dial my technique a little more to keep my speed up.
We took a brief map/snack/water break and then headed over to Fresh Squeezed. Fresh Squeezed is a blue (typically an intermediate trail, although what that entails varies greatly by where you're riding and who rated it). It starts with a nice cross-country line which then links up into a steep, but stepped climb that terminates at an intersection that leads you to other trails, or the second part of Fresh Squeezed. The second half was unquestionably my favorite part as it's a flowing downhill line complete with sweeping berms and a couple of short rhythm sections. The only issue is a weird rock lily-pad type feature right before the first berm. I really enjoyed flying full-tilt down it though and I'm sure Ursala and I would have done a couple more laps on it had my chain not snapped on the climb up for another lap. After a brief discussion, we decided it was worth hiking the bikes to the top to ride them back down, given that my brakes still worked completely fine. You can't spell “misadventure” without “adventure”, after all. We rode the bikes down as far as we could and then walked them out the rest of the way. Up until that point, the rain had held off and now saw fit to remind us of where we live. All in all it was a great day, if not a little short. Both of us got the chance to continue to dial in skills we'd been working on and also learned the value of keeping a master link on hand. Looking forward to more NSM MTB trips in the future!