2018 Raging River Festival

Speaking of balance, my weekend opened up, so I decided to head north for a weekend at the inaugural Raging River Festival! Put on by the Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance, Saturday featured an XC and Sunday an Enduro on mostly new (ish) trails along the I90 corridor near Seattle, Washington. This zone was only recently established as a riding area, and has so much room for growth, especially noting its proximity to Tiger Mountain and Exit 27 trails. 

For Sunday's Enduro, the Cascadia Dirt Cup put together a course of about 29 miles on trails such as "Invictus" and "No Service". It was a collective of about every kind of trail you can ride: rooty tech (lots of pumping), flow tabletops and doubles, tight & twisty flow, loamy chutes... a little bit of everything-- One of the most unique local venues of the year for sure! 

Schedule had us doing one shuttle lap for practice late Saturday, followed by a quick tire swap, and bike tune for Sunday's race. 

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Despite some of the warmest temperatures on record for 2018, the event went off with a BANG early Sunday. We made quick work of the transfer to stage 1, and lily-padded and pumped our way down the first two stages, to re-learn to corner on stage 3, and hit some jumps on the way down stage 4. Such a cool venue, and an amazing inaugural event -- I will be back!

All in all was a great weekend, with some first place bling to take home to the family. Thanks for having me Camille and Trey, CDC!


​Kim Hardin