Follow the Leader is a double-black-diamond, hope-you-don’t-mind-exposure kind of trail. Riding it feels like walking a tightrope at 20mph.
Take a ride with Jason Wells, who helped build one of the best trail networks in the Pacific Northwest
By Leslie Kehmeier
When you set off to ride a trail, do you ever wonder who built it?
As a former IMBA Trail Care Crew member (and current IMBA employee) I’m pretty familiar with how trails get built, and many times by whom. I’ve seen first-hand how much work goes into developing a trail system, much of it before shovels and then wheels ever hit the ground. For many of the trail builders I’m met, it is a labor of love. Nowhere is that more apparent than on the meticulously cared for trails in Sandy Ridge, Oregon.
When I visited Oregon earlier this summer, I had the opportunity to ride with the lead builder at Sandy Ridge, one of the premier mountain bike trail systems in the Pacific Northwest. Jason Wells is more than someone who moves dirt—he’s a master of the trade, a craftsman, an artist with a shovel. I spent three days riding with Jason, watching him jump, fly, and float across every bit of network’s trails, which total more than 12 miles. Not only can he rail every bit of what’s on the ground, he can (and will) passionately recount the story of every rock that’s been moved to armor a trail, or the reasons why one berm is contoured a certain way, and another is not.
Just like Jason, the trails he has helped build are a bit adventurous, and sometimes rowdy. After a long climb up Homestead Road, the rest of the system has only minimal climbing, copious amounts of descending, and contains every type of gravity feature you can imagine—from berms and rollers to hips and tabletops. When I arrived, many locals recommended linking up of Rock Drop with Communication Breakdown, Quid Pro Flow, Two Turnatables and a Microwave, and Hide and Seek. It’s a great ride, worthy of the effort Jason and others have put into the trails. But the building here rarely stops and soon after I left, Sandy Ridge’s trail crew completed two more trails—Follow the Leader and Flow Motion—which I’m told have quickly become favorites. For trail builders like Jason, the work never ends.
Trail builder Jason Wells is part of IMBA’s Trail Solutions team who is known for building flowing descents. He’s a down-to-earth guy, but he rarely keeps his feet on the ground.
Flow Motion, one of the newest trails at Sandy Ridge, is a sinuous descent with an abundance of berms. It’s just to the right of Homestead Road, which makes it easy to session run after run. Some locals, however, prefer combining it with Follow the Leader.
Every once in awhile, Follow the Leader pops out of the emerald forest and gives you some rocks to chew on.
Jason Wells not only knows how to build trails, he also knows how to ride them with style.
Jason’s wife Anna, IMBA’s Pacific Northwest Regional Director, and his dog Moxie often join him on the trails.
Pro builders will use whatever is necessary to make the trail right—even if it means riding with a ladder.
