Sweet love shines down on us at the top of Mobius in the early morning.

I don’t know what nirvana looks or feels like. And I probably never will.

But what I do know, is trail nirvana. And you can find it, too, by riding a sweet little 3ish-hour ditty that hits all the greatest hits of lower Post Canyon with nary an overlap (ok, just one, little, teensy, tinsy, one). I call it – Post Nirvana. Basically, it’s nirvana that goes beyond nirvana because it’s POST nirvana (see how that works?).

A couple years ago I lie in bed wondering – how can I connect all my favorite trails in lower Post Canyon? Perhaps you’ve considered this yourself, or maybe it seems a strange thing to do while lying in bed. Regardless, this is what the Gorge does to some of us. We go adventure and then drift off to sleep dreaming of more.

So there I was wondering how to make it work. I’d start at the bottom of Seven Streams, of course, and work my way up. But then how to get in both Mobius and Cardiac Hill? (The Slog as I call it). I want to ride Kleeway and also Mitchell, not to mention all of 8-Track and, obviously, my beloved Charley’s. But I need efficiency. A clean route, not sloppy with overlaps and double backs. So I started to lay out the route and with the help of sweet honey’s suggestion to use the 140 road as a link I came up with the following:

1. Up Seven Streams
2. Up Mobius
3. Down Spaghetti
4. Up Charley’s (sweet, sweet Charley’s)
5. Down Toilet Bowl (from the toilet, mind you).
6. Cut over to Cardiac Hill (don’t you dare get on Kleeway yet, that’s for later)
7. Up Cardiac Hill
8. Through Family Man
9. Up Lower 8-Track
10. Up Upper 8-Track
11. Down Bad Motor Scooter
12. Down Upper GP (hello Moments of Silence)
13. Down Lower GP
14. Head left onto the 140 Rd. (I always take wrong turns on it)
15. When you get to Post Flats staging area, cut over to those trails that connect to Mitchell Ridge.
16. Down Mitchell Ridge
(*Now, at this point, some of you – myself included – are going to arrive in that upper parking lot and you’re really gonna wanna just be done, and it’d be so easy to just head down, but TRUST ME, YOU HAVE IT IN YOU! Turn that bike towards Cardiac Hill and hit it.)
17. Go all the way up Cardiac back to Family Man.
18. Get over to Middle School and take that to Float On
19. Down Float On (humming Modest Mouse)
20. Down Kleeway
21. Down 7 Streams and YOU’VE DONE IT! Go buy a beer with your buddies and celebrate the feeling of awesomeness.

I call this Post Nirvana 1.0 – I’ve yet to see if I can reconfigure it to add in some of the new stuff like Mix-Tape, Eldorado, Sister Wife etc. I’m open to suggestions if you have them. Until then, this makes me pretty happy and maybe it’ll make you happy, too. I’ll be riding it tomorrow morning at 7am – if you’re awake, come join us for any or all of it! Or lemme know when you wanna give it a go and I’ll pack some extra snacks and join you (Doug? Jimmy? Come on!)

And one last little hurrah, because Old Man Graka is back in the country and back on his bike! Thank goodness – cuz he can be a real grouch when he’s not riding.

Go get it y’all! The dirt’s real nice and vine maples are glowing!