Over the last decade, Ron Lewis has quietly built something special. What started as a side project between friends has grown into Our Mother the Mountain, or OMTM, a DIY-minded cycling project with a loyal following throughout the PNW. With its deep catalog of mixed terrain routes, sharp visuals, thoughtful ride reports, and cultural touchpoints, OMTM has helped shape how a lot of people think about riding in the region. It's more than just a collection of routes… it's a resource, a perspective, and a creative take on what riding bikes can be.
I'd first come across OMTM a few years ago when someone sent me this ride, which absolutely blew my mind. The route, the presentation, the whole feel of it was just different. But I never really knew who was behind it. That changed when Abe from The Paperclip introduced me to Ron, who took on our first Teravail review. We started chatting on our team Slack, and eventually I took a deeper look at the OMTM site. What I found was a huge collection of original work that goes way beyond publishing GPX files. These are rides that are scouted, tested, and presented with a kind of care that's rare.
Ron feels like a quiet champion of mixed terrain cycling. He's not chasing trends or trying to turn it into something it's not. He's just putting in the time, riding the hard stuff, and sharing it in a way that makes people want to get out and do the same.
I'm glad we met, and I'm glad we got to share this conversation. We talked about route building, solo rides, staying off the race circuit, and what it means to build your own version of cycling culture. Let's go.
How did OMTM get started?
The conversational version: in 2015, I was working with my colleague Brandon Day at Marmoset, a boutique Portland, OR music licensing agency where I was a music supervisor. Brandon and I joined a cyclocross team together, but after one season, we found ourselves more interested in exploring gravel backroads and stitching together weird adventures than racing. At the time we started, off-the-shelf adventure cycling culture didn't exist. As a creative exercise, we started to catalogue, present and share the routes we were building via omtm.cc. As these things go, the project took a meandering path. Over time, I began collaborating with pal and musician, Ryan Francesconi, who was also fascinated with route development and for several years, we staged regular quarterly open-invite group rides which gained somewhat of a cultish popularity through the 2016-2020 era.
The LinkedIn version: I have been developing and sharing creative, compelling adventure cycling routes, detailed route guides and DIY ride events under the OMTM banner for over 8 years, during which time I've built a widely-ridden and respected roster of goods. Many have become regional standards throughout the PNW. The past two seasons, I have focused on presenting highly curated, somewhat conceptual ride experiences with select brand and organizational partners.
Where does the name “Our Mother the Mountain” come from?
Our Mother the Mountain is a 1969 studio album by enigmatic singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt. As I mentioned, I was a music supervisor and longtime musician, so the merging of music and cycling culture was inevitable for me. I spent the better part of the 00's touring and recording in bands like the Fruit Bats, the Shins, Grand Archives (Band of Horses offshoot) and many others, so cultural curation is very much ingrained in my creative DNA.
How has OMTM evolved over the years? And in the future?
Since 2021, I've refocused on route development and partnering with brands to curate boutique adventure cycling experiences in the Cascade region. These include the Lost Weekend series, Entiat Ridge Rally and Teanaway Ridge Rally events. One long-form project I'm currently working on is developing the WA-specific CVA (Cascade Volcanic Arc) bikepacking route linking Portland to Bellingham via the heart of the Washington Cascades. This will be the WA counterpart and northern extension of OMTM's existing OCVA 400 route.
What sort of impact has OMTM made?
On a basic level, I think it has gotten a lot of people out riding over the years, exploring the nooks and crannies of the places they live. More conceptually, I think our route catalogue has served to fill in the adventure cycling map for a good bit of the OR/WA Cascade and Columbia River Gorge region. In a sense, I feel like we helped further the notion that you can create your own DIY adventure culture – stage your own rides, organize your own events, create and share your own routes, build experiences for people, and generally curate the cycling culture you want to see where it doesn't exist.
What kind of ride gets you out of bed these days?
There is a range. It usually has to do with mountain biking or backcountry singletrack these days. I'm relatively new to mountain biking, in the proper sense, about five years in, so I am still fascinated with learning and skill building. I will add that generally speaking, long days in the saddle with friends are always a great motivator. But one of the things I love the most is solo riding big trail days in the backcountry, particularly those I'm documenting or working on presenting. This gives me a lot of time to linger, take pictures and ride somewhat spontaneously at my own pace, in my own head. Solo riding is kind of my natural state.
How do you go about finding or building new routes?
It all depends on the purpose and scope of the route. For events or group scenarios where there are external factors to consider - group size, rider experience level, potential support, certain focal points or design criteria we're wanting to include - the process will be a bit different than something I'm building for myself, which is more or less carte blanche.
For me, personally, it almost always starts with an area/region/feature/trail or specific thing I want to explore and showcase, whether it is a particularly scenic ridge or a valley or a backcountry trail I want to use - most of my routing ideas start with one (or multiple) of these focal points, then I generally work backward to create connectivity and flow around that set of features. But every area has its own set of challenges and conditions, so oftentimes it will take many repeat visits, trying slight variations to piece together a final version where the pacing, flow and sequence are really satisfying. When I'm making them just for myself, take Chenoweth Tableland for example, which friends and I also called Eagle Caves. There's no time pressure, so ideas can percolate sometimes over several years. Generally speaking, I prefer the experiences I present to feel refined and buttoned-up and thoughtful and finished rather than having been rushed or finished quickly.
What's a landscape or region you haven't explored yet but really want to?
I'm from Southern California originally. Pasadena. Kinneloa Mesa specifically, so the San Gabriel Mountains and Angeles National Forest have always been a draw. But also sort of an abstraction that, for whatever reason, I've never actually ridden in the way that I would like. I've done a few road rides above Malibu, Topanga, Latigo Canyon and Glendora Ridge to Baldy, but never ridden off-road anywhere in the region, which seems funny given how much time I spend doing exactly that all over the PNW.
It's an area that feels innately like home, but I don't relate to it on the bike. At least not yet. That said, I do have a loose plan to do something of a personal homecoming trip down there to stitch together select portions of Gregg Dunham's Escape LA route. Possibly this November, which is the optimal season down there.
What's something in the bike world you're just not into?
I've never really understood the draw of racing or riding competitively. Cycling for me is all about the freedom, connection and richness of experience you get riding bikes with friends in wild, spectacular places. I'm all about where the bike can take you, physically and existentially, and sharing that experience with others. So the idea of bashing, suffering, head down, in a blind hellhammer, trying to dominate your opponents, that just feels strange and repellent to me. Within the broader culture as well, there is such a premium placed on speed that I have never understood or related to.
I've never really understood the draw of racing... cycling is about the freedom, connection and richness of experience you get in wild, spectacular places.
What would you tell someone just getting into mixed-surface riding?
Don't do it. It's a trap. I kid. I kid.
One of the best pieces of advice I ever heard regarding gravel or all-terrain riding was to embrace mountain bikes. The skills you hone from mountain biking trickle down to every other bike you ride, including your gravel bike. It's like Jedi training for your handling skills. Mountain biking will inform confident descending, it will help you navigate steep, tricky terrain, rocks, roots, ruts, etc. It basically improves your riding chops all across the board. It is hard to overstate the relevant impact mountain biking has on all other cycling disciplines.
But in the broader sense, I would also tell folks to seek out the version of cycling culture that makes sense to them. A lot of people spend a lot of time trying to fit into a mould they may not actually like - whether it be road or cx racing or fast group rides or trying to go super ultra - before realizing it doesn't speak to them. When you're new to cycling there is often the conception that you have to adhere to someone else's notion or idea of the culture. The beauty of cycling is that it can be whatever you want it to be. Whether that's riding the cargo bike with the kids and dog out to have a picnic, ripping double black slab lines at Squamish or rambling the backcountry on bikepacking tours, there are very few wrong ways to ride a bike.
Do you have a favorite loop or ride you keep coming back to?
I never get tired of the 44 Trails system on the east side of Mt. Hood. It's not one static loop per se but a whole system of really lovely, classic XC trails that can be ridden on anything from drop bar adventure bikes to hardtails to XC bikes. I will typically do a basic Knebal Springs to Bottle Prairie to Eightmile loop and add in more peripheral lines as the spirit moves. During the high season, I'd say I ride up there at least once or twice a month. There's just so much variety in the 44. The system spans classic subalpine forest to arid, grassy meadows with steep and deep lowland drainages, massive scree fields and rocky outcrops to quasi-high desert environments. There's enough to keep me coming back year after year without repeating the same ride very often. The 44 is one of those networks that, when you know it well, you can just head up there without a plan and improvise. It's very satisfying.
Tell us about the Teanaway Rally...
The Teanaway Ridge Rally was amazing! Prior to this season, I had never ridden in the Teanaway Valley, but was aware of its reputation, so I wanted to do something up there that would give me a chance to go deep into the area and figure out what makes it tick. And to that point, I'd say mission very much accomplished. It was ostensibly a weekend of low-pressure, non-competitive adventure riding that brought together about 80 like-minded Portland and Seattle adventurefolk to blur the lines between gravel and mountain biking. Basically, the riding I like to do best. The terrain out there is pretty hard, sandy, steep and slower-going than folks expected, so it was interesting to see riders' reactions to 40 miles presented as the big route. Yet still, it was plenty hard and took most riders a full 8 hours. It was also fascinating to see the range of bikes as there was definitely no correct bike for this ride. Hardtails. Gravel bikes. XC rigs. The full gamut. There was even a fatbike. I built a little water stop oasis into the route just before the final and most challenging climb, which brought most of the riders together to reconnect and dip their feet for a little while. Our pal Chris posted up with a cooler full of Cokes, pickles, popsicles and salty snacks, an absolute hero of the weekend. I also took my first ever trail nap for about 45 minutes there by the river, which was a really lovely mid-ride recharge. I got a lot of great feedback on the route and weekend overall, which folks really seemed to enjoy, so I'll chalk the whole affair up as a win!
Thanks, Ron.
Make sure to check out omtm.cc and follow along on Instagram at @omtm.cc.
