Bob Woodward - XC coach, journalist, mayor, mountain bike pioneer

Writer, photographer, outdoor sports impresario, and self-described bon vivant Bob Woodward died March 7, 2025, at age 85, of Parkinson’s, in his adopted hometown of Bend, Oregon.

Woodward grew up skiing and skating in Colorado Springs and went on to become a kind of Pied Piper for nordic skiing in California and Oregon beginning in the 1960s and 70s. To pay the bills he worked retail for Sierra Designs in Berkeley, while simultaneously exploring Mt. Lassen on skis and coaching a fledgling cross-country ski team at the University of California, Berkeley. Six-foot four and rangy, Woody (to his myriad friends) was never an Olympic level competitor, but as a journalist he covered five Winter Olympics, beginning with Lake Placid in 1980. He wrote and photographed for Powder, SKI, Cross Country Skier, and Snow Country, among others, and authored two books on cross-country conditioning and technique. With typical self-deprecating humor he’d say: “And guess what? Neither of them were best-sellers! They were fun to write.”

For 15 years Woodward led spring nordic camps on the trail system at Mt. Bachelor. He was instrumental in bringing the U.S. Ski Team to Bend for June training camps, a tradition which continues. A meandering intermediate trail, “Woody’s Way,” is named in his honor.

Never one to take himself too seriously, Woodward gave himself nordic-themed nicknames: Sven Hardwax, Lars Klister, and the Reverend Lester Polyester, the latter a persona at annual Ski Industries America trade shows in Las Vegas. 

Woodward is also considered a co-founder of the sport of mountain biking; he co-created many of the original trails around Bend and is in the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame. 

In 1992, Woodward was elected to town council as part of a slate of “Men Without Ties” – that is, “men who didn’t wear ties, men who had no ties to the development community or the good-old-boy networks.” He served as mayor from 1997 to 1999, and represented to many Bend’s transition from a struggling timber town to a multi-season, multi-sport, recreation-based economy. --Peter Shelton