The Dark Woods

Having been biking a lot recently, we decided that it was time for a change. We would take our bikes for a walk. First, we noticed that our pace was slower than usual on the road approach to the trailhead. However, it was not long before we were surprised by the speed with which we could clear technical sections. Here we see Rob tackling a technical ledge climb:

Tight and Technical

With many local trails wet and muddy we explored some of our favorite rocky, rooty, and seemingly waterproof trails. I was again riding with Ben and Rob. We had some bike trouble with Ben breaking a derailleur hanger almost immediately after we entered the woods. However, we accomplished the rarest of trailhead fixes and found him another bike to ride.

Rob ripping a turn:

Photo: Tom Collier

Still Riding

The weather was great last week and that made for a lot of riding, but very little posting. Luckily, things have changed and the rainy weather has kept us off of trails leaving plenty of time for blog posts, homework, etc. What could be better?

Here are some random shots from rides in the last week. Photo Credits go to Tom Collier

East Coast Bikers in Their Natural Environment

The afternoon was spent in search of the New England mountain biker in its natural environment. We have already seen them in North Carolina, an unusual place to find them. Our hopes were that the hunting would be even easier closer to home.

Mountain bikers can be a sneaky bunch though. While hiding behind a fallen tree we caught our first glimpse, through the roots:
















Photo: Tom Collier

Trailwork!

Max and Anson decided to take advantage of the sunny spring weather on Saturday to do a little trail maintenance. A favorite trail of ours had a sketchy log rollover followed with a hard turn that we decided to fix up a bit. We grabbed a rock bar, shovel, rake, and a hand saw and biked and hiked out to do some work.

As we made our way up the trail, we found what some people call a "widowmaker", a rotten tree about ready to fall across the trail. After some serious huffing and puffing we got the tree down so it couldn't hurt anyone. Instead of moving it off trail, Anson rocked around it to make a little rollover feature.

Our main project was to work on the off-camber rollover. Once we got up to it, we realized it'd be a lot of effort to correct all its faults, but we shored up some of the logs and piled a little bank up in hopes of improving the flow a bit. Maybe save it for another time?

Our final improvement involved an unnecessary turn around two large trees, which causes you to loose all your speed. So we cleared the brush and entrance between the trees and rerouted the trail a bit. Hopefully we improved the flow a bit better, only time will tell if it gets ridden in.

Though we did a bit of work we made sure not to cut down any living trees and use natural objects for our features.  No pictures, but we'll try to get some photos of the trail later in the season.

Back to New England!

We are now safely back to New England. On arrival we were greeted by classic New England rain and cold weather, only to be followed by the best surprise a New England mountain biker can have: warm, sunny weather, and dry trails!

Early season riding was in order.

Photo Credits: 1&2: Tom Collier, 3: Max McClorey

We were careful to choose typically quick drying trails and were rewarded with a dry, fun ride, with conditions more typical of June than April (at least before June became a continuously rainy month, as it has been recently).