This weekend, I hitched a ride with Rusty and Rosanne, who brought me out to a trail in Brookhaven, Mississippi. We were greated by friendly locals and pleased with the well maintained trail system out there. Given, the snow and icy conditions in the previous weeks, the trail was in good shape with only a couple of wet spots. There were rocks and roots, sturdy bridges over low spots, tight and twisty single track, and a couple of short, steep climbs. Also, there were some wooden ramps and jumps that interested some freeriders who joined us in the trail. It was great to try some new trail with such a variety of terrain.
Archive for the ‘Trails’ Category
Knobs of Approval
By Branden Morvant | 21/02/10 | 9:56 PM
Ride Reports, Trails
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Castle Canyon trail
By Tom | 17/02/10 | 2:00 AM I rode the Castle Canyon trail in Altadena, CA Yesterday. I have lived in the area for 41 years and never had the urge to take this trail. This small area of the San Gabriel Front Range was not affected by the recent and devastating Station Fire and therefore I felt I the time had come to “ride” it.
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Trails
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What it Really means to Share the Trail
By Kyle Lawrence | 14/02/10 | 9:16 PM
Mateo Sharing a Guatemalan trail
Recently made it back from a week long Guatemalan excursion complete with some mountain biking. We stayed in the former Spanish colonial capital for all of Central America, Antigua. Complete with cobblestone streets and preserved colonial buildings, Antigua is an incredible terminus from which to explore the country and go on some epic mountain bike rides. We stayed with friends who run the only true mountain bike touring company in the country, Old Town Outfitters. The above picture was taken on a 3 hour bike ride from their front door up the side of a massive volcano. Trails are abundant but you often have to share them with the local farmers who use them to get back and forth to their fields. Everyone we met on the trails was very friendly and made every effort to get out of our way even when they were carrying 30-40 pounds on their heads or even more on their back. Guatemala is an amazingly affordable country to visit and it is also blessed with a chain of volcanoes and many other large mountains. The vegetation is lush, thick, and green while the temperatures in the highlands are warm in the day and cooler at night. During the week we also rode mountain bikes on a new trail system that is still under construction. When finished this trail system will rival some of the best trail experiences in the world.
Rock wall work on new Guatemalan mountain bike trail.
Dry Dirt Found
By bsteinberg | 13/02/10 | 6:35 PMSpending years riding in Michigan winters made my Grand Junction, CO winters seem like summer. Well, this year it is not the case. We have had snow on the ground since early December and temps have struggled to reach 35F. Not the high-mountain desert I moved to.
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Ride Reports, Trails
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Riding The Cape - Trail of Tears
By Thom | 24/01/10 | 9:03 PM
It’s January in Massachusetts. Snow and ice cover most of the trails throughout the state. And even if the trails were clear, riding bans preclude us from riding on many of the trails nearest to Boston. Road riding just sort of blows incredibly — the roads are bombed out with pot holes and the gutter is filled with detritus and debris. So what do we do? We get another season of “The Wire” from Netflix, order a pizza and buffalo wings, and drink beer until we forget about riding our mountain bikes altogether. What’s that? That’s not what we do…because we’re PROFESSIONAL ATHLETES (sort of). Oh ya, I forgot about that. You’re right, we should probably get off the couch and go ride our bikes. But where?
Cape-freakin’-Cod, that’s where!
Tags: cape cod, jersey Shore, trail of tears, winter riding
Ride Reports, Trails
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Six Pak Invitational Snow and Sun
By Kyle Lawrence | 29/11/09 | 8:11 PM
Every fall in Harrisonburg is colored by a weekly group mountain bike ride. The Six Pak downhill series is one of the most popular and fun group rides in the Shenandoah Valley. A few weeks we had over forty people show up to ride downhill. The entry fee is a six pack of some beverage (usually beer). Everyone casually goes uphill then races down in 30 second intervals. The culmination of the season is the Invitational, where you are invited only if you completed two requisite trail work Saturdays out in the George Washington National Forest. Well the trail was selected by the infamous Invitational committee and then we were committed to improving the trail before the big dance. Went out there on Tuesday and took the leaf blower to the trail in an attempt to make it a little safer, also did some tread work on water crossings. Wednesday brought rain and Thursday saw us back out at the trail but all the Wednesday rain in town turned to four inches of snow at the top of the trail. We spent Thursday with the leaf blower blowing snow and the remaining leaves off the trail instead of doing tread work.
All of us out at trail work that day made a pact to not tell anyone in town that the trail was covered in snow because we knew some people may not come and ride on Saturday if they knew about the sloppy conditions. The big day rolled around on Saturday and nearly all the snow was gone but it was an incredible transformation in two days time. These pictures are both of the same trail.
Observations, Trails
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iron ore. to the shore.
By Dan k | 10/08/09 | 2:35 PMSo it goes the legends of the iron ore and the Great Lake Superior go on, folks here have labored and toiled in these parts for a long time. The picturesque city of Marquette, Michigan there is an uncanny mix of labor and nature.
Shreddin’ in Naples (w/some new treads)
By jhilimire | | 10:07 AMBeen working on building up the form for the Shenandoah 100 and the process continues. This weekend headed down to train on some of my favorite trails down in Naples. Early am start aka ‘Dawn Patrol” and was off for 6 hours w/ loads of intensive climbing and ripper singletrack descents.
I just picked up a pair of XR1 Team Issue treads and wanted to test them out. All I can say is WOW! WOW! WOW! I’ve been running Bonty ACX tires for the past 3 years and have not waivered in my tire choice for any conditions. Though they’ve been a little bit heavy and I was looking for something new to try. I finally ordered a set up and was not disappointed. Looking at the tires on the Superfly, I was a little nervous going from the big 2.2 down to a 1.9. As soon as I hit the dirt though and was rolling up hill on the first climb, I could feel the difference. Dropping almost 200 grams per tire, plus the difference in rolling resistance was incredible. I was flying up the hill, with much less effort, but what would happen in the super tech trails of Naples? As soon as I hit the singletrack the rolling speed continued, to push me down the trail at breakneck speeds. Roots up, check, rocks, check, off-camber check, straight up rooted climb check, traction on everything check. It was almost as if the tires had sensors, letting them unleash their magical grippy claws on the terrain as needed and then retract and roll. To be honest, the trail was incredibly dry, but I hit some slick peanut butter mud sections and the tires never packed up and rolled forward. I climbed several sections of trails that are usually a quick dismount due to the steepness or roots withou issue. The narrow 1.9 tire that I was worried about never came to fruition, I railed em with ease and look forward to racing them at Shenandoah 100 and a few other key races this season.
If you know me, that’s a big endorsement. I’ve tried and poo-pood a few dozen tires over the past few years and nothings stuck. I’ve have tried em all and nothings has made it more than one ride before they were pulled off and given away to some poor soul. Not this time though, you’ll have to peel these babies off the superfly and out of my cold-dead hands before you can take em.
Want Proof? Here’s the ‘DEC Descent” in Naples, NY trail. One of the most technical, rocky, rooted and tough descents around and the tires hooked up no problem. This descent is known to chew up and spit out bikes, tires, and riders with ease (the mechanicals & crashes on this descent cannot be accurately expressed).
Matt Hanggi shredding with a HiFi Pro 29er and yours truly following along with my Superfly and some XR1 Team Issue treads
Gear Reviews, Ride Reports, Trails, Training
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race race baby. mo-hic-ian 100.
By Dan k | 04/06/09 | 12:38 AM
Riding your bike is cool. Racing your bike is really cool. Racing your bike 100 miles and is really…tough, fun, rad, uber cool and even daunting at times. Self says “What does Ohio have, it’s flat it will be easy?” Wrong. It’s not flat and it has 11,000 feet of climbing and some of the best mountain biking I’ve ever seen at the Mohican 100. The ominous clouds and preceding rain the night before made for a creepy feeling which overcame me.
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Races, Ride Reports, Trails
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Glocester Ground (To a Bloody Pulp)
By Thom | 18/05/09 | 6:44 AM
EFTA NECS # 1 Glocester Grind, Glocester, RI
The Crew was well represented today at the EFTA series opener, Kurt, Mike, and I all showed up, ready for a big, heaping serving of abuse. Ya see, we got two series here in New England. We got the Root 66 series which is all legit with the USAC sanctioning, then we got this other series, The EFTA, with its more Grass Rootsy vibe. Root 66s are races almost anyone can do. Conversely, some of the EFTAs are the type of races that only a real mountain biker could love. Anyone else will be sent screaming to the nearest road bike or pair of Roller Blades. I’m just being honest. (more…)
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