Green Mountain Trails and The Fourth Lap

Coolest. Medal. Evar.

It happened in an instant.  My wandering mind had led to a wandering front tire and the rain soaked bridge was offering no quarter and no forgiveness.  In the blink of an eye I was over the handlebars- hurtling face first into the abyss.  I could only close my eyes and pray for a soft landing.  But I deserved no mercy.  After all, this was all my own doing.  Despite my exhaustion, the pouring rain, the chilly September air and the mud seeping into every crevasse of my clothes and bike-- I had chosen to do another lap.  My fourth lap.  And I had to earn it.

A Rare Day in Colorado's Front Range

High above Colorado Springs.

There are some pretty weird hobbies in this world:  rubber band collections, dressing up like a stuffed animal, or jumping off bridges with a parachute to name a few.

When you really think about it, climbing and descending hiking trails on a bicycle is no more or less reasonable than collecting porcelain figurines, running ultra-marathons or re-writing all the endings to Disney movies to make them horror flicks.

But for some reason I've chosen mountain biking.  So, what exactly do I get out of it?  Why do I spend an inordinate amount of my free time either mountain biking or thinking about mountain biking?  Why is it more appealing to me than, say, chasing a little white ball around a meticulously landscaped yard?

The Other Side of Ellicottville (May 2014)

This is what flow looks like.

In what is fast becoming an annual tradition, I made a late May trip to ride the trails around Ellicottville, New York.  Almost exactly a year ago I made my first trip there and was awestruck with mostly smooth, swoopy singletrack I found.  I had sampled Big Merlin, Rain, Sidewinder, Mesa, among some of the other trails on one side of the mountain.

However, an offhand comment from a rider I met near the end of my day there, stuck with me.  When I told him where I had ridden, he exclaimed, "Oh, man, you haven't even seen the half of it!"   While the map showed a number of trails in the Northwest corner, I couldn't imagine they would differ so greatly from what I had already ridden.

Did they ever.

Blueberry Lake Trails: First World Problems

I'm getting really fed up with the beautiful scenery too.

This is getting ridiculous.  It's getting harder and harder these days to go anywhere in Vermont where you can pull your bike off the back of your car and not land on some fantastic singletrack.

Michaux State Forest and Rethinking Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania rock garden.

Pennsylvania, let’s be honest.  I haven’t given you a fair shake.  My impression of your burly mid-atlantic hollows has been tempered with long car rides on Interstate 81.  Usually by the time I get to your border the luster on a long road trip headed south has worn off.  I am bored and just cranking out miles.  It’s usually about this time that I pass through the Wilkes-Barre area.  Just the name evokes images of broad valleys, hills cut in half by strip mining, a massive car junkyard and perpetual construction. Not to mention the “ker-clunk-ker-clunk” of the endless evenly spaced concrete with only deer corpses and semi-trucks to keep you company.

Needless to say these are not positive associations. 

Richmond, VA: Buttermilk and The Unpainted Two-By-Four

Remember to yield to this dude if you see him on the trails.

I rounded what I guessed would be the last in a series of switchbacks on my way down a steep embankment to the James River near Richmond, Virginia.  I was already well behind my seat to compensate for the steep downward angle and travelling beyond a comfortable speed.  Ahead of me appeared a wooden ramp structure with one more ninety degree turn.  A single two-by-four was all that stood between my inertia filled body and a ten foot dive onto rocks and pavement below.  As my tires skidded onto the dirt covered wood it was all I could do to keep them from locking.  As I looked ahead at the fast approaching two-by-four, I couldn't help but notice that it was conspicuously fresh looking and unpainted.

I clearly wasn't the first person to test that ramp.

Sacandaga Area Trails: The Pine Orchard Odyssey

Brian points home  "Why can't we go that way?"

At some point in your mountain biking career you're going to learn a lesson about snowmobile trails.  Hopefully that lesson won't be in a classroom full of muddy, poison ivy infested swamp ruts with mosquitoes and deer flies.

A Weekend on the Sacandaga: Double Rainbows

Hypoxia awaits.

Out of the people that ever were, almost all of them are dead. There are way more dead people, and you're all gonna die and then you're gonna be dead for way longer than you're alive. Like that's mostly what you're ever gonna be. You're just dead people that didn't die yet.  [Louis C.K.: Hilarious, 2011]

Although a bit overly morbid, Louis C.K., has a point.  We're all doing to be dead one day- and for a long time.  So what makes it have any meaning?  [In my best double-rainbow voice] What does it mean?

Don't worry, I'm not about to tell you a parable about footsteps in the sand, or break out baby photos or start crying uncontrollably while you awkwardly check Facebook on your smartphone.

Instead, let me tell just you about a weekend I had earlier this summer.

Ellicottville: A Little Magic In Western New York

Make sure to get wide right of that tree.

It was 1999 and the beginning of the playoffs for Lord Stanley's Cup.  I was a marginal Bruins fan, and they were facing my girlfriend's Buffalo Sabres in the early rounds.  We were headed to meet her family for the first time, and I commented on how I could tease her father about the series if Boston played well.

With the most serious of looks on her face, my future wife looked at me and said, "That wouldn't be funny.  Don't do that.  Really.  Don't."

Santos Trails And the Endless Descent Dream

Turn, pedal, descend, turn, repeat.

Every once in a while you wake up with no clue where you are, what time it is, or how the heck you got there.  Ever since my diaper wearing drill sergeant arrived in August, those moments have been occurring with more frequency than I’d like to admit.  In that split-second, when you’re perched on the precipice between the dream world and reality, both sides seem equally plausible; and equally absurd.  In those moments your brain scrambles to dissect what was the dream and what reality is awaiting you. 

Was the baby crying?  Was I skiing?  Am I in a tent on top of Lafayette?  Am I sleeping in a chair again?

As I sit here writing about my most recent adventure, I feel like I’m sitting on that divide trying to get a grip on reality.  What the heck just happened?

Whipple Hill in Photos

Not far from the entrance to Whipple Hill in Lexington, MA
it becomes clear that you've left suburbia.

More Weston Singletracks (September 2012)

The bike was tired.  I was fine though. Really.

I took a couple hours on Saturday afternoon to make my first return to Weston after my July visit and do some more exploring of the singletrack offerings.

Wild Wild Weston (July 2012)

A really trashy part of Weston.  No really.  You're looking at a pile of trash.

Eight lanes of asphalt highway are all that separate the towns of Waltham and Weston, Massachusetts.  These hundred or so feet divide people making around $50,000 a year from those making closer to $200,000.  Perhaps this is the unspoken math that has prevented Weston from embracing a rail trail to connect the two communities.  While they might shop together at the Auburndale Star Market, the folks in Weston are a little reluctant to invite the masses into their manicured back yards.

Regardless of the reason, the reluctance to develop a paved trail along the old railbed connecting Waltham with the rest of Western Massachusetts is a gift to fat tire bikers.  

Lexington Singletracks (July 2012)

Not exactly a straight line.

The Minuteman Bikeway in MetroWest Boston is one of the most famous rail trails in the country.  And with good reason.  It provides a scenic and historic byway from Cambridge all the way to Bedford. Along the way it visits the town centers of Arlington and Lexington with their excellent restaurants and cultural attractions.  It is gem.  But it is also an attention whore.

(Way) Beyond the Minuteman: Estabrook Woods (July 2012)

Somewhere between Concord and Carlisle, MA.

“You’re not lost if you’re not supposed to be anywhere”, I kept telling myself as I turned onto yet another unmarked singletrack in an unknown direction.  It was one o’clock in the afternoon on a Thursday and I was wandering around Estabrook Woods somewhere near Concord, MA.   I was following my “inner compass” toward what I believed to be the ice cream stands of Carlisle, but without checking my GPS I wasn’t really sure where I might be headed.  In other words: I was having fun.

New Zealand Stoke: A Flowy Singletrack Video

Do you like flowy singletrack as much as I do?  Well then, here's a short (3 minute) promo by Tim Pierce of Justin Leov on the Deans Bank trail in Lake Wanaka, New Zealand.  Enjoy!