I heart New England

Seriously.  I've probably said it a few times but daaaaayum is NE awesome.  It's like a 70,000 square mile playground with EVERYTHING.

This past weekend Dustin and I got serious into shredding Pine Hill Park in Rutland, VT.  Second trip back and this time without wet leaves everywhere.  This made things much more awesome and borderline disastrous.  High speeds, ample berms...watch out now!  I'll let the edit do the talking.  I have a lot of fun every time I ride there, 'nuff said.  Got some great 'looking back at the rider' footage...slight tweak to the angle from last time I tried made all the difference and I think its the perfect perspective for these trails.



We saw some idiots on BMX bikes and a crazy bitter grandma who LOVED crapping on anything you said and directing her rage at the incorrect people.  She was awesome.  She spent a lot of energy trying to reprimand us and another lovely couple for something a stupid kid did and then immediately broke the rules of the park herself before walking off.  I pity you crazy bitter grandma.

Also got to chat again with Michael Smith (the supreme chancellor of Pine Hill) and this week he has 430(!!!!!!!) high school kids building/maintaining the trails there for the entire week.  I can't even imagine what NEMBA could do with that much manpower.  We could rough in 20mi of singletrack at our new spot Page Hill in a day or two let alone a week.  Good Lord.

Speaking of Page Hill, I was messing around in the woods there Sunday getting things started with what hopefully will be our own little local Pine Hill Park....here's to dreaming. Check out the details here:

http://www.cnhnemba.org/2011/06/page-hill-trail-day-recap.html

Page Hill Cross Post

http://www.cnhnemba.org/2010/11/page-hill.html

I don't want to double post so I'll mostly just link to my post over at CNH NEMBA.  Been busy at the new Page Hill site the past two weeks.  Been killing two birds as well, getting set for more local mtb options AND getting lots of compass work in wandering around in the woods.  I've gotten pretty good at following bearings in the field using intermediate landmarks and also 'daisy chaining' with other members of a party.  i.e. they walk while you spot the bearing and keep them on line until you barely can see them and then you walk to meet them, rinse and repeat.

Still need to work on pace counting to get better at judging lateral distance as well as get a bit more fine tuned on terrain association.  I can pick out the big stuff but I'd like to get the more subtle stuff as well as get better at really identifying when it comes down to is that this drainage or that drainage type scenario.

Progress...

NEMBA happenings

I don't have enough time nowadays to double post so I will just do the ole redirect.

Great trail day at FFD this past weekend.  Added what will probably be a marquee trail there by the end of this season.  Still needs some finish work but it is roughed in and technically rideable.

In other NEMBA news, I mentioned this in a tweet as well, but I have been selected for the new NEMBA grassroots racing team for this year.  I am excited about the opportunity.  It's always been a goal to get "spons'd" and even though this isn't really a traditional sponsorship type deal I can act like it is if I want, kinda like I did two years ago.  Still don't know many details yet, this is the inaugural year, but I think it will be fun.  First race will be The Weeping Willow at Willowdale State Forest down in MA in a few weeks.

Hopkinton-Everett Dam Trail Day

I finally got to head down to the Hop-Ev / Elm Brook area to assist with building a new trail yesterday. CNHNEMBA has hosted a few weekday rides there this year but it is kind of a long drive for me from Plymouth to try and get there after work and I could never make it in time.

The Hop-Ev land is also owned by the Army Corp of Engineers (same as Franklin Falls) and they are great with allowing access and providing support. There has always been a rough network of multi-use trails in the area but there is potential for lots of great singletrack and there is now quite a few motivated individuals in the area and with the help of the NEMBA troops I think Hop-Ev is going to be an amazing place to ride in a year or two.

We had a much bigger crew than I had anticipated. Lots of local support and a boy scout troop even came out to lend a hand. Our local contact Sharon had already flagged a trail for the day and all we needed to do was lop branches and rake / ride it in. We broke into two crews and set to work on each end of the trail and were able to hash the whole trail in in about 3.5hrs. Final distance came in at just over 1 mile total.

We were able to take advantage of lots of interesting features as well as build up a crossing over a rock wall. There was also a low lying area that is going to require some additional attention which could turn into a really fun / interesting bridge building project.

Loading up our implements

raking it in

building some features

rock wall crossing

the whole crew just after meeting up in the middle

A few of us suited up and raced the sun trying to get a short ride in to see how our handy work panned out. It actually rode really well and was much firmer than I had anticipated. I think this trail will ride in quickly as long as we can get some consistent traffic on it next year. And there were already spots that you could tell will have great flow and be real fun as soon as it is riding a tiny bit faster. Here is the ride data:

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/16572072

The new trail is the squiggly singletrack and we added a big loop before riding the new trail in the other direction to head home. Ended up just beating the sun, can't beat that.

Reaping What I (We) Sow

I know that saying is usually used in a negative context, but I don't care. I'm using it anyway. Because I am going to be reaping the awesomeness from this past weekend all summer long and then some.

This past Sunday CNH NEMBA hosted a Trail Maintenance day at the Franklin Falls Rec Area in Franklin, NH. We had a crew of 26 people(!) working various projects all day and we completed tons of work. Some accomplishments for the day:

- Installed ledge pack at the entrance to Rogue Trail and around 'Whaleback Rock' to alleviate some bogging down sand issues.

- Reroute and bench cut / berm installation on Stump Trail (so much more fun now, great work Jesse and crew!)

- We finished what we started of 'L' trail last year and it is ready to start riding in. New name is in the works currently. It's probably either going to be "Crooked Tree" or "Caddywhompus".

- 95% of trails were raked and cleaned up

I worked on the crew that completed 'L' trail. It is definitely back busting work at times but nothing beats taking a blank canvas of woods and making something that you will be able to enjoy for possibly years to come. 'L' is a 'max out the real estate' kind of trail winding back on itself in spots a la Gyro in Plymouth just not as extreme. It is a blast to ride even with it being really soft still in spots.

Another promising thing we all saw during the maintenance day was several other groups using the trails that weren't with our group. A group of riders from Gilford, a Father and Son duo and a Husband/Wife/Daughter crew. Lots of different types of riders all enjoying the trails...nothing gives you more clout than more headcount, this bodes well for Central NH.

Hopefully I can get some pics up soon. Chapter Prez had a camera out and was taking pics, my digital is still buried in a box somewhere.

'Mighty Chicken'

So my newest hobby/endeavor is trail building / maintenance. Sounds boring, and for most people it probably would be...but I have found that you cant beat cutting your own trails and then riding them.

Today I started and basically finished a project I have been talking about for weeks both with friends and with members of my chapter of NEMBA. There is an area at the Falls in Franklin that has a perfect natural ravine. Currently there is a trail running right down the gut called Chicken Ravine...a great screamer of a descent in its own right, but any time anyone went in there everyone mentioned how there needed to be 'waves' cut into the ravine walls to ride it down like a half pipe. 'Sidewinder' at the Kingdom Trails would be a good comparison. Our version will be known as 'Mighty Chicken'.

We were finally able to turn lots of talk into action and myself, Scott, George and the Tilton School MTB team went from top to bottom in about 6 hours or so of work. It needs to be ridden in and we may have to do a bit of additional bench cutting to avoid some areas that might wash out, but other than that I am very pleased. This was the first time I have been 'in charge' on a project like this. I have done building before but I have been following someone else's markers not placing my own. I chose each and every line of a trail that could be a new New England classic (pending rider reviews)....pretty cool.

Scott workin hard


Its hard to see the real angles in these shots, but trust me its SWEET.

U Ditch