Today's Ride

Damn - that's quite a reaction there!

So I went back out today and hit the ride I intended to do the other day when my gear failure and lack of preparedness prevented it (after the deer gone wild incident).

111 miles, 11.1k feet (my gps actually ended at 11,112 - I rode an extra half mile to try and get all "1s" - but ridewithgps took a few feet back...haha).

https://ridewithgps.com/trips/39689491

About half of the distance was gravel. More than half the elevation gain. And definitely more than half the effort. There were some challenging descents where it hit minus 18 percent on loose 1 to 2 inch gravel. And long bumpy freakin descents like out of Hammond Hill Forest - I had to stop and let some air out of my tires to get down without shaking to pieces.

Overall it was a great ride - scenic and beautiful, peaceful, challenging, really painful at times, and ultimately successful. And I saw six deer in the first half mile and not one of them ran me over haha.

And I know aerobars on a gravel bike is weird but I need the extra positioning on rides this long, and it definitely helped on the few flattish sections. My back and ass both were thankful for them. And yes I know the winner of Dirty Kanza used them (why the heck does everyone seem to know that?)

This was the "road" to the top of Hammond Hill - about 1/2 mile of this fun.

Time to ride!

September 20 2029 Friday
Riding lovely weather in Middletown Hudson valley. About 10 miles today Nice fall weather

Saturday September 20 2019
20 miles from Middletown to Montgomery NY
Perfect weather today.

Any of you NJ guys going to the NJ MTB fest at Ringwood Sunday?  I may do a group ride there in the morning then head up and ride Sterling Forest full loop for the first time in the afternoon.

I'll be there..

ain't no way i'm riding ringwood then doing sterling..Sterling is a soul crushing 8 miles...

I know some sweetness in Ringwood..

JasonWx wrote

ain't no way i'm riding ringwood then doing sterling..

Agreed, there's plenty at either one for several hours of riding.

Yeh I’ve never rode Ringwood so maybe my plan is too ambitious, nor have I ridden a full loop at sterling just a small portion of the loop....so I guess I’ll have to see how it plays out.

Never really thought about a helmet in this way but I took one on the plastic today from an acorn, man it was loud and I think it would have hurt!

PM  me

Maybe we can meet up

Harvey wrote

Been riding with Neve a little bit, checking out the singletrack near our new house.  

 

Up until this point I've been riding out to the horse farm and turning around.  They want you to dismount and walk through so as not to spook the horse I guess.

Tonight the horse farm was deserted, not a horse nor man in sight, so I rode through. Through the big park on the other side with tons of people cooking out and partying. I keep following the trail a cinder path about a car wide.

Knowing basically where home is I kept turning right at any fork.

I came on this...



Pretty cool. That structure in the distance is labeled and "observation tower".



I keep riding, and turning right and eventually I came to this soccer field, one our road which is only about a half mile from our house.

Kind of a cool adventure.

Pretty cool

nice, loves me some back yard adventures!

Pine Hill Park:

Pine Hill is a blast
i assume it's pine hill outside of Rutland..

Pine Hill is killer! Slate Valley trails is also killing it to the southwest around Poultney... I'm excited to ride the Green Mountain Trails a bit north in Pittsfield sometime this fall

ADmiKe wrote

Any of you NJ guys going to the NJ MTB fest at Ringwood Sunday?  I may do a group ride there in the morning then head up and ride Sterling Forest full loop for the first time in the afternoon.

Great festival on Sunday, nice bumping into ADmike, shame we couldn't ride..Must have been 1000 people there.

billyymc wrote

The first one hit my rear wheel and it's leg went through my spokes. The second one simultaneously hit my buddy square in the body. All four of us went down, with the deer that was caught in my spokes crying out.

Similarly, live from Whistler:
https://nypost.com/video/mountain-bikers-dangerous-jump-nearly-hits-black-bear/

JasonWx wrote

Great festival on Sunday, nice bumping into ADmike, shame we couldn't ride..Must have been 1000 people there.

Hey it was good meeting you Sunday - great event and we had a nice group ride that turned out to be 3hrs vs the quoted 1.5-2.  We were pretty beat after that, as Ringwood had more than a few rock gardens...lived up to what I ha heard about the place but we hit some nice trails...Crossover (White?) was pretty sweet.  We’ll have to meet up at Sterling Forest for a ride as we didn’t make it there Sunday. Prob a good choice to bail on that after 13.1 miles at Ringwood.

Found this random pic of myself on the mtbnj forum, apparently someone on our group ride was taking pics:

The White trail is my rip..
we ride  the fire road to the top..Takes about 25 to 30 mins to climb..
Sterling is a different type of ride...great but different..

JasonWx wrote

The White trail is my rip..
we ride  the fire road to the top..Takes about 25 to 30 mins to climb..
Sterling is a different type of ride...great but different..

Yeh we took a bunch of fire roads to get to it - first 30 mins of the group ride was all fire roads I was thinking to myself I hope this isn't the whole ride haha.

Can you elaborate on the "different" Ringwood vs Sterling comparison you mentioned?