Snow Biking 2012

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I haven't really minded the lack of snow this winter and the lack of having to remove it from my driveway. Last weekend we did have a little taste of winter. The 2 inches of snow was nothing more than a minor annoyance but it did make the landscape look nicer.

Even before the snow stopped falling I got an email from Chris to go snow biking. Riding around the woods and over logs is tough enough when the ground is clear and dry. Add snow and ice and mountain biking becomes even more challenging but is also a whole lot of fun.

Unfortunately I couldn't make it out with Chris and Mike because snow biking is fun but it is even better when your friends are laughing at you as you fall on your ass. Last year my second mountain bike ride was snow biking with Chris and Mike and although I came away with some bruises it was one of my favorite rides of the year.

With the lack of snowfall this year I wanted to make sure I got out in the snow since this may be my only opportunity this year. 2-4 inches of snow is perfect for snow biking any deeper and its almost impossible to ride through. Riding on snow is not easy because you have a lot less traction so as I started out of the Edinburg parking lot at MCP I ask questioned my ability and wondered if this was going to be as fun as I remembered.

After a few hundred yards I adjusted to the conditions and started to relax and enjoy it. I still am not very good a mountain biking but I did manage to hop over a few logs and not have any major falls. Snow makes everything look better especially the small creeks in MCP park so I made sure I stopped to took a few pictures. I wasn't the only insane person out in the ice and snow I ran across a number of people walking their does and even a couple of people doing some cross country skiing. I was only out for over an hour but it was enough to reaffirm the joy of biking in the snow.

Winter has been very warm and snow free which has made it easy to keep riding on the road but I hope we get a few more small storms this year because I would like to do a little more snow biking this year.

It was suppose to be a towpath ride

This winter has been a lot nicer than the last few. Last year at this time there was over a foot of snow on the ground. This year has been much warmer and there hasn't been a hint of snow yet. That was until this past Friday when the temperatures dipped to the low 20s and we got a quick snow squall. This meant that I wouldn't be going out on the road on the weekend but instead I would head to the canal towpath with the mountain bike

Its much easier keeping warm on a mountain bike since you are in usually in the woods away from the wind and working a little harder making your way over the obstacles. Last year even at 25 degrees in the snow I was warm.

The plan for Saturday was to head up the towpath from Kingston to Amwell and back. An easy ride just to get out for a couple of hours. I was joined by Chris and Mike. As we headed up the towpath we had it mostly to ourselves and only encountered a few other walkers and runners. After we passed Griggstown Mike had to turn back and head back home but Chris and I decided to keep going.

When we got to Blackwell Mills Chris mentioned that there was another trail Six Mile Run that he wanted to check out. I hadn't hear of this area before so I didn't know much about it but according to Chris it had a couple of nice single track trails but he thought it would be too flooded to try. Since we were here he wanted to check out the first part anyway.

I hadn't planned on doing any real mountain bike riding but I figured we'd go a little ways the turn around and head back down the towpath. As it turned out the trail was in better shape than expected. It was muddy in a few spots but because of the cold temperatures most of it was hard and easily ridable. What started out as a quick ride through some single track keep going and going and before long we were 3 miles into the trail.

Chris has been on most of the trails and usually has some idea of where he is going although he usually rides first and worries about where he is after the fact. We ended up following the blue trail all the way to South Middlebush Road. The trail had a interesting mix of terrain and features. Some of the trails were in open fields others through the woods. The trail was easy to follow and had some interesting bridges over and around some of the rivers that flowed through the area. Some of the bridges like the one shown in the photo must have been damaged a little by the hurricane we had it August. Because of the tilt of the bridge Chris almost fell into the river while walking across it.

For the first part of the ride I was able to keep up with Chris although I know he was taking it easy on me. When we hit South Middlebush Road I was getting tired so I wanted to find a take a shorter route back. We didn't have a map so we took our best guess and eventually found our way back to a road that let us to the canal although it was harder to keep up with Chris since he was much better at getting around the twisting trail and up some of the muddier hills.

By this time we had found enough mud so that both us and the bikes were encrusted in mud. In fact I had to kick my front derailleur a few times to get it to shift because all of the mud had glued it into low gear. The ride back down the road and towpath helped clear some of the mud.

What started out as an easy towpath ride turned into a surprise muddy single track ride so I was really beat when I got back to the car. I also felt like pigpen as I was cleaning the mud off myself and bike. Although this wasn't the ride I planned I'm glad we made the detour into 6 mile run because I now have another place to go when the weather gets cold.