Nass - 7/4/10

Met up with Woodcore, o3jeff, mlegg, and a dude named Jason for a ride out of the soccer fields this moring. It didn't take long for the humidity to make itself know today. None the less we started out with a decent pace on the typical start from the fields. I quickly learned that the dude named Jason was a rocket ship on his rigid 29er. After crossing Punch Brook we hit up a newly finished trail before getting to GW Tpke. This new trail, named the Boneyard, was pretty nice despite the spongy newness to it. It included a cool little roller and some nice flowing lines, best of all it dumps out on GW Tpke right across from where the new singletrack starts on the other side of the road towards Stone. On the other side of the newer ST we elected to skip Pine Nuts in favor of a rather grueling jeep road climb up towards the chimney on Stone Rd. Once there Mlegg decided to head back, as did Jason. Before they departed we ended up having a somewhat lengthy discussion on the current state of Nass before heading on our separate ways. Woodcore, Jeff, and I headed over by the dirt jumps and out to Stone, where we headed up to hit the seldomly used trail the connects to the stunt trail just below the lowest ladder-rock-ladder. Then up the stunt trail>over to the lollipop>counter-clockwise on the lolli>down to the lower dentist twisties>up over to the northside loop>over to the bottom of the hobo drop trail. From there we parted ways with Jeff, who had to leave the area by 12 due to an apparent prior commitment (sorry if we made you late Jeff, I didn't realize you were on a schedule, otherwise we wouldn't have dilly dallied so much). From there Jon and I headed up the Hobo drop were I finally made it up the steep hill up to the top of the drop for the first time. Then we went up the jeep climb to the start of the rock garden where Jon was planning on riding around (due to a bad spill just a bit earlier), but stupid me just had to attempt it anyway, I mean I've been doing pretty well through there lately so why not? Anyway Jon ended up following me through what turned out to be amateur hour and dab central, the only thing that was missing from my pathetic display was actually falling off my bike and breaking something. From there we continued out on the blue trail and crossed the street to pick up the Rob Halford back to the car.

We ended up with somewhere around 10 miles (if Jon told me the exact amount I don't remember). I was pretty exhausted and soaked with sweat when we got back to the cars, I had nearly went through all 70 ounces of water I had with me! But it was a good ride, Stone really makes you work for those miles! It was also great to get down into the lower dentist twisties for the first time this year, I usually avoid the area since it tends to stay wet, but today it was perfectly dry, the driest I've seen! It's a fun section I'm going to have to make sure to include it in more rides, plus the tree crossing built up with the stones (some of which are kinda loose) at the beginning is fun!

Great ride today guys! Nice to meet Jason, who I've heard good things about, and to see Mlegg again. Sorry you guys couldn't stick around for the whole ride. Woodcore and Jeff, it was a pleasure as always!

(I hope the above makes sense, I just kinda rambled on and now I'm way too tired to even re-read it, let alone try to make it make any sense.. :lol

Almost every TR I read about Nass seems to mention a different 'New' trail. It's seems like a shit load of new trails have sprung up there. When does someone say enough is enough, time to maintain / fix the existing trails instead of just making new ones. I know it's not my riding spot, but from an outsiders point of view it seems out of control.

Btw...please don't take this as me preaching at you. I'm just ranting

MR. evil said:

Almost every TR I read about Nass seems to mention a different 'New' trail. It's seems like a shit load of new trails have sprung up there. When does someone say enough is enough, time to maintain / fix the existing trails instead of just making new ones. I know it's not my riding spot, but from an outsiders point of view it seems out of control.

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Almost all the new trails cut out sections of road or jeep trails, connect two previously unconnected areas, or are reroutes around areas that are beat (whether that's from over-use, poor initial design, or whatever). Also some of the trails are new-to-me trails, not necessarily newly built trails. The existing trails have also seen a ton of work in the last year, I can't think of any sections that need any significant work. Many are rolling better than I've seen them since I started riding Nass.

On another note sometimes I call a trail a 'new trail' if I just don't know the name of it, even if I've ridden it several times and thus written about it several times. That doesn't mean that it's an additional new trail every time I write about it. Even the new trail, Boneyard, despite that it just got finished I had ridden most of it a while back and probably posted about it already...

It seems pretty silly to me for you to be passing judgment on the goings on at Nass if you haven't really been riding there recently, because it's quite good there right now.

BTW - please don't take this as me preaching back at you, just defending my home turf. There's a lot of people working hard on this area and it shows.

MR. evil said:

Almost every TR I read about Nass seems to mention a different 'New' trail. It's seems like a shit load of new trails have sprung up there. When does someone say enough is enough, time to maintain / fix the existing trails instead of just making new ones. I know it's not my riding spot, but from an outsiders point of view it seems out of control.

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Far from out of control Tim, in fact things are really shaping up nicely in the woods of Burlington, CT. Many of the existing trails that your familiar with have seen an incredible amount of maintenance and combined with the new trails that have sprung up this year, have really open up some super fun loops to ride! Granted most of the new stuff is a XC regardless, new rollers, skinnies and stunts continue to pop up almost every day!

I've spent a ton of time up in the woods of Burlington of late and have a good feel on things, regardless anytime your up for a tour of the Burlington woods just ask and I'll be more than happy to show you around....

Despite my two crashes definitely enjoyed todays ride for sure. Great to ride down into the deepest depths of the Dentist Twisties today,way more technical than I remember and driest I've ever seen it!

The heat and humidity was tough but bearable during the ride none the less sucked a full 70 once bladder of water in just over two hours...

Can't wait to get back out there and do it again tomorrow!


Some video from today ....

That camera takes some good video! Thanks for posting. That rock formation sure looked a bit more hairy from the bike then it does on video.

I made it back to the cars by about 5 of 12 after taking that new trail out! Found my way without too much trouble.

I ended up with 9.91(after riding up to the stone jail and back down to make sure I selected the right gate entrance!) so you two should have closer to 11+.

o3jeff said:

I made it back to the cars by about 5 of 12 after taking that new trail out! Found my way without too much trouble.

I ended up with 9.91(after riding up to the stone jail and back down to make sure I selected the right gate entrance!) so you two should have closer to 11+.

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Think it was around 10.5 miles.

Jason is "SUPER FAST"!! The second he showed up to a ride with his fully rigid 29er, set up with ONLY a 34 tooth ring in the front, I knew I was going to be chasing him from the get go.

I rode the other side yesterday with Mountainman and his buddy...did about 12.5. We seemed to get out of the woods just before it started feeling really opressive from the humidity.

As far as Tim's comments on what seems to be "the new trail" phenomenon at Nass. Many of us are in alignment with your opinion and feel that it should be maintenance and revitalizing first and foremost...and that is primarily what's going on. Much of what seems to be new is actually old stuff being re-opened or extended to serve the network better...which the guys kind of said already, so I guess I am being redundant...any totally brand new stuff is kind of rare, but is mostly serving the purpose of avoiding fire road or providing a better 2 way route to get to common areas of the network. One new single track trail gets you from the Cemetery to the Kitchen bypass W/O having to ride the 3 lane highway wide blue trail that we used to have to take. Another new trail adds another dimension to Nass and appeases to the more free ride oriented crowd but also blends in some very nice XC style single track. Other than those two trails there is "nothing" really new at Nass...and I'd question whether one of them is really new in concept since it was a work in progress for almost 2 years.