Met up with some friends from CT this morning at the Batchelor Street parking lot around 10am and headed out on the trails shortly thereafter. It was my first time riding these trails so I really had no expectations other than what I had heard from others. The first part of the ride was a bit on the treacherous side as the rains from yesterday had not yet dried up and the roots were absolutely deadly. That combined with the technical nature of the trails made for a very slow start. None the less we continued on and humidity eased, things began to dry up and the riding improved dramatically.
I believe we rode the outer perimeter in a counter clockwise direction hitting up Far East>Far South>Far Out>Pete's Wicked>Lizard King>Viper. Somewhere towards the end of Viper, Mtn-Fun blew her rear brake up and we needed to head back to the lot via the fire road.
Luckily the GT Bike demo truck was waiting for us in the lot with some demos to replace the broken bike. Although my bike wasn't broken I decided to take out a Sensor 29'er http://www.gtbicycles.com/bikes/mountain/endurance/2011-sensor-9r-pro-green to roll some additional miles. This ended up really making for a great ride. I had previously never rode a 29'er and wow was I impressed. I was climbing some of the technical ups like a mad man and rolling over the most technical sections with ease. I had so much fun I might need to buy a new bike. ;-)
Anyway in the afternoon we rolled back out the fire road and rode the following: T-Rex>Jacob's Ladder>Roller Coaster. Loved Roller Coaster, so much fun but also enjoyed the unrelenting gnar on Jacob's.
All in all really enjoyed the riding. It's unrelenting technical riding with plenty of climbing and very few buff flowy sections of trail. Didn't have the cycle computer with me in the afternoon but figure we rode around 12.5 miles and climbed over 2300 feet. Here's the GPS track. http://www.crankfire.com/bike/trail/71/batchelor_street__skinner_state_park__holyoke_range
Gotta get back and ride up there more often and perhaps even try the stuff on the other side out. I hear it's super buff.
I believe we rode the outer perimeter in a counter clockwise direction hitting up Far East>Far South>Far Out>Pete's Wicked>Lizard King>Viper. Somewhere towards the end of Viper, Mtn-Fun blew her rear brake up and we needed to head back to the lot via the fire road.
Luckily the GT Bike demo truck was waiting for us in the lot with some demos to replace the broken bike. Although my bike wasn't broken I decided to take out a Sensor 29'er http://www.gtbicycles.com/bikes/mountain/endurance/2011-sensor-9r-pro-green to roll some additional miles. This ended up really making for a great ride. I had previously never rode a 29'er and wow was I impressed. I was climbing some of the technical ups like a mad man and rolling over the most technical sections with ease. I had so much fun I might need to buy a new bike. ;-)
Anyway in the afternoon we rolled back out the fire road and rode the following: T-Rex>Jacob's Ladder>Roller Coaster. Loved Roller Coaster, so much fun but also enjoyed the unrelenting gnar on Jacob's.
All in all really enjoyed the riding. It's unrelenting technical riding with plenty of climbing and very few buff flowy sections of trail. Didn't have the cycle computer with me in the afternoon but figure we rode around 12.5 miles and climbed over 2300 feet. Here's the GPS track. http://www.crankfire.com/bike/trail/71/batchelor_street__skinner_state_park__holyoke_range
Gotta get back and ride up there more often and perhaps even try the stuff on the other side out. I hear it's super buff.
