Took an exploratory ride this afternoon over in the Upper Paugussett State Forest and walked away with an exhilarating ride in many aspects. Found the parking area without a problem and started riding trying to follow the GPS track I had downloaded from Crankfire.
It starts on a smooth forest road and wanders for 3/4 of mile before switching over to ST. Here's where the fun started! The trail was fun at first but after crossing a wet area it headed into a crazy steep downhill and basically dove straight down towards the lake. The rocks and roots being wet made for a dicey decent to say the least. It got to one point that I dismounted and walked for safety concerns.
Upon arriving down by the edge of the lake I concluded that I had missed the MTB trails and was now on the Blue trail. This trail although partially ridable was extremely greasy but after a few minutes of one the bike, off the bike, on the bike, etc I was at the end of the lake and started back up a loose gravel fire road. This was a pretty good sustained climb and I was ready to write off this area when I found the Upper Gussy trail.
Turns out this is the recently created multi use trail built by the CT chapter of the NEMBA and wow did it roll fun. http://uppergussy.blogspot.com/ Plenty of tight switchbacks and rolling terrain made this a fun ride back towards the car. A amazingly well built trail, the layout and construction techniques are top notch for sure. Kudos to the trail builders.
Anyway I'll be back to ride these trails again and hopefully search out some additional ST that I know is lurking out there in the forest.
Here's the track info.
http://crankfire.com/trails/data.php?dataid=562
http://crankfire.com/map/index.php?tid=47&t=562&w=0
It starts on a smooth forest road and wanders for 3/4 of mile before switching over to ST. Here's where the fun started! The trail was fun at first but after crossing a wet area it headed into a crazy steep downhill and basically dove straight down towards the lake. The rocks and roots being wet made for a dicey decent to say the least. It got to one point that I dismounted and walked for safety concerns.
Upon arriving down by the edge of the lake I concluded that I had missed the MTB trails and was now on the Blue trail. This trail although partially ridable was extremely greasy but after a few minutes of one the bike, off the bike, on the bike, etc I was at the end of the lake and started back up a loose gravel fire road. This was a pretty good sustained climb and I was ready to write off this area when I found the Upper Gussy trail.
Turns out this is the recently created multi use trail built by the CT chapter of the NEMBA and wow did it roll fun. http://uppergussy.blogspot.com/ Plenty of tight switchbacks and rolling terrain made this a fun ride back towards the car. A amazingly well built trail, the layout and construction techniques are top notch for sure. Kudos to the trail builders.
Anyway I'll be back to ride these trails again and hopefully search out some additional ST that I know is lurking out there in the forest.
Here's the track info.
http://crankfire.com/trails/data.php?dataid=562
http://crankfire.com/map/index.php?tid=47&t=562&w=0
