The Last Mountain Bike Ride of Winter 2009

This Sunday was the last weekend ride of winter 2009. All and all it had been a pretty mild winter. New Jersey only experienced a few snow storms none of which lived up to the hype of the weather forecasts. For most of our winter riding we headed down south to Allaire State Park and Hartshorne Woods. We did however do a couple of rides at Ringwood State Park and Some trails off the top of Skyline Drive. For this Sunday’s ride however we headed up to Peekskill NY. About 15 minutes past the Bear Mountain Bridge is Blue Mountain a mix of flowing singletrack, technical terrain, tricky climbs, and some adrenaline releasing downhills. In short Blue offers some of the best riding in the area.

There was a definite chill in the air at the start of the ride and at the last minute I decided to add an extra layer. We started our ride by going up a trail appropriately called Ned’s Left Lung. I however, needed both my lungs to get up this beast of a climb. This climb was made all the more difficult due to the dirt being especially soft and loamy. Not quite muddy, but a quality that occurs when the snow slowly melts and the dirt can absorb the moisture but doesn’t have time to dry out.
After we crested the top of the "Ned's Lung" it was time to peel off that extra layer. We rode down the fireroad a bit then turned onto the singletrack. Blue Mountain has some of the best singletrack in the tri-state. Technical trails like monster which twist and turn and go over large rock spines. Other trails like the lower stinger are fast and flowing with some short steep climbs. We did not ride “My favorite Trail” or Chewbacca today but those are also a lot of fun. The park is pretty big at 1,500-acres. Our ride was around three hours. We had two flats and a crash, that to witness was scary as hell. I watched Ian go down a cliff face kamikaze style (no brakes) he was way off the back of the bike and when he transitioned and the front end got away from him. He slammed into a tree with his left side taking most of the abuse. Ian was a trooper though and after a few minutes was back on his bike riding strong. As we rode, the day warmed up. The grey cloud cover from earlier had eventually yielded to bright spring sun.
We finished the ride by taking another go at Ned’s Lung then part of Monster finishing on the lower stinger. After the ride we had lunch at the Firehouse Pub on Welcher Ave. A decent place for a a sandwich and drink.

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GPS map from ride:

Blue Mountain