Tuesday, March 8, 2011

vulture's knob

If somebody tried to convince me that there was a rad trail system next to this soda/cereal/cheese puff field, I'd tell them to dive into a pine tree.


But it's there, and it has descents like this:

The trail is that shale filled rut under the bridge. I rode it a couple times this summer, and it was sketch balls crazy. The waterfall running down the middle of it yesterday was too much. I walked.

The guys that build the trails at Vulture's Knob have done an awesome job. It's a small piece of land, but by twisting the trails around, they've squeezed at least 10 miles of single track out of the place.


There aren't any long climbs, but they're all hard. Steep, loose, and full of tight turns.


The dirt out there is thick clay with some loose pebbles worked in. Even with all the snow that just melted, the trails were nice and tacky. It felt so good to flow through the trees after a long winter.

A few of the downhill sections had turned into rivers. They were looking pretty eroded, so I took it slow to avoid making them any worse. Everywhere else the mud was concentrated into a few puddles.

I tried to ride up one of the bridges, and my rear tire broke free half way up. I got my feet down, but kept sliding backwards. Right before I went over the edge I was able to grab a railing.

I took it easy on the wood work after that. It was slippier than shampoo on a linoleum floor.
 

The Knob is a great example of how much can be done with a few acres of well managed ground.

I even found some dinner there:


Trial guide and directions

I'm going to Mohican today. If you have the means, I highly recommend dating someone who lives next to a bunch of good mountain biking. It's swell.

4 comments:

Steve said...

Vulture's Knob is awesome. They use to have a big race scene there. On warm race days....the promoter would pay racers for snakes ($10 per foot) if they caught one and brought it to the finish. Dudes would jump off their bikes, grab the snake, and throw it in there jersey and keep riding. Totally fun race environment.

Montana said...

Yeah it is a cool place. I'm for sure going to try do race a few times there this year.

Endo said...

which was in better riding condition...Mohican or the Knob? Probably gonna hit one or the other on Saturday.

Montana said...

Mohican was a lot drier