Mountain, Cross and Shuffleboard Nats

[pooriggy]

@pixychick Ellen, do you or Art know a good loop for beginners at Ringwood? We are leading the Schilling ride Sunday and am looking to put together about 1.5 hrs of pedaling. I'm thinking about heading over toward Cooper Union trail, given its proximity to event. I don't know the trails over that way.
What do you recommend, do you have a Garmin file for an easier loop?

 

[pixychick]

I do not have any garmin files for Cooper Union area other than the new route over towards Sterling. I am assuming you are referring to the social and quad trails across Morris Rd. I know some of those have less rocks but I have not been over there in years so not sure how overgrown they are. The fest website has several recommended routes to use for all levels. The problem with Ringwood is that a beginner trail at Ringwood may be intermediate at another park. Not sure how beginner you want but we just did a bunch of tune ups on the race course.

 

[pixychick]

So although there have been 1 or 2 complaints about dumbing down the trails at Ringwood, our most common feedback is to make more smooth, flow trails and to make more beginner friendly trails. The problem I see is Ringwood is Ringwood and no matter how hard you try to remove rocks, they seem to come back eventually. Our efforts are usually to try and work with the rocks and design trails that flow in a way that only locals understand. It is Ringwood Flow.

We have had many people ask if we could make a Sidewinder style trail. Art has been keeping his eyes open for an ideal place where we could convert and old road or extracting trace to a modified sidewinder type trail. .... Alligator. Not sure if it quite meets the requests, but it should be a bit more fun riding than the old fall line piece of crap extracting road. So in addition to crossover reroute, we have repurposed the old extraction road by the alligator ( big Machine ). Picture below shows how it crosses the old trail/road. It should add some fun to heading west out of Ringwood towards Sterling or Ringwood Manor. Until Crossover is complete, you will have to return on the same trail or old trace bed. We left the line up the center.

 

[pixychick]

Now that the festival is done, I am taking a few days to catch my breath and gather some thoughts. In the meantime, I am enjoying the change of seasons. Although the leaves are just starting to turn, little things remind me that fall is here. My Sedum plant has turned a beautiful wine color. Wood ducks are courting daily. Hummingbirds left almost two weeks ago My HB feeders are still up for any late migrators, but they will come down soon. No doubt that the season is changing.

 

[Norm]

Bonus points for use of "piece of crap" in text above. Bravo!

 

[pixychick]

Bonus points for use of "piece of crap" in text above. Bravo!

Great to hear people have been enjoying. Art is back there today tamping out any ruts on the soft spots. The rain this year has been overwhelming! I have never seen Ringwood this wet.

 

[Magic]

Great to hear people have been enjoying. Art is back there today tamping out any ruts on the soft spots. The rain this year has been overwhelming! I have never seen Ringwood this wet.

Thanks for the work! Mini-sidewinder down was great.

 

[pixychick]

I will start with Sterling: What has been happening over at Sterling has been more than fantastic!

To lay out some history that may not have been written in the NYNJTC article, getting bikes into Sterling has been a process occurring over several decades. It started with Art, Vitti and Norm A participating in a trail assessment study group. The whole process did not start out well, and things stood still for a very long time. Art actually gave up, but Michael Vitti was instrumental keeping open communications in Albany and never gave up. If there is a lesson to be learned: no matter how passionate, advocates can not afford to let that passion cause them to give up.

So to cut to 2018, NYNJTC has opened their mission statement to "trail advocacy", not just hiking. It seems minor, but it is a step in the right direction in becoming more inclusive. They are using grant money paid crews and a professional trail builder to manage building a multiuser trail system in Sterling. Art and I are not only members, but hold Supervisor positions for Ringwood State Park within the NYNJTC. We attended our first regional council meeting 2 weeks ago. We actually were asked to give a presentation on the Crossover Trail reroute. Things are looking positive. I really wanted to be at the grand opening, but being the same day as the festival made that impossible. Thanks to all the mountain bikers that attended in support of the bike community.

Back to the festival: Thanks to all those that volunteered to help make the festival happen. I am sorry that the wet year made for a messy demo loop. We are working on improving the demo loop for next year. Only so much we can do with limited trail building volunteers. Hopefully the fest will bring some more volunteers for next year! Not just at Ringwood, but around the state.

 

[pixychick]

There seemed to be a ton of people at the Festival. I do not have any numbers yet, but several demo trucks commented on this being their best ever demo event. I know there was concern going in about ways to bring more demos to more people. At Blue Mt quite a few people took advantage and kept bikes out too long and many people never got to test bikes. So having a demo loop with a limited time frame was one way to try and maximize the number of people on any given bike. Does this work for the bike tester? Not sure. I know I need more than 30 minutes.

As far as the demo loop: I would love to do some reroutes on the end of the demo loop. Unfortunately, we can not just build more trails. We can only re-route. If the re-routes are more than 70 feet from the old trail, we need a full proposal to go through Trenton. Once the Crossover is complete, we will have another loop option west of Shepherds Lake Rd. So chances are that we can have 2-3 short loops possible for next year. Ideally, I would like to see some love going back into some of the old beat to crap trails in Ringwood. However, we still have 1/2 mile section of new Crossover to build for next year. That section will go from the Lot A trail down to the causeway. So hoping to expand demo loops for next year.

I would like to send out a big thanks to @Bleeder and Mrs VDub for taking care of all the behind the scenes stuff for the fest. It could not have been done without you!

 

[JDurk]

I'm a first time festival attendee and first time Ringwood rider. Got a chance to ride with you on Sat. from Ringwood to Sterling. What an awesome trail system. Thank Art for the tour. Camped Sat night. As for demos, I got to ride some Cannondales. All the other brands were very busy, so skipped them and enjoyed the trails riding my bike.

 

[pixychick]

There is no doubt that all this rain is starting to get to me. Yesterday's sunshine was so awesome! While the fall foliage may not appear to be very good when you look out over the hills of the NY/NJ boarder near Ringwood, the trails are covered with a blanket of yellow and brown leaves. It was nice to ride the golden carpet. I do appreciate the changing of the seasons in these parts. Going from your house to your car to your office and back, may make the seasons seem insignificant. As a mountain biker I can not help but notice every little detail of the seasons while I am out in the woods.

A few days back, on the last warm, humid day that was not raining, Art and I came across 2 rattlers in 2 separate places in the trail at Sterling. They were both heading east, perhaps towards their den for winter. They were not moving very fast even though it was quite warm that day. Hikers reported 2 more rattlers in a different location, so they were out in numbers that day. The trails at Sterling are still quite wet and soft in spots. Particularly the new stuff. It may need a a few extra days to dry out until it is packed in. Most of the trail crew are done for the season, so progress will slow a bit. Repair and finish work is still going with a minimal crew.

 

[pixychick]

Trail building: We have a full approval on the Crossover re-route, 3/4 of it is done, and 50 inches of rain has left the last 1/2 mile to be built a disaster. As much as I have been bummed to have so much rain this year, it has brought this to our attention before we wasted time building something that would never work. I actually noticed the lack of leaves and soil when scouting 2 years ago. I believed the route was a drainage field, but Art kept saying I was over reacting and it was fine. He went back to clear the corridor a week ago and came back deflated.

We all make mistakes when choosing, and it is our habit to revisit and revise. Extreme weather can change a lot. Better to know before spending too much time on a trail that will fail quickly and continuously. So Art and I have revisited several times this week, and not only found a solution for the lower portion, but a much better trail and easier build. The original portion would require 2 bridges. The new section would not need any. That worked out well, and we should be good to start building next year.

However, the upper section is a mess and not much high ground anywhere. Not sure what we will do here, but there may be the need for bridging, armoring and more drains. We will most likely tweak the trail closer to the road so that the water is concentrated in channels that we can bridge. Originally we wanted to get away from the road, but the water spreads all over until there is water running down everywhere. This section may need some more planning next year. There were some really great mushroom and moss out there.

There are about 21 days until our projected departure for Arizona. I am really looking forward to getting out there.

 

[pixychick]

Art and I went back to RW this afternoon and explored another possibility for our upper section of the re-route, and I think we found a usable situation. It is not trouble free, but the lesser of wet crap. This newer route utilizes 200 ft of the sewer line and a 50 ft or so are flooded due to an overflowing drainage ditch. We will probably need to rework and clean the ditch to keep water off the existing trail on the sewer line. All the rest of the new route seems to be on solid ground and is very close to our original route. No guarantees, but we are hoping this revised route will work.

Today was a triple header. I walked, rode and scouted reroutes on foot. I have been walking 30-40 minutes most mornings that are not pouring rain. I ride every other day, weather permitting, and help Art working maybe 1-2 days a week. If we are scouting, I may go out more often, because 2 trained eyes are always better than 1. I can't say that I have been feeling great on the bike, but this time of year is always a wind down for me. Normally I may try to squeeze in as much tech rocks as I can before I head out of town, but all this rain has taken the wind out of my sails. I am already looking for a change, so a visit to the desert is feeling due.

 

[pixychick]

I ran into this little garter snake on my morning walk last week. I am sure this was it's last adventure for the season as it has gotten pretty cold for snakes, and me too. I actually wore winter shoes and tights on Friday. I rode at Sterling and it was dry, finally. I had been avoiding the east half of the loop because of rain and wet trails. Friday things were looking real dry so we decided to do the whole loop counterclockwise. Check out the size of the rock that Erik moved. Even after the trail crews left for the season, work is happening. There were a few trouble spots that developed during the wet year, and now they are getting addressed. Erik really is a master at trail building and I am always amazed with the detail and quality of the trails he builds. I learn about trail building just from riding them. Anyway, I had a great ride and felt pretty good on the bike.

I have been trying to make the most of the cold weather and lack of sunshine by engaging in some extra indoor cooking. This week I made: tortilla soup, butternut squash soup, and pesto. I was always under the impression that pesto had to have garlic. I have issues sleeping after eating garlic, so I never made or ate pesto. All the other ingredients sound awesome, but I was afraid to eat lots of raw garlic. I saw a cooking documentary, and watched this little itallian woman make pesto by hand grinding and using prime local ingredients and NO garlic. The flavor came from the best olive oil and cheeses and lots of salt. The pesto came out good but very subtle. I can see why someone added garlic at some point in history. Whether it is made with or without the garlic, great ingredients made great pesto. I am looking forward to planting basil in Az soon! I am a little bummed to report that our departure date has been put on hold because I needed some extra medical diagnostic stuff. I am hoping I can get the ok to leave shortly.

 

[pooriggy]

Check out the size of the rock that Erik moved.

Do they have a machine to move that or do they leverage it into place with muscle?

 

[pixychick]

Do they have a machine to move that or do they leverage it into place with muscle?

Grip hoist. They tie off to a tree or larger rock and ratchet into place. It often takes a few ties to get it exactly where they want.

 

[pixychick]

Two ultrasounds, an MRI, a Biopsy and Ca-125 later and I am cleared to leave for AZ with a stable bill of health. I will be honest, when the doctor said he was sending me for a CA-125, I got super worried, as that is the marker used to monitor ovarian cancer. I feel like I can breathe again after hearing todays results and I am super stoked to be heading out to AZ next week to enjoy some sunshine and ride my bike.

Trying to keep busy and not dwell on worrying this past week led me to some super outdoor activities in between tests. I was able to get out to mooch for a hike with pedals and her new pup. The weather was sunny and warm. It was so nice that when I got home, I got on my bike and went for a ride too. I normally do not do stupid over training things like that, but it was just too nice out and these days are winding down. I got out for rides, took some pictures, worked at the boy scout camp with palisades and basically enjoyed the outdoors here in NJ/NY.

Pix of the pesto pasta from last week:

 

[pixychick]

We usually stop in western NC to visit with Art's mom, but since we just saw her in May, we opted to drive mid country and try to hit Bentonville for a mid trip ride. There was a small window of dry weather and we managed to get into Bentonville at 4pm for a short spin before dark. Rain was expected by 11 am the next morning. During our dinner that night Bikin Ben noticed our car outside and found us. It was not planned, but we were able to hook up for a tour early the next morning before rain came in. Bentonville is a cool bike friendly town, and we enjoyed our rides.

The western part of our country is very diverse and I was looking to try a slightly different route. We stayed on I40 to Santa Rosa NM and took the road to Alamogordo. The drive from Alamogordo to Las Cruces was beautiful. Just like every time before, when we get close to the Arizona boarder, the sun comes out and the temps go up to 60. We will not see any saguaro until Vail. It is always so nice to be back. Our yard was very overgrown and a gazillion spiders took over the house, but still always good to be back.

 

[Norm]

I like this. I'm also wearing a wool cap inside today.

Enjoy!

 

[pixychick]

I have been out here in Tucson for over a week now. The gardens are finally weeded, and the spiders haven been evicted from the house. Weather has been very nice and the dessert is quite green right now from above normal amounts of rain out here. Art spent most of the last week resting and moping around the house with a bad cold. He is finally feeling up to riding and working. Today we went to the dump! Going to the dump is always a satisfying event for some reason. The truck was actually filled to the top with branches and garden weeds. That should give an idea of how much weeding I did.

Our friend Al is parking his RV in our driveway for a bit, so Art has a riding buddy. Today we got up off the 50 to some of the higher terrain for some scenic and more technical riding. The neighbors donkeys have been out and actually came over to greet me. They used to run away, but their donkey whispering trainer must be having an affect on their people socializing. Apparently the neighbor rescued them from the wild and then found out that they live for 50 years and they would outlive him. He hired a trainer to make them easier to manage for future owners. If you would like 7 cute donkeys, they are available in the near future.