2019 Gravity Season

Soundguy

#SenditGuy
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Honestly, I have often wondered that. As far as I can tell, Gee is the only Red Bull athlete at the event. While Hardline is definitely a cool event, the lack of transparency over who is selected to race does detract from the event as a legitimate race rather than a show. Conversely, the US Open is... well... "open" which was always the point. Register and try to make the qualification cut - do so and you get to race for the $$$. This is compared to a World Cup event where you generally need a certain number of UCI points to even register.
I think you said it best with “is this a race rather than a show..” because Yoann Berreli got invited I think two years ago and he had no business riding that course, and he was very humble about it. I don’t think he ever cleared the huge car jump...but yet they invite him for his online following maybe?
 

Ian F

Well-Known Member
I was there yesterday with boy wonder, holy break bumps, tis the season though. Looking at a possible getaway either thunder or highland this weekend for him and i.

I've been at Highland the last couple of weekends (advantage of being 1.25 hrs away). I've heard the traffic dies down a bit, but so far that hasn't been the case. Figure on about a 3:1 wait/lift to riding time ratio. Although one positive from that is since everyone is down at the bottom in the lift line, the actual trails are pretty empty and you can do a run feeling like you have the whole mtn to yourself. ...at least until you get back to the bottom. Sometimes the singles line moves faster, but it can be a crap shoot.

Thunder seems a little less crowded, although most of the time I've been there has been on the occasional Friday afternoon when I'll stop there on my way home to PA from NH for a couple of days. I'm actually planning to be there this Friday.
 

Juggernaut

Master of the Metaphor
If you spent most of your time on blues and had to choose between Mtn Creek or Blue Mtn, which would you buy a season pass to?

Don’t say Thunder Ian. ;)
 

Ian F

Well-Known Member
Given equal distances to get to them, I'd probably go with Creek as well, although I do prefer Blue in some ways. But I haven't ridden there in quite awhile and I don't know what the maintenance has been like. The last time I rode there, it seemed like most trails were starting to suffer.

Edit: read the post again - you said blue trails. Blue is pretty much ALL blue trails - even their black trails are like blue trails nearly anywhere else. I would argue the Empire jump line trail is the only true "black" trail on the mtn. The food at the Slopestyle Pub is better, IMO, and the convenience of being able to ride-in and ride-out is cool. And you get to enjoy the fun stares from regular patrons wondering why you are wearing armor, moto gear and have a full-face helmet.

And as much as I do like Thunder, if I'm still in NH next year (unlikely) I'll get a pass to Highland again, partly because it's half the drive time away. If I'm home in PA, I'll probably get a pass to Blue since it's closer to my house and especially work if I want to ride on Friday.
 
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mattybfat

The Opinion Police
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Given equal distances to get to them, I'd probably go with Creek as well, although I do prefer Blue in some ways. But I haven't ridden there in quite awhile and I don't know what the maintenance has been like. The last time I rode there, it seemed like most trails were starting to suffer.

And as much as I do like Thunder, if I'm still in NH next year (unlikely) I'll get a pass to Highland again, partly because it's half the drive time away.
So I have seen loon pop up on highlands IG page. They are helping get them off the ground? Would be cool, more parks more better...
 

oobaa47

Well-Known Member
Another thing to consider, is Creek has turned a lot of their single black diamond trails into blues the past year......bushwhack and waterboy come to mind..... They removed a lot of the rocks on those trails.... I'm sure there are others, but those are the first two I can think of.....
 

Ian F

Well-Known Member
So I have seen loon pop up on highlands IG page. They are helping get them off the ground? Would be cool, more parks more better...

I've seen that as well, although I haven't been there yet (while I drive past Loon to get to Kingdom, it's still over 2 hrs from Portsmouth). My understanding is this year is "phase 1" and next year they will start building some more trails. My guess/hunch is Highland is helping them to possibly draw away some of the Canadians and reduce some of the rider-load at Highland. Not that anyone has anything against them, but the number of riders at Highland on a busy weekend can make you question why you spent $54 for a lift ticket.

I had heard about Creek converting some of the black trails into blues, but I haven't ridden there yet this year. One of my long comments about Creek was the mtn lacked decent blue trails (something Highland could be accused of as well).
 

mattybfat

The Opinion Police
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Hasn't highland made enough dough to replace that ancient chair lift. It is really holding the park back.
Signed a spoiled creek user.
 

Juggernaut

Master of the Metaphor
I kinda liked the rickety lift.... it brought me back to skiing as a kid. Before the lawyers took the thrillz outa doing stupid stuff. ?

It does limit the rider traffic on the trail because there’s a built in buffer. The line doe.:(
 

Ian F

Well-Known Member
You'd think so, but who knows. The gondola at Creek is definitely one of the best things about the place - I ripped into Seth Bike Hacks when he gave the lift a 4/10 rating when he reviewed the park on his channel. Dude doesn't know what he's talking about there. The gondola has two benefits - incredible up-mountain capacity and minimal employee requirements - it doesn't need a rotating staff to unload bikes at the top like mtns with Gravity Logic trays do, thus greatly reducing operating expenses.

But with Highland, the slow lift is a curse and a blessing - as I mentioned earlier, it limits the number of riders on the trails at any one time. One thing to remember about Highland is it's not a very big mountain. Even my slow ass can get down Hellion (which is actually one of the longer trails on the mountain) in a bit over 4 min.
 

Ian F

Well-Known Member
I kinda liked the rickety lift.... it brought me back to skiing as a kid. Before the lawyers took the thrillz outa doing stupid stuff. ?

It does limit the rider traffic on the trail because there’s a built in buffer. The line doe.:(

Try skiing at Plattekill. When it has good, natural snow. It's awesome and they have a very loose off-piste policy if you like to ski trees. However, they can't groom worth a damn, so if they get hit with rain or ice, the mtn is fucked.
 

Juggernaut

Master of the Metaphor
How are the lips on the jumps on the green/Blues at Blue? The one thing I really hate about Creek are the lips on the baby jumps. Why?!?!? Friggen ego trip is green trail . The whole stupid table top is like 5 feet long. I keep scrubbing all my speed because I don’t want to miss the backside. Why do I need such a steep take off for that? Breakout I get (I also love btw) how am I going to stop sucking if I don’t trust the features? By contrast, I could tell right away that I could let go and trust everything at Highland. Still only blues and greens though.... cuz I suck.
 

Ian F

Well-Known Member
Unless there has been some major rework, there aren't really many jumps on the trails at Blue. I recall one jump with a lip on it near the top (Upper King Tut, I think), but it doesn't kick you too much. I always brake-checked for it, but since I've been working on my jumping this year, it might not bother me as much now. Ewok Village is the main blue jump trail, and the jumps have a decent lip to them. Although I fear getting the speed just right may be a challenge since the tables aren't very long. I've flat-landed off one of them in the past.

I haven't ridden Ego Trip yet. Hopefully I'll be home more next year and can get to the local PA/NJ parks more often, not that I can complain about Highland being my local mtn.
 

Ryan.P

Well-Known Member
Team MTBNJ Halter's
My experience with blue this year was that the whole park was really beat up . Lack of maintenance was very apparent loose rocks everywhere, blown out corners everywhere and the hand full of jumps were pretty worn as well . Sure some of the jumps at creek are odd and a lil lippy but they get a tune up every so often. Creek also cleaned up some of the blues and single black rocky trails and reassigned some to blue , Jack, twist , waterboy are really fun right now and running fast
 

Juggernaut

Master of the Metaphor
Lots of good info. Ignoring the awful braking bump situation at creak late in the season, they have been making steady improvements.
 

Johnny Utah

Well-Known Member
How are the lips on the jumps on the green/Blues at Blue? The one thing I really hate about Creek are the lips on the baby jumps. Why?!?!? Friggen ego trip is green trail . The whole stupid table top is like 5 feet long. I keep scrubbing all my speed because I don’t want to miss the backside. Why do I need such a steep take off for that? Breakout I get (I also love btw) how am I going to stop sucking if I don’t trust the features? By contrast, I could tell right away that I could let go and trust everything at Highland. Still only blues and greens though.... cuz I suck.
Creek has a lot for everyone and you can get around fast. I think Blue is a better beginner mountain. There is a lot less traffic, the blues and green offer more fun IMO and like you mentioned the lips of the jumps are more beginner friendly vs. the poppier lips available at Creek. Creek is a great place to progress quickly, don't get me wrong, but the traffic, poor conditions by mid summer (chunder) and mediocre green and blue trails make me give the nod to blue.

Not to mention the possibility of having a shredder on your tail at Creek is much more common then blue.

I usually bought the pass at Creek because it was the easiest to get to, offered a lot in a small package and was right down the road from my buddies house.

But to be honest, I haven't been to any parks in the last two years. Either way you can't go wrong if you are looking for a fix.
 

gmb3

JORBA: Sourlands
JORBA.ORG
wow, saying Blue is more beginner friendly and has better blues/greens? I must be real out of the loop because the last time i rode Blue there were no beginner trails at all. That was many years ago at this point though, so glad to hear they've come along. I would assume Blue still has way fewer crowds though.
 
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