Jamesburg Park, Pigeon Swamp State Park & Ireland Brook County Park

Mountain Bike Mike

Mountain Bike Mike

Well-Known Member
This is the first installment of many to come in 2015

This Sunday, a bunch of us are getting together to do a recon MTB ride of Jamesburg Park / Pigeon Swamp State Park and Ireland Brook County Park. The trail systems within these parks are a great place to ride. My family, many close friends and I grew up riding dirtbikes in these trails and I am surprised that they are nowhere on the MTB radar. Growing up, we've found ways to connect all these parks by riding edges of farms, cutting through questionable areas, crossing roads, going underneath the NJ Turnpike. Most of it was illegal, but we were kids and couldn't care less as long as we didn't get caught. We would be out there all day and sometimes run out of gas or break down or crash.. Either way, we had a blast. Most of these trails were made by local kids on dirtbikes. Even though some would say that we were damaging property,that is a debate for another time. Either way, the trails exist and we're going to explore them and bring the information to you so you can have fun riding them as well.

Some of the features are:
Abandoned quarries
Tunnel under the NJ Turnpike
Cemetery crossing
Tons of Singletrack
Sand (for you fat bikers)
Lakes
the list goes on and on...

That said, our mission this weekend is to start out in Spottswood (my brothers house) and ride as many of the trails as possible and record via Strava and Garmin and then share the information with you. I don't expect us to cover it all which is why this thread is the first installment and it will most likely take us years to cover every trail.

Our overall goal is to do a couple (5) things:

1. Recon as much as possible and see what kind of condition they are in.
2. Take a ride down memory lane and hit all the old trails but pedaling this time.
3. Spread the love and put these trails on the map for others in this community to enjoy.
4. Make this a ride that we do frequently going forward
5. Most importantly, Have fun, make lasting memories & build more relationships!

Here is some information I found on these parks for your reading pleasure:

http://co.middlesex.nj.us/parksrecreation/jamesburg.asp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigeon_Swamp_State_Park

http://co.middlesex.nj.us/parksrecreation/ireland.asp


I was hoping we could bring along some Jorba affiliated riders to see if there is any interest in doing something official but if we can't, no big deal, we'll still be out there and if you want to join us at a later time, lets do it.

Why am I putting this on this forum - Spread the love and if you're interested in taking a really slow recon ride this weekend, climbing over fallen trees, figuring out ways around trails that once were and helping cut our way through some overgrowth all for the sake of having a great time on a bike, let me know. I'll be more than happy to send you the ride information.
 
Hmm...few question.
which park or where is the meet up location,time,date?
how many miles?

thanks
liong
 
We will start on Crescent Ave in Spottswood and cut our way into the bigger trails in "Jamesburg Park" and head towards Helmetta. Sunday 9am...

I have no clue the mileage to be honest because as kids, we didn't have that tech when we went out riding. I think my boss put a speedometer on his KDX220 once and we clocked 25 miles and that was only 3/4 of the way out not counting the way back.

Keep in mind, this is a recon ride to determine mileage and conditions. This has never been "strava'd or garmin'd"
 
Mountain Bike Mike said:
We will start on Crescent Ave in Spottswood and cut our way into the bigger trails in "Jamesburg Park" and head towards Helmetta. Sunday 9am...

I have no clue the mileage to be honest because as kids, we didn't have that tech when we went out riding. I think my boss put a speedometer on his KDX220 once and we clocked 25 miles and that was only 3/4 of the way out not counting the way back.

Keep in mind, this is a recon ride to determine mileage and conditions. This has never been "strava'd or garmin'd"
Click to expand...

i'm always game for adventure..count me in!!
would you mind PM me exact address please!!
much oblige.

also ,.just a suggestion.if we going to do this recon ride.
we should start ealier than 9am.7am atleast wheel down.anyhow its just suggestion i dont care what time we start.
keep me posted.
 
pm sent.. I'll blame my brother for that start time.. He's a tough one to get up and out of the house early in the morning.. I really want him to ride with us so I need to be nice to him 🙂
 
Update: Weather forecast is looking great for Sunday
There are four confirmed to ride, two on the fence.

Yesterday I realized that this is the same day as MattyBFat's B-day ride and also the Cathedral Pine race.

Either way, we have several options and if you are interested in this one, PM me.
 
A fun time explor'n in the woods (near my frigg'n house for Pete's sake). It was nice meeting John and the famous Liong and getting a chance to ride with Mike, Rob and Joe again. I think I found my New Years resolution. 🙂
 
Recon Mission #1 Success

This past Sunday six of us set out to explore some old dirtbike trails that once were. Here are the folks that made up the group and their rig of choice:

Juggernaut: A super mod'd Surly Mukluk (This thing looked like what guys do to jeeps when they turn them into rock crawlers + surprisingly it was light and nimble. VERY COOL RIG!!!

JSantana: Riding his custom powder coated 26'er. I love the color of this bike.

Liong: Titanium Singlespeed

RobW aka my Cousin Rob: Trek Superfly

JWill48: aka my Brother John - Giant Talon

Me: Giant XTC 29er

The weather forecast for the day was calling for partly sunny highs in the low 50's. I've been paying close attention to this all week to see what type of conditions for our ride and you really couldn't ask for better November conditions.

So I get to by Brothers an hour early I'm feeling like a million bucks, I have the correct layers of clothing on (Courtesy of STB222), I brought the correct amount of food and drink and I'm well rested + the bike is in tip top shape. All signs are positive. My brother is also up early and pretty much ready to go, he was prepared with his layers and food. As the hour approaches 9am, I look down the street and I see someone on a MTB riding towards us.. Turns out to be Liong. Shortly after, Dan comes cruising down the road on his Fat bike followed by Joe Santanta. I'm expecting everyone to show up in cars, these guys rode here - how cool is that? Liong parked a couple miles away, Dan and Joe rode from their houses. That leaves Rob and possibly Barry from planet bike... I get a txt from Rob "Running late" and my brother tells me Barry is not going to make it. So we hang out and check out all the rigs. Finally Rob arrives and we quickly assemble, we discuss & set some expectations and then we hit the trail.

The goals, as stated above, were:

1. Recon as much as possible and see what kind of condition they are in.
2. Take a ride down memory lane and hit all the old trails but pedaling this time.
3. Spread the love and put these trails on the map for others in this community to enjoy.
4. Make this a ride that we do frequently going forward
5. Most importantly, Have fun, make lasting memories & build more relationships!

Success all goals met... We were able to complete a large loop around Jamesburg Park. I am happy to report that the trails are in great shape. Areas I was worried about were perfect. Joe and Dan kept referring to the trails as "Allaire". Joe kept saying they were double track, I kept saying Singletrack.. Dan split the opinion and said 1.5 track. Joe and I must have debated this a dozen or more times along the ride. Either way, the trails were just like we remember, fast, flowy, sandy, nice and wide (about as wide as a 4 wheel ATV) with tons of whoop-d'doos which made for great pump trail action but not too Sandy where the ride would suck on a bicycle (it was hard packed sand). In fact, some sections were great for practicing your sand pit cyclocross skills. The first 15 miles were slow because of the fitness level of some of our riders. I was leading the pack at what I thought was a nice slow pace, not according to Joe. He kept yelling at me to wait for my brother and referring to me as a "racer" (in a negative way). I can't disagree, I like to ride at a brisk pace and when I zone in on a trail, I just pedal. Since we had such a wide variety of riders in the group, I can see his point - so we would ride, wait, talk, ride, wait, talk.... During the pauses, I would "tour guide" the areas with an intent to help everyone understand where we were, point out major land marks and all that kinds of stuff. Since Dan showed up, I was determined to make it as far out as possible so I can show him how to connect to these trails from his house. At one point, after the motocross park Joe and my brother decided to ride the road back due to time constraints and my brother decided he'd had enough. Dan, Liong, Rob and I decided to press on. We did get to ride under the turnpike and screw around there for a little while, we have some video footage somewhere of us jerking around. Liong seemed to be most interested in that feature of the ride.

The motocross track... Let's just say, after riding through the water under the turnpike and crossing a few stream and hitting the motocross track, it was nice to show Dan a loop around the track but my drivetrain picked up a ton of grit. The track was loose, sandy soils which wreaked havoc on my drive train. From that point on, my drive train sounded like Captain Crunch.

At this point we're cruising at a decent clip on a trail that runs along side a decent size stream and I knew we would need to cross it at some point. As were riding, I'm eyeing up possible areas to cross but this stream managed to get wider and deeper over the years. Year ago, the area we used to cross on dirt bikes was tough so I was curious to see how that was going to pan out. We get to the crossing area and it is now about 30 yards wide and the water was murky with no way to tell how deep it was. It doesn't look promising so we ride back and forth up and down the stream looking for a path of least resistance. No such luck! Do we turn around and head back? Here is where it got fun - Liong finds and grabs a 12' 4x4 that was laying in the water, pulls it out and starts dragging it while saying "Im willing to work if you are". So the impromptu plan was to build a crossing. We start scavenging old fallen trees and branches and become bridge engineers aka "beavers" (in the animal sense). We managed to get enough stuff laid out over the stream for Liong to walk across, we grab some more logs and add to it. While in the process, I used my leg as measuring stick and accidentally slipped and went up to my knee in water (still no sign of the bottom) - I panic'd for a sec as I almost went all the way in but Rob saved me. That would've sucked! Now - we slowly "balance beem'd" it across one by one using the bike and a tree to balance. We made it across! WHOO HOO!

Now I'm getting super excited because we made it to the Yellow trail in Ireland Brook County Park and I knew in a couple miles I was going to be able to show Dan how this connects back to his house. Liong and I proceed to cruise quickly through the yellow trail and avoided a couple major crashes through very large underestimated puddles. He and I make it to the clearing where the gas lines were (At this point, I am SUPER STOKED)... We wait for Rob and Dan, Dan ended up taking a swim in one of those puddles - Poor Dan, thankfully he is only miles away from his house. So we continued on and we cruise all around the power lines and I continue to point out areas where more trails exist. One cool thing, as we were riding, I hear "BBBBRRRRAAAAAAPPPP" off in the distance... yep, they still ride out here - Music to my ears! So - we get to a point where we hit a fenced off section by a cemetery and decide it's time to head back. Dan heads home and that leaves Liong, Rob and I to cruise back home. We were at 15 miles and change at this point and I knew I could cut some corners to shorten the ride back. So we proceed.

Liong and I are cruising at a decent clip now and Rob is doing his best to stay connected and reconnect. I keep looking back and slow up a bit when I lose sight of him. We managed to all reconnect at the Cranberry road crossing. Rob says he's done and takes the road back. Liong and I decide to take the trails.

Now this is where I get to have fun! I could tell Liong was a very strong cyclist and on a singlespeed to boot, so I decided to pick up the pace. We were cruising at an average 10mph according to the garmin all the way back and at some points getting up to 20+mph through some sections. This guy could ride! I try like hell to see if I can gap him but not a chance... He is on my wheel and since the trails were "1.5" track we could ride side by side at times at that speed and pick different line. Now I let him lead and I'm trying to keep his wheel... It was tough but I managed to stay within 4 - 5 lengths behind. What a great sprint back home! That last 4 - 5 sprint was exactly what I needed!!! What a blast!


Sorry for such a long recap but as you may know, I am very long winded and I know I left out a ton of good stuff. Especially the part of tackling the thorns around the warehouses. Thankfully, we found an easier route on the way back!

So - Recon Mission #1 a success! Next recon mission, I plan on just focusing on Jamesburg park and hit more of the trails in that area.

I will post the Strava info at a later date... Some folks who follow me, Rob W, Dan or Liong were able to see the data already on Strava.

I'd like to thanks the guys who came out with us. Great Ride, Gentleman - looking forward to the next one!!!

Stay tuned for the next installment.
 
I'll spare the long story and keep it short. As you can see these trails are very dear to Mike and family. Re-visiting them after 10+ years on a MTB was awesome experience. when we would go out together, Mike always set up the day and time, we would just be there and ready, so this day was just another day I had 10 years ago.

Riding through rehashed how many times I almost crashed, or crashed, or was able to tell each other which section you liked best-again. What it really did was show who had the best memory.

Overall the trails were great to ride again and will probably go back and ride the Jamesburg Park section. There are a few sets of rollers that I want to learn how to pump through. The main trails are double track(sorry mikkle) so its fun to battle eachother through the fast sections, some sandy turns but nothing you haven't ridden at allaire.

I would like to see some formal MTB trails go in here, its a blank canvas for something really sweet and that aint no lie.
 
Juggernaut said:
Hey Rob, did you get a shot of Liong on top of that tunnel?
Click to expand...


Nope, only mike... I thought I was recording at that time but clearly I wasn't. ImageUploadedByTapatalk1416938030.630289.jpgImageUploadedByTapatalk1416938046.518452.jpgImageUploadedByTapatalk1416938053.855394.jpghttps://vimeo.com/112834903
 
Note for next round - either make a conscious effort to take pictures or invite someone that has a natural instinct to capture the moments.

Thanks for sharing Robert
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom