Kingdom trails-a kind of mini review.
So we bought the hype and scheduled a trip up. Sadly the only weekend that worked for both
@Blk06CompIRL and myself clashed with Jorbafest. Sorry gang. I’ve done ski trips but this would be a bike first. Pretty stoked just to get away.
We only had the weekend so this was a guerrilla style operation. We contemplated driving up Friday night but settled on leaving early Saturday to save hotel costs and not mess up sleep schedule too much. Plans changed when a coworker offered their place around Brattleboro as a waypoint. So we charged up Friday night then jumped off early Saturday am.
I’m not as great with my constellations as I wish but man, if you have a clear night there make sure you look up. The Milky Way is prominent and all the stars appear double bright. Pretty amazing.
Fall colors were on point and got more peak as we went north. I’ve always loved the outdoors so everything was bonus so far. When we hit town there was some sort of fall festival going on so it was pure chaos. We decided to park at our inn and ride from there.
If you are planning a trip be sure to get something in or near town. There’s a fair amount of access points that you can ride from. Our place was across from a trailhead, had indoor bike storage, a bike wash, and a heated outdoor shower.
Town is maybe the best part of the place. Obviously you go for the trails but the vibe and party atmosphere make it awesome. There are hundreds of bikes and riders everywhere. Around here you’ll see the occasional higher end bike on a rack but in town every car is laden with top notch bikes. Or the corral by the bar is packed. Or the bike shop across the street. You get the idea.
Everyone is there to have a good time and peeps are super helpful. It’s hilarious how you’ll be at the bar and guys you’d expect to hear talking about 401k’s or the Mets are comparing their fave drops and jumps. Everyone rides. It’s cool. As a bonus we ran into Jeff (Mr. Sarcaro) and Jason who we rambled around with the next day.
Time for the trails themselves. My expectations were miles of berms and flow through the forest. This was true, but not all in a row. I’ll explain.
I felt Kingdom works more like Glen Park, which is a near ideal place to run an Enduro. You climb up, rail down, then repeat. By comparison there’s Mooch, where you disappear into the woods and either the bears win or you limp back to the car hours later. Kingdom has a feel where you’re either headed to a trail, or on the trail, but those are two different things.
The fun trails are indeed fun. We hit most of the recommended stuff and even pedaled back up to run black bear again. But again, you ride TO those trails and the stuff in between may not be that exciting. The 3T area “up” trail was a grinding switchback that served its purpose but that’s it. The downhills were great but the climb is costly.
On the plus side, there’s all kinds of good stuff. I can’t recall, maybe Troll Stroll? had a recurring root-drop-into-berm pattern that was a blast. Kitchell has giant berms that were just buffed the day before and I rode them multiple times. Many of the trails wind through fragrant pine stands and we even found a north shore style wooden bridge trail. You’ll find stuff that you’d only normally see in a bike park.
Disclaimer. This is one mans opinion. We didn’t make it to the DH stuff at Burke, it rained pretty hard on us Saturday, and we were limited on time. And I would definitely go back. I don’t know of any place besides (I assume) maybe whistler that’s really all about the bike.
So if you’re planning a bike trip, it’s a blast and I recommend it wholeheartedly. But maybe we should take a second to appreciate what we have here, cause it’s pretty good.