I got back late last night after a brilliant weekend.
Me and a chum drove over to Jim Thorpe, PA on Saturday morning. I'd been in touch with a local who strongly suggested (as did Brett) to try to grab a local. Unfortunately we couldn't so we just follwed the Twin Peaks trail.
The trail starts in downtown so we quickly popped in to Blue Mountain Sports there for a chat. Now I don't know if she was having a bad day but the girl in there was a right miserable bugger. No interest in helping two nice British boys at all. A young wrench was a bit more friendly but, as an example, we asked the girl if she knew where our Sunday ride was - Blue Marsh. She'd never heard of it. We said we thought it was near Reading and she said, in a really pissed off and arrogant way "Well I've been riding around here for 20 years and have never heard of it so I can't help you".
I took my cliff bar dollars to another shop...
You really do need a local. The Twin Peaks ride has a lot of road work, quite a bit of fire road and very little, VERY little single track. Practically all of the climbs are on the road:
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/6309124
But it was still good to be out and the climbing tested the legs and lungs in 90+ degree heat.
At around mile 24 we met some locals who describe some singletrack to us but it meant a +6mile road climb to get to it so we didn't bother.
We camped at Mauch Chunk Lake campsite but it was very busy. It worked out ok though.
On Sunday we headed to aparently little well known Blue Marsh Lake. It's just North East of Readding on route 183. It's a 90minute shot along I78. What a great place! It reminded me a lot of six mile (without the twisties) with a few climbs a bit like Round Valley with one super big bastard at the end!!
You basically cycle around a lake. I think we picked the perfect parking spot just of Route 183 and just west of Church Road. I say that as there's only 1 place to get more fluids and you probably want that at about 2/3 of the way around. If you head anti-clockwise from our parking spot then that's what you'd get. We headed clockwise as we're stoopid.
My gps switched on late and I'm missing probably 4 flattish miles but the trail is relatively easy to follow:
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/6309123
So you start off on pretty flat terrain, like a wide hiking trail. After a nice few mile warm up you start with the shortish steep ascents. With the exception of two hills I found it all middle-ring stuff. Maybe if it wasn't 95 degrees it all could've been done in the middle ring with the exception of the last hill.
This trail is mostly singletrack and the climbs reward you with fantastic meandering trails through the trees that skirt down to the lake and wind themselves up alon the shore again.
The north side of the lake is the easy part. From our parking spot (my "red" point on the above map) it's about 9 miles to the main boat ramp - and about 800ft of climbing. Make sure you refill your fluids at the main boat ramp, where the water fountains are. It gets interesting after this point!
The next 10 miles have about 1600 feet of climbing but the trails are great - loads of "whoop! whoop!" opportunities. And you race through loads of corn fields which is pretty cool. The final 10 miles are nice, with a bit of a Tourne-esque climb (loose gravel). And then the killer climb. I think it's about 350-400ft and it's steep. I had to walk the last third or so (it was bloody hot, you know!). A final rip down the other side and then nice and flat back to the car.
If you do the trail anti-clockwise then you get that big hill out of the way first and you'll hit the drink place at just about the right time.
The trails are nice packed dirt, a really small amount of paved road, some double-track but mostly singletrack - probably 20miles of it if not more.
So, go. It's only a couple of hours and you can stop at the Clinton Cracker Barrel on the way back!
