anyone have any suggestions to good places for single track in pa. looking for a place with a decent climb for the early morning and a decent ride for the afternoon. something with technical terrain ?
thanks
What kind of miles are you looking to do? You can get everything you list above in a few different places. A few choices:
(1) Blue Marsh Lake & French Creek: Ride Blue Marsh in the morning -- if you go to the area where they do the October Cyclemania race, you could get a seven mile loop that includes a massive climb up the back of the old Blue Marsh Ski Mountain. The trail is very easy to follow, but for the shorter ride you would want to stay on the north side of Old Church Road (you'd have to ride along the road for a bit to pick up the inbound section of trail.) I wouldn't do the full loop there if you want to ride tech in the afternoon, though, because the full loop is 30 miles.
In the afternoon, head south on Route 422 to French Creek in Birdsboro for a very techy, rocky singletrack ride which can be as long or short as you want it to be. Basically, anywhere you go off of the Shed Road parking lot will give you a rgeat technical ride.
(2) Rattling Creek: Northwest of Harrisburg, this is an IMBA epic, and you can ride up to 55 miles if you hit every trail. Very techy in quite a few sections and there are two big fir road climbs for early in the day -- one of them pops out at a hang-glider launch with a great view. I love this place -- challenging enough but still with tons of flowy trails.
(3) Wissahickon: Philly's best has a 20 mile loop (plus add-ons) with lots of climbing. It doesn't get the press a lot of more remote places get, but it's been growing for years and it'll give anyone a challenge. Not as many rocks as some other places in the region, but there are definitely some very technical areas. You could link it with Belmont Plateau, but it's better if you have someone with you who knows it because you have to ride along the road for a bit to link them.
(4) Michaux: Incredibly techy in some sections, and just tons and tons of miles. It's easy to get lost, though, so be careful if you go -- it's a massive forest and if you get too far out in it on your own, you can get lost and stay lost for a long time. Kind of a longer drive, but probably about as far as Rattling Creek -- you could do it in a day. Michaux is hard-core, though -- it's one of the tougher places to ride a bike in the east with huge climbs and rock gardens on both climbs and descents alike.