27 November 2009 - 19:04Pennsylvania Rocks

This Thanksgiving was spent down at the in-laws in PA. We loaded up the family truckster and headed south on Wednesday afternoon in a futile attempt to beat holiday and rush hour traffic. We had a Thanksgiving Day ride to crash, one that was put on by the Lehigh Mountain Bikers. They had the 99th Annual Thanksgiving club ride, which was held on South Mountain, an area we had yet to ride.

We got to the trail head parking lot and were surprised to see about 40 or so riders getting ready. Spirits were great despite the gloomy and wet conditions. This is quite a turn out (at least in my opinion) for a club ride, especially on a holiday. We met some of the folks, and got our act together to head out.

We had brought our singlespeeds, the guy right next to us said we were going to be sad, as the trials were all up and down. We told him it was OK, we were from Vermont. He didn’t seem convinced.

The trails themselves were actually very good, well defined, and peppered with the typical PA rock gardens. It required a lot of skill and measured power to get over a lot of them, a feat that was made that much harder with the huge conga-line of riders attempting to ride over the slick wet rocks. I’d say that if it had been dry, it would have been a lot easier, but anyone who has spent time on PA axeheads knows that luck is about 60% of the equation. The trail traffic made it difficult to keep your speed and momentum up. I kept waiting for the riders to get far enough ahead of me so I could have a clear shot at some of the trickier sections, the slinky effect would be in action all morning.

This isn’t to say the the riding wasn’t fun. In fact, I could think of no better way than to spend the morning, riding new trails, and meeting new people. Lots of the riders had been to Vermont, recently spending time at the Kingdom, or going downhilling at Killington. Hopefully, some will look us up on their next trip north.

At one point in the ride, the inevitable happened, crash time. I waited for an extremely rocky sidehill before I flew over the handlebars. It all happened in slow motion, which was good, as my cat like reflexes allowed me to escape serious injury by leaping off of it while it was still flipping over. I shudder to think about the carnage that would happen if I were to land on the big pile of pointy rocks I was headed towards. I landed on my feet about 5 feet downhill from Kermit, the bars spun all the way around, dirt jammed in the left grip and both water bottles ejected. A yard sale if you will. On my way off the bike, I used my left pedal to expose varying depths of fresh skin from just under my knee to just above my ankle. Fortunately, that was extent of my mishaps for the day.

I really enjoy this sort of riding, it’s very challenging, and I am most thankful to have another trail option this close to the in-laws as we are there fairly often. It takes a lot of effort to maintain trails, and the Lehigh Riders do a fantastic job. On our way back to the car, we came across this weird little area, either it was an art project or a hippie commune.

Whatever it was, it was very strange and creepy, but in a cool kind of way. You don’t normally find stuff like this in the woods.

After the ride, it was time for the “big dinner” and a nap.