Explored a few trails I've never been on this weekend. Started out Saturday morning riding lift service at Sunday River. No photos
Sunday rode a couple different small trail sections in the Bethel, ME area...both proving to be really well built trails with lots of flow (generally a tough thing to find in New England). Nothing too technical, just fun, fast and flowy. A bit blurry, but here's a couple photos from the day...
Was planning on riding lift service again Monday, but Sunday River was closed (only open Thursdays thru Sundays, and they weren't making exceptions for the holiday). So opted to ride up the mountain; explore some of the few "x-country" trails on the mountain. They are in some dire need of trail maintenance. Exact opposite of the trails ridden the day before...rooty, rocky, and zero flow. Most of what we came across was obviously meant to be ridden downhill....like this one...
The photo doesn't do it justice...I should have taken a photo from the side to show the angle of the bridge. I would guess 60 degrees and over 4 feet tall. To ride it you need to first finagle your way over the snow making pipe, using the narrowly placed rock bridge, down a rock slab then drop yourself over the edge blindly. If you're still on two wheels, you head right into a rock garden, hairpin turn. Let's just say this trail is well above my comfort zone...but fun to hike to see what it's all about.
At the top we looped down one of the mellow downhill trails for a good long ride down. Opted to branch onto a more technical trail, and husband landed his front tire in a hole...over the handlebars, tuck and roll...the whole show. He popped up, unscathed, except for a few scratches. His bike took the brunt of the fall...twisted handlebars and a bent derailleur. Fixed up the handlebars, took the derailleur off, and finished up the descent on the double track, where pedaling isn't needed.
All in all, good weekend. It feels good to be back out riding. The summer has gotten away from me, and the past couple months have seriously lacked time on two wheels.