June 9, 2011 - Mountain Biking in Wilmington, NY

I've been wanting to explore new places to ride this season. Excited by a great visit to Pine Hill Park a few weeks ago, I ventured to Wilmington this past Thursday. Carrying my camera to capture my day led to this mini video recap...





The Hardy Road trails have had a lot of recent work on them. The trails are marked very well at every intersection, however to get a trail map you need to join the BETA. There are about 3 miles of established trails on the west side of the road. Southwest leads up and around the backside of a hill to a summit with an excellent view. Heading down the other side of the summit loops back to the trailhead or another loop thru a well spaced pine forest. The east side of the road, according to a DEC person I ran into, has 3 more miles of new trails. I did not ride these.

The Flume trails were in very good condition. There is some fairly easy singletrack. And there are challenging trails too. Cedars was fast, tight and smooth. Ridgeline is good in both directions with hills at either end. There were lots of roots and tricky turns between rocks, trees, and dips. Marble Mountain was similar to Ridgeline but not as difficult. Rock Garden is a punishing trail. It is short but there is an intense section for about .1 mile that inspired the trails name. Once you lose your rhythm here you're done. Keep your speed up and hammer down as much as possible to make it thru. Sadly, I did not. Next time I will try this trail much earlier in my day!

Overall both trails were fun and interesting. Together they have a nice variety of terrain, views and challenges. They offer a rewarding day, a nice change of pace, and a spot in my new rotation of places to visit.

Gore Feb 3-5

Lost track of which ski day i'm on..

Here's a mini vid of riding at Gore on Thurs Feb 3 and Sat Feb 5 after receiving about 12" of snow on tues and wed.

We definitely earned our turns in some glades in BR and Chatty on both days. Had to unstrap two times from the north quad down Pipeline after bombing Tahawus past the chair. Once you reached the pump house it's pretty fast with no flat spots all the way to BRQ.

One day we hit Burnt Ridge then worked our way across from Chatty to Dark Side. The other day we boomeranged from Hawkeye out to Dark Side and back to Lies -> Topridge Triple and across to Tahawus/Pipeline/BRQ/Tahawus glades. Avoided lower mtn each day except for one Showcase run.

Our sequence of terrain pod choices as we rode each day worked out really well.

Gore 1-22-11

I tried 3 different songs with the same video. I think I like the Kamikaze Hearts one the most for lyrics and feel. However, the drum fill in the slayer one when greg hits that lip is pretty sweet also, and the lyrics in Rising Son i liked too.

Slayer -


Kamikaze Hearts -


Rising Son -