2021 NE - Flatten That Berm

[funkendrenchman]

Anyone have a good Kingdom Trails ride I could download from strava? I’m looking for 2.5-3 hours. I’m not familiar with the area. Thanks!

[Bushwacka]

Anyone have a good Kingdom Trails ride I could download from strava? I’m looking for 2.5-3 hours. I’m not familiar with the area. Thanks!

Honestly just ride man, Its all good.

Darling hill is classic KTA, natural flowly trails very little vert but you repeat it over and again.

Burke Mountain is lots of vert and some kill long DH that are EWS series worthy.

Moose Haven is more vert than darling hill, but less than Burke, mix of long machine built trails and some older more natural DH.

The sad thing is Darling Hill is split into two now and the trails that are off limit were some of the best on darling hill.

[funkendrenchman]

Honestly just ride man, Its all good.

Darling hill is classic KTA, natural flowly trails very little vert but you repeat it over and again.

Burke Mountain is lots of vert and some kill long DH that are EWS series worthy.

Moose Haven is more vert than darling hill, but less than Burke, mix of long machine built trails and some older more natural DH.

The sad thing is Darling Hill is split into two now and the trails that are off limit were some of the best on darling hill.

Thanks. I was trying not to pull out my map all the time. Really kills the flow.

Anything not to miss?

[Bluebird]

Thanks. I was trying not to pull out my map all the time. Really kills the flow.

Anything not to miss?

Can you get a drop or leave a car and get a ride back to it? If so I'd start out at moosehaven trails. (if a straight drop off have them leave you at the start of swamp donkey, save some climbing) Do a couple laps there. The haul road kind of sucks but the downhills are super fun. Then jump flower brook and head to Moose Alley. Do a lap or two on Moose Alley and Moose Duece, use Butter tub as your up. Then cross the road and climb up white school to hit Farm Junk and Sky Dive. Then Ware's Davis and finally White school back to town. Not sure how long it would take as I'm usually doing it with a mix of kids of all ages.

[Bushwacka]

Thanks. I was trying not to pull out my map all the time. Really kills the flow.

Anything not to miss?

J bar from the top if you like Gnar, from the middle if you like kind of gnar flow. This can be shuttled shuttle services on the weekend the Vert is 2k of vert.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0Cb6JN6K7A

Black Bear for Machine Built flow.

https://www.trailforks.com/trails/black-bear-147390/

Moose Alley

https://www.trailforks.com/trails/moose-alley/

Darling Hill

Heaven's Branch, Ridge, Rim, East Branch all as a connected down.

Bear Back

Sidewinder

PoundCake to Fence Line

[ticketchecker]

If you park up near Trillium/ Candy Bar Hill it sets you up to make a smaller loop out of the Moose Alley/Deuce/Butter Tubs world.

I highly recommend Shonter Shuffle>BFR>Swamp Donkey>Black Bear, you can Flower Brook your way back to where you parked hitting a Moose again. If you want to make a big loop back to town jump on 114 in East Haven bear off on Marshall Newland Rd and that will bring you to Good N you/Farm Junk zone

And what was already said, ride it all!

[schuss]

Depending on what you're into, if you want just a fun classic singletrack loop the trails I did a few weeks back were solid (have not done any of the stuff out at black bear).
Park at trailside village sport shop - Newt to webs to river run, then either climb back up fox run and cross over to the Heaven's Bench/Ridge stuff or you can continue down violet's outback to old webs and sidewinder. Bonus of this area is if you have extra time you can spin some extra laps of the O'Reilly's trails, which are just stupid bermy fun.
Good n' you to nosedive to skydive is good as well, but not any good places to park there

[biggins]

Thunder Mountain Bike Park is the schnizz. And I rode veeeeery little of it today. Frickin' gorgeous valley too. No pics- I did nothing exciting on those trails, just wanted to be captain obvious here and report how stoked I was to finally get there.

RIP Biz. Nobody beats the Biz.

[scrublover]

Thunder Mountain Bike Park is the schnizz. And I rode veeeeery little of it today. Frickin' gorgeous valley too. No pics- I did nothing exciting on those trails, just wanted to be captain obvious here and report how stoked I was to finally get there.

RIP Biz. Nobody beats the Biz.

Yep! Love that place!

[jhyatt]

Started with some rail trail out to Devils Purse brewery for a day one. 23 mile round trip from the rental.

Plan to head up to Nickerson one day.

On my way here I saw a lot of potential fire roads and single tracks. Many near those ponds.

Great way to relieve myself of the extended family. My sisters love to bicker. I think it is their hobby.

Pretty riding around here.

If you want trails look on trail forks but head to trail of tears and Otis. Otis better but far.
Not much out by Chatham. Road riding is good there.

[snowday]

Thunder Mountain Bike Park is the schnizz. And I rode veeeeery little of it today. Frickin' gorgeous valley too. No pics- I did nothing exciting on those trails, just wanted to be captain obvious here and report how stoked I was to finally get there.

RIP Biz. Nobody beats the Biz.

Did you zip line there? Haven't ridden there only the trails across the street but did the zip line a couple summers ago was cool. About 45 minutes from my haus and definitely pretty spot. Rafting there is good too!

[biggins]

Did you zip line there? Haven't ridden there only the trails across the street but did the zip line a couple summers ago was cool. About 45 minutes from my haus and definitely pretty spot. Rafting there is good too!

Totally would have hit you up to ride trail this week, but was with family and there isn't a single MTB rental outside of Thunder in all of the Berkshires (just e-MTB :/). So we decided on a day of lift served and some big squish bike rentals.

Thunder is pretty special- TOOONS of terrain and totally decent vert. Definitely among the premier triad of east coast lift-served along with HMBP and Killi. Let's connect there some time before the end of the season and take some laps.

[CantDog]

Totally would have hit you up to ride trail this week, but was with family and there isn't a single MTB rental outside of Thunder in all of the Berkshires (just e-MTB :/). So we decided on a day of lift served and some big squish bike rentals.

Thunder is pretty special- TOOONS of terrain and totally decent vert. Definitely among the premier triad of east coast lift-served along with HMBP and Killi. Let's connect there some time before the end of the season and take some laps.

That’s awesome! I’ve been wanting to get out there. Looks like a ton of fun.

Made it up to Green Woodlands for the first time in a few years—such a fun place to ride. Did a couple of laps of Norris and had a dip in the river.

[biggins]

That’s awesome! I’ve been wanting to get out there. Looks like a ton of fun.

Made it up to Green Woodlands for the first time in a few years—such a fun place to ride. Did a couple of laps of Norris and had a dip in the river.

Dude guy, give a shout when you go there- nice ride for me and I love it there.

Rainy gravel ride today. Meh. Flowers are poppin' though. Off to Otis AFB, or whatever they call it now (where I learned to mtb in the 80s) Tue, Wed, Thu. Pretty stoked.

[buttahflake]

I can’t believe I’m actually considering this, the big ride is 12,000 feet of climbing!

https://www.bikereg.com/50022

[Ottime]

Damn. That is big. Good luck.

[Dhiler17]

The family and I are burnt out on Idaho and we need a change of scenery. Things are getting way to expensive and it is now to the point where we can’t make a comfortable living and create a proper future for our son. We’ve been doing our research and it looks like Maine is the best destination for us to land in (affordable with mountain biking/skiing/outdoors stuff). I know the conditions out East are different to say the least. Could anyone elaborate just how different things are? The skiing looks rad and skiing less pow won’t be that big of a deal. The real kicker for me would be the mountain biking and I haven’t been able to find much info about it. Currently looking to relocate to the Farmington area, but I do HVAC work and the better half is finishing up school to be a teacher so we could really live anywhere. Is there somewhere better to live with better biking and/or skiing?


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

[Ottime]

I don’t know much about the mtb in Maine, but the state is rad. Winter would be tough for me with short days but I assume Idaho has you prepped for that. What little I do know about the mtb is it tends to be rocky and techy. Most of the trails I used to ride were coastal with maybe 400’ vertical gain. Inland for sure has more mountains. Good luck in your research. Maine is the one place we’ve considered if we were to return east.

[ticketchecker]

Been living in Portland for about 20 years and now have the benefit of working at Sugarloaf so splitting the year in half between living on the coast and in the Western Mountains.

Like many places the MTB riding has benefitted greatly in the past five years from bikers getting more organized, seeking land access and building trails. There's a handful of NEMBA chapters and area clubs that really stand out when it comes to trail expansion. We've got plenty of the old school tech trails combined with an injection of machine built trails. Some areas like Carrabassett Valley are home to really rocky terrain that makes smooth flow trails harder to come by.

If you landed in Farmington you'd have really good options within an hour in several directions. And if you expand that out to 2-3 hours you'll have access to the best New England has to offer.

In no particular order of preference or greatness.

https://cemenemba.org/places-to-ride/
Carrabassett Valley
Freeman Ridge Bike Park; Kingfield
Bethel
Gorham, NH
No Conway
Kingdom Trails - VT
Stowe/Waterbury VT

The mountain biking here in Maine/NE is pretty great, very different feel to riding out West same as the skiing. Lots of riding zones are networks that are wound in tight into small places so lack the feeling of 'going somewhere' that Western riding has. Same as the skiing.

North Conway, Carrabassett and Vtah have more opportunities for big day rides but that's what road trips are for.

[scharny]

I can’t believe I’m actually considering this, the big ride is 12,000 feet of climbing!

https://www.bikereg.com/50022

But virtually all paved, except one small section.

[Peruvian]

Been living in Portland for about 20 years and now have the benefit of working at Sugarloaf so splitting the year in half between living on the coast and in the Western Mountains.

Like many places the MTB riding has benefitted greatly in the past five years from bikers getting more organized, seeking land access and building trails. There's a handful of NEMBA chapters and area clubs that really stand out when it comes to trail expansion. We've got plenty of the old school tech trails combined with an injection of machine built trails. Some areas like Carrabassett Valley are home to really rocky terrain that makes smooth flow trails harder to come by.

If you landed in Farmington you'd have really good options within an hour in several directions. And if you expand that out to 2-3 hours you'll have access to the best New England has to offer.

In no particular order of preference or greatness.

https://cemenemba.org/places-to-ride/
Carrabassett Valley
Freeman Ridge Bike Park; Kingfield
Bethel
Gorham, NH
No Conway
Kingdom Trails - VT
Stowe/Waterbury VT

The mountain biking here in Maine/NE is pretty great, very different feel to riding out West same as the skiing. Lots of riding zones are networks that are wound in tight into small places so lack the feeling of 'going somewhere' that Western riding has. Same as the skiing.

North Conway, Carrabassett and Vtah have more opportunities for big day rides but that's what road trips are for.

Great info. The challenge for MTB is that, for me, I don't want to drive more than 20 minutes for an after work ride. Maybe an hour if it's a weekend, but what do you do in the meantime.

That being said, I think I'd have to drive several hours this evening to find a dry trail to ride!

[ticketchecker]

^^if he's going to land in Farmington that would be Titcomb and some of the other networks in that CENEMBA link I put in there.

Sounds like I have a much higher tolerance for driving than you do!

[MaineSkiAddict1]

Been living in Portland for about 20 years and now have the benefit of working at Sugarloaf so splitting the year in half between living on the coast and in the Western Mountains.

Like many places the MTB riding has benefitted greatly in the past five years from bikers getting more organized, seeking land access and building trails. There's a handful of NEMBA chapters and area clubs that really stand out when it comes to trail expansion. We've got plenty of the old school tech trails combined with an injection of machine built trails. Some areas like Carrabassett Valley are home to really rocky terrain that makes smooth flow trails harder to come by.

If you landed in Farmington you'd have really good options within an hour in several directions. And if you expand that out to 2-3 hours you'll have access to the best New England has to offer.

In no particular order of preference or greatness.

https://cemenemba.org/places-to-ride/
Carrabassett Valley
Freeman Ridge Bike Park; Kingfield
Bethel
Gorham, NH
No Conway
Kingdom Trails - VT
Stowe/Waterbury VT

The mountain biking here in Maine/NE is pretty great, very different feel to riding out West same as the skiing. Lots of riding zones are networks that are wound in tight into small places so lack the feeling of 'going somewhere' that Western riding has. Same as the skiing.

North Conway, Carrabassett and Vtah have more opportunities for big day rides but that's what road trips are for.

I was going to post but ^^ is spot on. Well said.

[Peruvian]

^^if he's going to land in Farmington that would be Titcomb and some of the other networks in that CENEMBA link I put in there.

Sounds like I have a much higher tolerance for driving than you do!

Nah - it’s more like I can’t get out the door until around 5pm and with a 20 minute drive that only gives me an hour or of riding before sunset in the spring and fall.

[ticketchecker]

I forget some people have jobs like that