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Winter Beckons at Millstone Hill

Rider Kevin Jaques.

Here's some more two-wheeled love in our latest post from guest writer Cody Chouinard. If we weren't missing our bikes before, we certainly are now. Thanks, Cody, for sharing your story with us!

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If you're like me, every time you see your bike jammed in the corner of your garage you get a brief flashback of shredding single-track all summer long. Thanks to our friends at the Millstone Trails Association you no longer have to suffer. Whether you are whipping around the turns creating a snow wave or just the casual biker looking for some great views, the trails at Millstone have everything you want in a winter mountain biking experience. If you have ever ridden at Millstone in the summer you know how beautiful the quarries are, but there is something about them in the winter that is equally if not more amazing. The snow outlined pieces of granite create a skeleton-like look to the grout piles towering above you. Winter riding doesn’t compare to summer riding, but the Millstone Trails Association has done an amazing job creating trails that will help you cope with those single-track flashbacks.

CC. 

Cody Chouinard lives in Barre, Vermont, and likes to ride his bike. 

Homegrown Singletrack

Trail crew Mike, Zack and Chris

Don't get us wrong, we're loving all this great snow. But there's not a day that goes by that we don't think of our bikes. Partly that's because they're hogging one-third of our mudroom, and we have to step over them to get to the ski poles, but we also just really love two wheels.

This love got us thinking back to last fall, and ahead to next spring. That's the beauty of this spinning planet: we will ride again.

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November in Vermont is a unique time of year. Snow in the mountains lures one for early season turns, while sweet single track below can be had amidst Vermont's short hunting season. This year the focus for us has been singletrack in our back yard.  After a year of cleaning up our woods by removing blow downs and piles of brush, the real work has finally started: trail building.

So this year that wonderful cold, frosty lure of early season turns, that itchy anticipation of scratching down the mountain hasn't quite happened for us. Instead, we're hearing the call to build.

r

Rider Chris Lee on R.I.P.

Sarah and I are no strangers to driving to some of the best hard built, hard fought singletrack in VT, like Perry Hill, Carse Hill, Adams Camp, Northfield ... the list goes on.  But driving there can be the least fun of the whole experience, so when we searched for a place to call home, land was certainly of most important interest. As a child I can't ever remember driving to ride my  mountain bike; it was a home grown affair. We would get out of school, get on our bikes, and ride 'til dinner. I remember not being able to stay awake all day in class, only to be magically awakened as the last hour of class slowly ticked away and I looked forward to getting on my bike.  This is something I want to recreate from my youth, out-the-door riding. And Patrick Kell, formerly of VMBA and now of IMBA, once told us that everyone should have a trail to ride within 15 minutes of their front door. We're shooting for 15 seconds.
 
Riding - plain and simple. Absolutely no driving.

Late night brush burning.

So what can you do with 5 acres?  Well let's just say there's no world- class caliber XC trails to be had here(this will hopefully change). But we do have some great contours to play with. So with that I called  friends, gathered some tools and beer, and started digging.

So far we've put together some great lines, like R.I.P and B-line, that are all collaborations of riders'\builders' ideas. Next year we hope to bring in more than a bit of dirt and build a pump track, all ready in the design and recruitment stage, plus a skills course, and as much flowy singletrack as 5 acres can handle.

And so it begins.....

Pine Hill Park: An Easter Ride.

Come Easter Sunday all of our friends near and far come together to ride Pine Hill Park.  We roll ourselves out of bed early, only to be herded like cats in the back parking lot of Onion River Sports; to finally collect ourselves and make our Easter pilgrimage.  This year was no exception and we had some new and old faces along for the ride, with some Spring-like flurries and colds temps that followed us all the way to Rutland.

One thing that was apparent was the widespread destruction on the way down Rte 4 to Rte 100 and beyond.  Still a year later after Hurricane Irene hit Vermont much remains to be done.  The Governor's exclamation that "The landscape of Vermont will be forever changed," was all too painfully true. Last year - and still today - Vermonters have been helping each other out.

When I was a child I spent the better part of twenty years up early on Easter, inside doing other things. For the latter part of my life, though, I've found myself on Easter doing this....

Enter the PHP photo montage....

One of my favorite airs: Aaron's Air.

Dollar Bill!

Darn Tough socks on a Darn Chilly ride...

Sarah feeling the buffed-out turns at PHP.

Jonti.

Quinn on the grill.

I can't quite tell if Kip is impressed with himself or disgusted...

Aaron's air.

Biting off a bit more than Snack can chew?

 That's one tired dog.

Well enough about Easter; here's to the great state of Vermont and Pine Hill Park. Now get out and ride your bike - it's dry out there! (Just check and make sure the trails are open, first.)

T.

Sunday Singletrack

My eyes opened just after 6am. You can take the girl out of the workweek, but you can't take the workweek out of the girl, I guess. As my eyes focused on our bedroom window, I could see the light of early morning: more grey than sunshine, more serene than loudly yellow. And as I laid there thinking for a moment, I realized that I had been listening to the most beautiful bird song. This bird had just been singing and singing all along. My days of ornithology are long over, so I have no idea what was singing this song, but it was beautiful: elaborate, trilling, heart-felt. The bird and I both knew it: This was going to be a good day. The sun was preparing to come out, and we were alive and well, ready for anything. I was happily awaiting a hot, strong coffee, a little breakfast, and a rare, wonderful thing: a weekend day off with Tristan, with nothing to do but go ride our bikes. Yes, it was going to be a good day.

We had lined up a group to join us at Millstone Hill Touring Center. If you have never before been here to ride trails, you should go! I'm not kidding. To be fair, everything you have heard about Millstone riding is right: There are a lot of rocks. It's technical. It's not always flowy. There are a lot of features on those two free-ride trails. But the trails are well-built, there are miles and miles of singletrack, and there is enough terrain to keep any rider entertained. It is technical in a fun way. And yes, it is well worth the price of a day ticket ($10) - or season pass ($40). As eight of us pedaled away from the parking lot, down a side road, and into the woods, I again knew it: This was going to be good. We had a great group of people and miles of fun singletrack lay before us.


 I won't recount the many trails we rode as we pedaled our way through a 10-mile grand tour of the whole place. Some highlights, though, were Locomotion, Boiler Maker, Fellowship Ring, and Roller Coaster. There's something for everyone here: Locomotion is fast and fun; Boiler Maker throws some challenging spots into the mix; and Fellowship has enough technical sections to keep any rider happy, plus this sweet section of looping flow through a beautiful forest. Roller Coaster, a fun free-ride trail with a major elevation drop and lots of BC-style built features, puts a smile on the face of anyone who rides it. Throughout the day we found several lookouts that afforded sweeping views of the water-filled quarries below and the valleys and hills of central Vermont continuing out from there.

These are the days we live for: surrounded by friends, woods, and bikes; with a few good views to put things into better perspective. There were long-time riders and newbies, including a road cyclist turned mountain biker on his first ever trail ride.

Later that evening, a few of us sat in the corner of a loud, busy apartment full of friends celebrating the thirty-one years of a most wonderful person; we laughed at how we could all snuggle up and go to sleep right there. Our legs were weak and worked, our lungs were raw, our heads were out of it; thankfully we had each other to commiserate and to keep from looking like lonely, wilted wallflowers. We all agreed, this was the best feeling to end a day with: tired, utterly used up and waiting, with a drink in hand, for a delicious spicy meal cooked by someone else. I fell asleep with my belly full, my heart full, and my mind blissfully cleared and at peace. This was a good day.

The Brother Jacques; Millstone Hill

Well the pictures pretty much say it all about my tour of Millstone Hill with the Jacques brothers as it pretty much lives up to what I have been saying the last two years; If you haven't ridden here, what are you waiting for? Harrington Heights the newest invention at Millstone Hill is something to get excited about. Pierre Couture's idea with the brothers Jacques trail building vision makes this new trail a wicked ride. A trail built for more advanced riding gives you that high Alpine feel that I have only ever experienced out the Waitsfield valley way. The only difference? you don't have to climb 1,500 ft vertical to get it. With granite spines, bridges and fun challenging drops this new trail keeps your interest no matter what. Still under construction this trail only has more and more to give as the single track turns, corners and granite spines get buffed out. So what are you waiting for, as soon as this monsoon of a season lets up there's no excuse as to where to ride now is there?!

So stop by the new touring center in Websterville and get your day or season pass from Pierre where you can ask and get all the latest buzz and info on where to ride at Millstone Hill.

Get all the beta here.....

Millstone Hill Touring center

Get out and ride

T.

It's been one hell of a month..