New trails

While I haven't gotten bored riding on the same old trails, I've been looking forward to trying a new mountain biking area lately. This weekend, during our "holiday party weekend" with my family I managed to get out for a ride in Niantic on what turned out to be a great set of trails.

For the past couple of years, instead of having a Christmas party, my immediate family spends a weekend together at a hotel. We spend time swimming in the pool, hanging out and having dinner together. It's been a wonderful tradition in that it allows us to have fun with each other, eliminates some of the materialistic parts of Christmas, and we spend more time together as a family. This year we headed down to New London, planning a train ride, ice skating and some time at Old Mistick Village. I was unable to get out of work until later than I wanted and so we headed down Friday evening and just met my family at the hotel. Matt and I had planned a mountain biking trip Saturday morning early to let us get a few hours in without being away from the family too much.

We headed out at 6 A.M to a trail I located on Bikerag.com in Niantic which sounded like a lot of fun. It turned out to be a great spot, even though it was difficult because of all the leaves on the ground. Leaves tend to cover holes and other obstacles, and they make traction a bit more dicey. We had a few extra falls, but the trails were great fun. The only negative during the day was an issue I experience with my hub in the back wheel. I whacked a rock pretty good, and must have damaged it a bit because it wouldn't allow the bike to coast. It would catch on every revolution and stick until enough pressure forced the wheel around. Ultimately this meant that I needed to keep pedaling constantly other wise the chain would snap around and put a lot of stress on the derailleur. It made for an interesting trip back out, but ironically gave me some interesting training as I was forced to keep pedaling and had to be more aggressive through obstacles. I can see the attraction of a "fixie" or fixed gear bicycle and would probably be more receptive to the idea now.

The trail was enough fun that I'm considering getting a group to go back down for the day. It's over an hour drive, so it would have to be planned ahead, but I think the trail would be worth the trip. The only question is now, or in the spring when it's a bit warmer!