Story:
Highland Forest is a county park located in the southeastern-most corner of Onondaga County (Central NY State, USA). It is a very mountain bike-friendly park that offers a mix of crushed stone roads, fire roads, and most importantly, excellent singletrack that has been developed and continually maintained by a local mountain biking community.
To the regular mountain bikers Highland Forest has a reputation of being very muddy, even during the driest of weeks. Thus, when you set out for a ride here you pretty much expect that you and your bike will be coming back caked in mud.
Meeting up with Glenn and a new rider to our group, Cory, who chooses to carve up the trails in a 29er singlespeed, we set off on this cold November morning at 7:45 with the intention of riding 20 miles. Wow, I would soon discover how I overestimated my average speed and underestimated the amount of mud we would soon encounter.
The ride started up a dirt fire road that, due to maintenance that only the park management really knows the intent, was on this day a river of mud and ruts. We huffed and puffed up the incline made all the more difficult because of the quicksand action of the trail, spinning about twice as fast as normally while the rear tire tread made its feeble attempt at grabbing the ground.
We crested the hill when a sudden bang rocketed the woods; it was Glenn's rear tire, in which we had just mounted a new tube back at the trailhead. What the..., we thought when Cory solved the mystery. "I have seen cases where the tire bead wears out and the tube will pop without the protection of the outer rubber casing," he offered, more or less. Glenn inspected the outer casing and discovered a wear tear in the tire, just above the rim. We had no sleeve to cover it, so his day on the bike was done.
Highland Forest is a county park located in the southeastern-most corner of Onondaga County (Central NY State, USA). It is a very mountain bike-friendly park that offers a mix of crushed stone roads, fire roads, and most importantly, excellent singletrack that has been developed and continually maintained by a local mountain biking community.
To the regular mountain bikers Highland Forest has a reputation of being very muddy, even during the driest of weeks. Thus, when you set out for a ride here you pretty much expect that you and your bike will be coming back caked in mud.
Meeting up with Glenn and a new rider to our group, Cory, who chooses to carve up the trails in a 29er singlespeed, we set off on this cold November morning at 7:45 with the intention of riding 20 miles. Wow, I would soon discover how I overestimated my average speed and underestimated the amount of mud we would soon encounter.
The ride started up a dirt fire road that, due to maintenance that only the park management really knows the intent, was on this day a river of mud and ruts. We huffed and puffed up the incline made all the more difficult because of the quicksand action of the trail, spinning about twice as fast as normally while the rear tire tread made its feeble attempt at grabbing the ground.
We crested the hill when a sudden bang rocketed the woods; it was Glenn's rear tire, in which we had just mounted a new tube back at the trailhead. What the..., we thought when Cory solved the mystery. "I have seen cases where the tire bead wears out and the tube will pop without the protection of the outer rubber casing," he offered, more or less. Glenn inspected the outer casing and discovered a wear tear in the tire, just above the rim. We had no sleeve to cover it, so his day on the bike was done.
Tags:
Highland Forest, mud, mtb
Highland Forest, mud, mtb
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