ATV Use at Bear Brook State Park

Below you will find a link to proposed legislation from our State Senate regarding ATV use in state parks.  There was a real push for this about 6-7 years ago and the proposal was blocked because of a technical problem.  Wi think the legislature thinks the time is right to try again.  They really want to get ATVs into Bear Brook State Park, but this bill will make any park fair game.  We will find out when the Senate is having a hearing on the bill and who we need to write to about the bill.  There have been many "secret" bills in the Senate this year and they are really trying to get things passed by not letting the public know what's going on.  They tend to announce hearings on bills the day before they are scheduled.  They also tend to schedule them at a time that most people can't make it. 

Senate Bill 0250

Renew those Memberships!!

Winter has stalled out a bit on us but don't let your NEMBA membership stall out.  This time of the year is a good time to double check when your membership expires and make sure that you re-up for next year.

I know mine will be due in March...when is your's due?

Renew or Join Now!

Also this time of year is great to revamp/upgrade gear and CNH NEMBA is looking into working on some new digital resources as well as some updates to our web presence...stay tuned!

Page Hill Trail Map!

Check out the gorgeous new trail map for Page Hill created by our own Jesse McGowan on the Trails Map page.

The snow is gone (again!) get out there and ride while you still can!

Page Hill Trail Day Recap

Success! 'The Dude Abides' is completely roughed in and before the flakes fly!  Well before the real lasting flakes anyway, we won't count that little Halloween hiccup.

Riding from beginning to end would still be pretty challenging at this point, there is some difficult terrain on this trail and we still need to do some finish work; benching, rock work and line refinement once we can actually get some wheels on every section.  Once it is entirely complete though it is going to be SWEET.

Not bad for our first full season of trail building at Page Hill.  Bearclaw and Hardhat are already riding great and will only get better and The Dude Abides is looking like a challenge that will take at least a few seasons to completely crack...who will be the first to clean it all?

We've already got the gears turning on more trails at Page Hill.  I wouldn't be surprised if we get another trail or two flagged before all is said and done this year.  We'll be ready to hit the ground running next Spring that is for sure!

Mmmm Soupy

I said it in the email blast earlier this week and I'll say it again.  Rides like this one make you really appreciate warm weather rides.  All but 3 three of us had enough sense to stay home tonight, but there's nothing like getting soaking wet riding through countless puddles in the rain when it's dark and 35 degrees out and then finishing the evening with some nice wet snow.  There aren't too many rides under 10 miles that you can call epic, but this was one of them.

I broke out #5 and #9 of The Velominati Rules to make this ride happen!

Lakes Region Planning Commitee needs feedback!

The Lakes Region Planning Commission will be holding a series of public meetings to obtain input on pedestrian and bicycle needs. We encourage anyone to attend and share with them the needs and obstacles to safe and accessible biking and walking.  The public meetings will be held as follows:

v     Wolfeboro Public Library – Thursday, November 3 @ 6:00 pm

v     Tamworth Public Library – Tuesday, November 8 @ 6:00 pm

v     Bridgewater Town Hall – Wednesday, November 9 @ 6:30 pm

v     Belmont Corner Meeting House – Thursday, November 10 @ 6:30 pm

                   v     Laconia Athletic & Swim Club – Monday, November 14 @ 12:00 pm

They have also developed an online survey on biking and walking to help them better understand how people bike and walk in the region.

Let your voice be heard! 

Page Hill Trail Day Sunday, November 6th!

We built over half of "Trail #4" during our last work day on 9/25. Since then, we've continued work from the far end and have roughed-in about another quarter of it. We need your help to finish of that last quarter and complete the trail.

Come to Page Hill on Sunday, November 6th. Registration will be from 8-9am at the base of the driveway to the cabins on Murray Hill Rd. in Hill, NH. Paste these coordinates into Google Maps for directions: 43.533398,-71.768072

Parking will be on the driveway and in the grass lot. Please avoid parking along the road.

A map to the work area will be left at the registration area after 9am in case you are running late and you need to find us.

Tools and water will be supplied. Bring snacks and some work gloves. You might also want to bring your bike to ride out to the work area, it is a ways off the road and would be accessed quickest by bike. We hope to see you there!

Spooky

Given the weather forecast today, it looked like tonight's ride would be a washout, but when 5 o'clock rolled around the roads were dry so I headed up to see who else might show... Nobody!  Oh well, if it had been raining I wouldn't have even gotten out of my truck because I am a wimp this time of year and I'm nursing a back injury that just sucks, but since it was dry I figured I give a whirl anyway.  

There's something eerie about riding alone at night and when I had to turn the light on when I got to mighty chicken, it was like riding something new; never quite sure what was around the next corner because the darkness skews perception.  I usually spook myself when I am out alone in the woods after dark, but with the exception of one grouse that I stirred up, I remained strangely calm.  No 'Blair Witch' images or thoughts of Bigfoot chasing me down.  All in all a good ride and just for fun I mixed things up by finishing differently.  I usually ride out Pine Snake and onto Moose Gully, but tonight I turned off onto Caddywhumpus from Pine Snake and climbed up to the end where I picked up Sniper as a last trial.  A good change from the normal ride.

Every time I ride Sniper I like it more; it keeps getting faster and more swoopy as it beds down.  It rides nicely in both directions but I prefer it from the far side (farthest from parking lot off Middle Trail) right now.  

Page Hill Night Ride

There's nothing like being one of the first to experience a new section of technical trail, everything you encounter is like solving a puzzle because there aren't any cues that you see once a trail is bedded in. It's always exciting, sometimes scary, but always a good time. Couple that with a cold October night, a bunch of mud, and lots of leaf fall to obscure the trail and you in for a treat.

Four hearty souls showed up for last night's ride at Page Hill to ride out the trails including the partially complete The Dude Abides. Being a single speeder I was a bit reluctant to get out there knowing that there is quite a bit of climbing but I had an absolute blast. I rode way more than I thought I would and some of the technical rock gardens at the top are really fun.

Did I clean everything? Not even close, but it is all rideable and with time it will bed in and become a truly great technical trail. The two existing trails Bearclaw and Hardhat are riding really well in both directions and coming down Bearclaw was incredible.

This place is well worth checking out; right now it's fairly short but the mileage from last night was deceiving. We rode just short of five miles but it felt like 10 since there is a fair amount of climbing. Don't forget to bring your big set of lungs.


 

Page Hill Trail Day Recap

What a day! The temps were great, bugs were worse in the parking lot than they were on the trails and we had a good sized crew to work our way through some burly terrain.  Our new trail 'The Dude Abides' is no joke.  Good amount of vert and a good amount of technical features as well.  Today we built a span across a wet area / washout, a ladder bridge up and over a boulder as well as some serious rock work up on the ridge.

We don't mess around. Not even a little bit.

Luckily we have the means to get some heavier tools in number back to the work area.  We weren't kidding when we said Page Hill was big.

Matt, Scott and I got to work on a little bridge project just off the power lines in the morning to get us over and past a little washout / wet area.  Took us a few hours but we are pretty pleased with the outcome.  Slight camber to it, should be fun to ride.

 Matt making artisinal chainsaw cuts

 Scott analyzing camber angles

Matt scouring the boards for a bit of traction

I forgot to get any pictures of Matt and my second project, the ladder bridge up and over a large boulder.  Went in faster than expected and is already nice and solid.  And a few of the oak slat's we used were harder than our nails so it should be good to go for at least awhile.  I lost count of how many nails gave up as we tried to pound them in.

We finished off the day with a collected effort to get a large 1 ton (at least) boulder into place up on the ridge.  I can't speak personally to all the work that went in up there but I walked that section of the trail in the afternoon and I was blown away by the amount of rock work that went in.  Nice work guys...maybe someone can chime in on this post for a true account of the toil.

 BIG

 HEAVY

 but nothing two rocks bars and a tub of elbow grease can't handle

in its new home

We got a lot of help and expertise from Ryan O. of Pinnacle fame.  You know you are in good shape if you have the Trail Boss from one of the most respected MTB spots in New England on hand.  We didn't quite make it down to Page Bypass but we are close.  Close enough to probably finish it off with some impromptu work here and there before the snow flies.

I just keep getting more and more excited about Page Hill the more singletrack we get cut in.  Such an excellent mix of terrain.  Its tough terrain to build in but it will be so worth it.

Mighty Chicken: A Tribute

Got a little creative this weekend and paid homage to one of our local crown jewels.  Enjoy, and get out and ride! I don't know about you but riding temps are getting just about perfect and one more cold snap and all those bugs will probably be dead!

Page Hill Trail Day Sunday Sept 25th!

We need help finishing off and naming "Trail 4"!  We are closer to having our initially planned loop in place but Page Hill is huge and we need all the help we can get to get these last bits of singletrack in place before the snow flies.

Come to Page Hill on Sunday Sept 25th, Registration will be from 8-9am at the base of the driveway to the cabins on Murray Hill Rd. in Hill, NH. Paste these coordinates into Google Maps for directions: 43.533398,-71.768072

Parking will be on the driveway, in the new grass lot and along the road as needed.

A map to the work area will be left at the registration area after 9am in case you are running late and you need to find us.

Tools and water will be supplied (but bringing a rake and some loppers always helps!). Bring snacks and some work gloves.  You might also want to bring your bike to ride out to the work area, it is a ways off the road and would be accessed quickest by bike.  We hope to see you there!

Advanced Beginner Ride

We had our best turnout so far last Friday with 13 people showing up to ride. There were all riding levels including 3 couples and 2 kids who did a super job. Everyone had a great time with the faster riders waiting at the next trail junction chatting until the others got there. The trails are in great shape and we did a little trail work but you still need to be aware that there is debris in spots still and be a little more cautious. The lower trails are definitely surreal all covered in white mud and silt and it felt a little wintery. Chris

Group Ride at Franklin Falls

We rode at the dam Thursday night with a crew 10-strong, including a nice mix of regulars and new faces. We hit all the trails except Salmon Brook, which still would've required a snorkel. There are still a few small puddles on the lower trails, but everything was really in great shape.

Sniper is packing in very quickly. It already rides like a well established trail, even in the middle section that we left roughed-in, but not completed. We rode it both directions and both were equally fun.

Silt on the leaves from the flooding gave the the Old Bench Extension a fun, spooky feel.

Bees!

Just an FYI to local riders.  User 'jamishead' posted on the NEMBA forums that he was greeted by some yellow jackets while riding Rusty Bucket yesterday and was stung in the face...OUCH!

http://www.nemba.org/forums/showthread.php?27321-Yellow-Jackets-on-Rusty-Bucket

So ride real fast and don't stop to rest, or avoid the trail altogether if you are allergic. 

You'd think this would BEE an issue on BEE Trail...but you'd BEE wrong.  Thanks, I'll BEE here all week....BEE sure to tip your waitress.

We Chose Wisely

The worst of the rain stayed on either side of us and our group of 5 stayed relatively dry for most of the ride.  Only started coming down a bit harder as we were on our way out.

We got some wheels on the beginnings of 'Trail 4' out and back.  So far so good.  I was able to actually ride most of it, its a challenging climb and Jesse and crew are just getting to the good stuff with some rocky ridge terrain.  Looks like the rest is going to be very interesting.  I'm looking forward to my schedule opening up this fall and getting in there to help.

Friday Night Ride

We had a good turnout for our third Friday night ride with 8 people riding. We found the new bridge over the downed tree on Bee Trail and all thought it was pretty cool. Mighty Chicken was popular even with the rider who broke his front brake lever and had even more of a challenge than usual on that second turn on the right though he survived! We finished of course with Sniper which everyone thoroughly enjoyed. All that was left was sunset views down above the dam and great conversation in the parking lot. Looking forward to another great ride next week! Chris

Mission Accomplished

Great ride at Franklin Falls last night.  Good group of about 7-8 riders, which means a good number of wheels packing down our new trail, Sniper.



We rode it in both directions (not sure which way I like better yet) and some sections are already ridden in nicely and the others will come right along as long as we keep doing what were doing.  For any who have yet to ride Sniper and are wondering where it is, we have updated our FFD trail map and it can be found on our Trail Maps page.

Last night was I think the first night that I really realized that all that glorious summer daylight is starting to fade a bit quicker.  We'll have to be more efficient for the next few weeks to get our mileage before the darkness creeps in and then it'll be time to bust out those lights!

Trail Day at Highland MTB Park! Sunday 8-14

Adam G. with the Greater Boston Chapter is coordinating.

Come join us Sunday Aug 14th as we help create the start of a cross country trail system at Highland Mountain!  We'll be starting in the morning at 8am and working all day until 5pm in two waves.

Here's the deal: come build trail for a half day and you get to ride the lift-served trails the other half for free. We cover your lunch, too.

What you need: water bottle, clothing suitable for trail building, work gloves if you have them. We will provide tools and training. Volunteers will be organized into build first/ride second and ride first/build second groups that will swap roles after lunch time.

Highland Mountain Bike Park

75 Ski Hill Drive

Northfield, NH

Page Hill TNT

We kicked off the Tuesday Night Trailwork series at Page Hill last night despite a little wet weather. Using a seatpost rack, I lashed a rogue hoe, fire rake, leaf rake and loppers to my bike and we rode out the the Northwest side of the property. The load's effect on the handling of the bike was noticeable, but riding was still faster and much more fun than lugging tools out there on foot!
We roughed in a short section of trail that we a had flagged earlier. For now, the entrance to the new trail is hidden, but we'll open it up once we get a section completed. Our next official TNT is August 23rd, but contact me if you would like to get out there sooner to check it out.

Thursday Ride @ Franklin Falls

Judging by last nights turnout, I'm guessing that this is a big vacation week or nobody can take the smell of my bike shoes anymore (I'm pretty sure a diseased chihuahua died in them). Maybe that's what they mean when they say 'the dog days of summer'.

The ride started up with just 2 of us (2 others caught up later on) and we folded the new trail Sniper into the mix. It will take a while to find the optimal trail order with Sniper online now, but we decided to do the following route: Start with Rogue and move on to Whaleback. At the end of Whaleback, there is an open area with a fireroad and small sand pit. Normally we cross the fireroad and go up a short hill that leads to Stump trail or Mighty Chicken. Instead, take a left and follow the fireroad for ~200 meters or so to pick up Sniper. If you end up back at the entrance to Moose Gully or Whaleback, you've gone to far.

Sniper is still Really soft in areas, but the flow seems good. I didn't notice any awkward spots that have to be reworked, but once it beds down and the trail gets faster things may change. It's a nice addition to the quiver at Franklin and my GPS showed that it was just over 1 mile long.

Trail Day

Special thanks to Chris, Grant, Jesse, Steve, Barry, Barry, and Matt for working trail day at Franklin Falls on July 31st! We continued work on the Sniper Trail, which had been started on May 15th. When completed, Sniper will be the longest trail at the dam, running from near the junction of Middle Trail and Caddywhompus to the junction of Moose Gully and Coleman Road.

Overall, the trail is about 80% done with both ends of the trail built. A section in the middle isn't completed, but is scarred in. Anybody with a few spare minutes and some ambition can work out there without getting lost or off track. Try stay true to the scar marks, as they were precisely located to deliver the world class flow for which Franklin Falls is known. I'm told that a deviation of even a few inches will be detrimental to trail zen and even possibly to overall yin/yang balance of the cosmos.

In other news, CNH-NEMBA's calendar is brimming with events. In addition to our standard Thursday night ride, we now have beginners' ride every Friday at Franklin falls, scattered Ladies' rides, and a Ride & Work night every other Tuesday at Page Hill.

Mike/Jesse

Ladies Ride Cancelled Tonight

This just in...
Because of the upcoming rain predicted for tonight, Jennilee is cancelling the ladies ride tonight at Franklin Falls. Sorry for the short notice, we are working on setting up a better notification system for the ladies nights like we do with our regularly scheduled Thursday night rides, so bear with us.

See you next week.

LOOKING FOR MORE SINGLE TRACK TRAIL TO RIDE IN NEW HAMPSHIRE?? THEN COME OUT AND HELP BUILD SOME! ALL WELCOME.

SUNDAY July 31th
9:00 am-12:00 pm
FRANKLIN FALLS DAM
HWY 127 AND FEDERAL DAM ACCESS RD, FRANKLIN, NH
(HALFWAY BETWEEN I-93 AND FRANKLIN ON HWY127)

Check-in 8:30-9:00 am
TOOLS AND REFRESHMENTS PROVIDED BY:
NEW ENGLAND MOUNTAIN BIKE ASSOCIATION- CENTRAL CHAPTER
WORKING IN COOPERATION WITH THE US ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS

DON’T FORGET TO BRING YOUR BIKE FOR AFTERNOON TEST RIDING!

This trail day is included in the: Jamis Bicycles/NEMBA New Hampshire Trail Care Series; this means that if you are a NEMBA member, participation gets you signed up for the end-of-season drawing for a Jamis full-suspension mountain bike.

For questions please contact:
Mike Geldermann: geldermj@yahoo.com 603-387-2592


(For detailed driving directions, use “FEDERAL DAM ACCESS RD, FRANKLIN, NH” as destination on internet map sites: MapQuest, Google Maps, etc)

Thursday Ride @Bow Trails

Ok, so I thought having lived in Central NH for 20 years I would know all the good rides in the area. Wrong! Sure, I know there is plenty of private stock stuff out there that people don't want to share, but we are talking public and totally legal here. Last night 9 heat stroke riddled riders got a tour of part of the Bow trail system thanks to the brothers Rhodes and I am blown away; it is fantastic. To top it all off, it is less than 15 minutes from downtown Concord.

The trails were a mix of really fast singletrack, some hills (it's Bow), and some really fun technical stuff. I'm already planning on coming back and exploring on my own to get to know the trails better. Also, from what I understand, there is a lot more to see.

Thanks again to the Paul and Peter Rhodes for giving us a great tour. Below is our GPS track and you can find trail maps online here

Thursday Ride @ Franklin Falls

Another great Thursday with almost perfect riding weather!  Smaller group this time around but again with a few new faces (to me).  Always nice to meet local riders.  We had a nice cruise around Franklin Falls and bumped into a few other small groups and individual riders.  It is great to see the amount of use that FFD gets.

We rode out to the end of Sniper and it is actually starting to ride in a bit already and its not even done yet!  Don't forget to come out on Sunday July 31st to help us finish it off, details on that trail day to come soon.

Thursday Ride @ Concord Hospital/Quarry

This recap is a bit late coming but I left for the Kingdom Trails Friday morning and just got back tonight.  I'm nice and tired having racked up about 50mi in the last 4 days with a little over 8,000ft of climbing.

And our Thursday ride was a great way to kick off my long weekend.  We had a great group of about 10 people with some new faces to boot.  We even lucked out and had some true locals lead the ride.  I had thought I had this area pretty well dialed but I would say almost half of this ride was new to me!  It was a treat to finally get back over to the quarry side of things as well.  I don't get over there often but the riding is great.  And so are the views!

Still need to iron out our next few Thursday ride locations, so stay tuned.  Hopefully we have many more rides like this left this season!

Page Hill Trail Map

I've been working with Quantum GIS, an open source mapping program, to produce a map for the Page Hill trail. Below is my first draft. It looks like QGIS will work quite nicely for our needs. I have also played some with Inkscape, an open source vector graphics editor (alternative to Adobe Illustrator). I didn't use Inkscape to produce this draft, but it will help to make the final final version look really professional.

This map should be serviceable for navigation with a few warnings: The GPS data for the two NEMBA trails (Bear Claw and Hard Hat) came from early scouting missions rather than the finished trails so it isn't quite a accurate as I'd like. Also, the doubletracks Page Bypass and Clough Trail and Ravine Trail are an adventurous mix of washouts, tall grass and fallen logs. Finally, the trails are almost completely unmarked. Even as the trail designer, I missed the right hand turn on to Hard Hat when I was climbing up the Access Road!

Thursday Ride @ Page Hill

Of all the times to forget my GPS device!  We ride the one place we really need to start mapping things out and I leave it at home...c'est la vive.

Weather was not 'ideal' but it also wasn't horrible.  Wasn't raining so much as just dripping off the trees and our new trails were holding up quite well with the added moisture.  Hardly any trouble spots at all.  The 4 of us rode Bear Claw and Hard Hat to the power lines and then took some existing doubletrack back to the border of the property and then we explored a bit in both directions.

Its almost overwhelming to look off the side of the existing doubletrack seeing the multitude of options that we have for future expansion.  We looped back around and climbed back up to the entrance to Hard Hat to head back home.  And a doozy of a climb it was.  Felt great on the SS...sort of.

We've got some more plans for work in Page Hill this season to try and get the area a bit more 'loopable'.  Keep your eyes peeled here and on the Upcoming Events page.

Page Hill Trail Day Recap

What a glorious day to cut some singletrack!  We had a great group out at Page Hill today to get things rolling on what will hopefully be a great multi-use area in Central NH in the years to come.  The goal for the day was to get the first two singletrack trails on the property.

Jesse clearing leaves old school

 Barry goes new school

The first trail will provide access from the beginning of the driveway up the first little hill to the cabins to avoid having to climb directly up the driveway.  You'll thank us when you see it.  Still some refining to do but its ready to ride.  Most of the work was clearing with loppers and then raking and clearing brush.  A bit of rock work here and there but not much.  We spanned a wet area with use of rocks in one spot which might also get some lumber but we will wait to see how it holds up / rides.  We found a few trees with bear claw scratches in them while we were building this one so we are calling this trail 'Bear Claw'.

 armoring an off camber turn

progress, slowly but surely

Heading from the cabins the second trail takes you out to one of the main doubletrack arteries running through the center of the property.  A hardy group of 4-5 put the first half of this trail in and then in the afternoon we sent in reinforcements and there was probably a group of 20 or so working hard to finish things off so we all could get to the cookout (AKA the real reason for showing up).  We found a hardhat laying in the woods about 3/4 into building this trail so, you guessed it, this one's called 'Hardhat'.

creating a line over a rock wall

these guys were calling all the shots

CNH NEMBA en masse

All in all we think we may have around 2mi of singletrack built, give or take...we'll need to get some actual GPS data soon.  Thursday night group ride here in the coming weeks?  Tie those trails into some of the existing doubletrack and power lines and you could probably get in a 5+ mile ride (and maybe more) at this point without trying too hard.

The Prez working the grill

Not a bad place to hang out after a hard days work / ride

I don't know about everyone else but personally I am really excited about what Page Hill could become.  It's going to be a lot of work and we're going to need a lot of help, but there is a lot of room in there to have lots of fun.

Franklin Falls

Our Thursday night group rides are in full swing now and we are consistently getting great attendance. Despite the chilly weather, 8 riders showed last night and we hit just about everything Franklin Falls has to offer including Sniper, our newest (and still unfinished trail).

As a side note, I have been conducting a very scientific bicycle species study that enumerates the types of bikes that are showing up for Central New Hampshire mountain bike rides. I am here to report that there are 2 unmistakable trends emerging from this groundbreaking study. The first is that 29ers are becoming the norm and have been in the majority on more than half our rides. The second trend is that singlespeeders are showing up in record numbers. In fact, of the 8 riders that showed up last night, 4 were on singlespeeds. If you do the math, that comes to almost 97.4%. Only time will tell whether all this in depth analysis means something, but I'd like to think that a lot of the riding in Central New Hampshire is well suited to 29inch singlespeeds. Or maybe we have just a bunch of dummies who succumbed to the marketing machine.

Don't forget to stop by Page Hill trail day this Sunday (See below upcoming events for directions). We will be working on the first 2 trails on the property. There will be water, tools, snacks, and all the blisters your hands can stomach.

Trail Day Reminder!

CNH-NEMBA trail building - June 5th in Hill, NH

 

Page Hill
Murray Hill Rd in Hill, NH (Google Maps coordinates: 43.533118,-71.767588)
Sunday, June 5th, 9:00am

The Page Hill property is a 470 acre lot owned by the Lakes Region Conservation Trust. CNH-NEMBA will be working with LRCT to develop multi-use trails for human-powered recreation there.

June 5th will be our first trail day at this site. We plan to build two new singletrack trails that connect to the existing fire roads.

We will provide tools water and snacks, but feel to bring your own along as well.

Come join us!

Trail Day

A big thanks to the hardy souls that made it out to a decidedly rainy trail day at Franklin Falls this past Sunday.  Since most of the existing trails were in excellent shape already, we didn't need to spend time cleaning up so we could focus on the fun stuff: trail building.  We started a new trail that when completed will be the longest trail CNHNEMBA has built there to date.  

Drowned Rats

The 9 member crew spent a wet 7 hours cutting, raking, digging, and compacting out the new trail and testing a new trail building method.  Instead of our usual technique of clipping and raking followed by a McCloud pulling off most of the organic 'duff' (very labor intensive), we just clipped and raked the new trail bed and then ran a plate compactor over it to harden things up.  Most of us didn't have a chance to ride it out yet, but we hope this will shorten up the 'bedding' in time for the trail and make it fun to ride right off the bat.

Sculpting

Compacted

Mike and Scott did an incredible job of laying out the trail and using every possible feature to make things fun.  We are hoping to finish things up over the next few weeks so we can officially open it to everyone.   I won't say exactly where it is just yet, but I suspect you'll find it and here's a hint:  the unofficial trail name is Sniper.

Group Rides Have Arrived

We kicked off the season last night with our first Thurs night ride!  Ended up being a SS only affair, apparently we don't mess around in Central NH.

Felt awesome to finally be on some local dirt.  Trails are in great shape already, appears as if some hardy souls have already been out and about raking/blowing off trails.  You know who you are and we thank you.  We'll be out in force to do the full blown proper Spring cleanup on May 15th as well as possibly building a new trail? TBD...

We'll be posting the next few weeks rides up to the Event Calendar soon.  Probably the usual suspects to start; Ahern, Concord, Plymouth, etc.

Come on out and get those early season painful miles in so you'll be at top speed to out run the bugs once they come out.  Just think, those of you who missed yesterday's ride missed an opportunity to see me do a double high five / chest bump with a boulder...at speed!  My handlebar location awareness is a bit rusty.

PS - We will be starting up broadcast emails a few days before the ride starting next week to remind everyone that it is on - matt

Group Rides Coming

Well, the long range forecast doesn't look great for next Thursday so we decided to postpone the official start of the group ride season until Thursday May 5 at 5:30 (leave parking lot by 5:45) at Franklin Falls.  Thursday nights' will be our official ride night again this summer and we will be riding from here on out every week until October rain or shine.

We're also hoping that the weather will actually get nice soon, it's been way too cold for this time of year.  I'm really sick of wearing winter gear and booties on 90% of my rides and am looking forward to another long season of wearing nothing but bike shoes and bug spray (I know it's a horrific thought).  So if you see a big oaf riding around wearing nothing but bike shoes and stinking of deet, it's probably me and you might want to steer clear.  I'm going to claim Seasonal Affective Disorder on the police report.  I hope bail will be set low.

Last year's spring riding ended poorly.

On a brighter note, I rode parts of the quarries and Concord Hospital trails yesterday and I'm happy to report that they are pretty dry.  There's still alot of debris on the trails but just about everything is rideable.  Be nice to the trails if you do run into any wets spots.

See you next Thursday for the season opener (I promise to be fully clothed).  We will get ride locations for May on the calender as soon as we get a feel for how wet some of the locations are.  

State of the Chapter (and Trails)

Franklin Falls could use a few more warm days to get rid of the last of the snow.  There are still some drifts in the woods in the low and shady spots but its melting fast.  And thanks to FFD's unique soil composition even the spots with melting snow are basically dry and firm.  So once that snow is gone they should be good to go!

There are a few small blown downs and lots of little dead fall scattered around per usual for this time of year so if you're out riding early this season be sure to stop here and there and begin the process of clearing some of that stuff out if you can.  We'll have our official trail day at the Dam on May 15 to get things completely squared away for the season.

There is also some chatter about trails in the Concord area quickly coming into their own as well.  Keep your eyes and ears peeled for our weekly rides to get going soon...

In other chapter news we are working on coming up with better signage for our managed trail systems.  We are working out size, materials, etc. as well as designs that meet the specs of our various land owner partners.  We invested in some leaf blowers to make those trail days that much more efficient and we are also brainstorming on some cool events we might try to pull off later in the season.

As always we are dreaming and planning big for a great year on the trails!

Hurry Up Already!

Spring is FINALLY starting to take hold in our neck of the woods. 

CNH NEMBA will be having a chapter meeting this Thursday at 6pm at Franklin Falls Dam.  We will be discussing our trail day schedules for the year among other business and possibly also taking an exploratory ride of the trails at FFD to see what kind of shape they are in weather permitting.

One thing we have already decided is our Trial Day for Ahern State Park originally scheduled for this Sunday is being pushed back to a date TBD.  Trails there are still pretty thoroughly covered in snow and we won't be able to do much useful work there for at least another week or two.

Keep your eyes peeled on Upcoming Events for the rescheduled date.

In the meantime while you wait for our trails to dry out, take a trip down south.  I spent this weekend shredding the handy work of our brothers from the North Shore and Merrimack Valley chapters.  Willowdale, Russell Mill, and Lowell-Dracut-Tyngsboro are all riding great right now.  Just goes to show you, well built trails will drain fast and ride well nice and early.

Page Hill is a GO!

The full Lakes Region Conservation Trust board met last Saturday and they have approved Central NH NEMBA's trail proposal for the Page Hill property in Hill, NH!

Trail work will begin this Spring and we are very excited.  We have already done some scouting and have ideas/plans in place so we can hit the ground running.  The terrain is excellent and will offer all kinds of opportunities for various forms of recreation.

Many thanks to LRCT and for our own Jesse McGowan for all his hard work bringing everything together!

Now all we need is old man winter to release his icy/slushy/muddy grip and we will be good to go.  Finish up the last of that winter bike maintenance and sharpen those rogue hoes!

Can you hear that??

It's your bike calling to you.  My mind has been firmly planted on down mountain skiing for months, its been one of those special seasons so far.  Lots of great snow shredding to be had.  But we've gotten some thaw/freeze cycles going and you all know what that means....



Matt and I got out to check out the conditions at Franklin Falls and are happy to report that the snow machine trails are in great shape for riding.  Unfortunately none of the single track has been getting enough traffic, but we were able to get a decent 4+ mile ride in doing some out and backs.

I was very jealous of Matt's bar mitts.  My hands got pretty cold but other than that it was a really enjoyable ride.  Great to get back out there even if it did put a spotlight on my lack of cycling fitness...

Word on the street is there is another big thaw coming next week with the inevitable freeze after conditions should be prime for winter biking.  Maybe we should get a bigger ride organized if every thing works out?  Stay tuned!

CNH NEMBA Donates a Guided Ride

What a great idea!  Barry Greenhalgh recently offered up his services as a hired guide for any of our maintained trail systems for the Campton Middle School Super Silent Auction to benefit the 8th Grade class.

We get to do what we love to do, we raise awareness, and raise some money for a great cause!