The Philadelphia Mountain Biking Association

saturday me and 3 other guys set out with a goal in mind. to try to ride as close to a hundred miles (and as many trails as possible) in all three of philly's major parks.

we thought if we rode EVERYTHING we would probably end up somewhere around 100 and being the dreamers we are we of course thought, sure why couldn't we do that?

well we met at 8AM at belmont plateau (the first of the three parks). for about 1/2 hour we were cruising, the world seemed to be perfect, the sun was warming us into the 70's, the trails were tacky and delicious.

then it happened.... SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS; the sound of air escaping your tube after you suddenly start to feel some extra bounce in your tires. belmont had a bumper crop of torn apparently that day. i flatted, then i double flatted, then someone else flatted, then i flatted again.... all in all we had barely covered 10 miles it was 11 o'clock and hopes of a hundred were starting to fade with the fixing of the eternal flat.

well we finally got out of belmont and kissed the thorns goodbye.... on to wissahickon! we rode some fun stuff here and definitely hit lots of the steep climbs the park is known for. we came off kelly and basically rode a counterclockwise loop up to vallygreen inn. everything was finally coming together and although we weren't going to get 100 we were finally rolling and we at least knew we would make all three parks.

getting to pennypack was a challenge... if you look at the map you can see pennypack is no connected to the other two. to get there you have to ride about 10-12 road miles through not so nice stretches of of busy roads. luckily our ride organizer had a plan to get there. double luckily we got to stop at a korean market and deli half way into the ride to pennypack, before heading to a nice park at his school to eat and have a mid-ride break/meal. we had beer, we had mustard greens with kimchi? (bring a vegan to a korean market), sushi.... (just he stuff you want to eat after riding 40 miles)

after bullshittin for an 1/2 hour or so we packed it up and made our way to pennypack for out final trails of the day. pennypack didn't dissapoint. it is the mellowest of the three parks and perfect for our tired legs. we rode lots of the nice singletrack out of the pine road lot and generally tried to ride down the park toward our eventual homeward leg.

upon getting to the other end of the park we discovered we didn't really have a clue how exactly to get home. so we basically just found a quiet roads (i don't remember the names) and pointed it back toward center city. we saw some cool stuff. road through some "colorful" neighborhoods... our leader was just wearing spandex with no baggy cover and got two NICE catcalls on our way home... Kiss

goodtimes! we ended back where we started almost exactly 12 hours later with about 70 miles showing on my friends computer. not quite a century but a really good ride...

here is a map

link to my friend chris' pictures:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7935825@N04/sets/72157600108148169/