Originally Posted by
mulveyr
lol Yeah, my reaction on getting to the hill was "Where did THAT come from?" It would have been a fun hill to climb, if we hadn't had to leave the path halfway up to avoid some out-of-control cyclists coming down the other way.
I think the only truly bad section of trail we hit was around Little Falls. They had clearly just dumped way, way too much stone dust on the trail for about a mile and a half or so - I measured it at five inches deep in one spot. Just as we were saying "Time to get back on the road", it got back to normal.
We hit the hill right after we decided to do a speed run on the flat preceding the hill, we were just dialing it back to rest when out of nowhere we hit that hill. We did manage to climb the thing without dismounting but we were toast at the top.
The year we rode through Little Falls the PTNY had marked the trail at the loose stuff with an alternate route, i.e. jump the guardrail and ride on the adjacent roadway. If I recall that was the section where someone had set up a water barrel to collect icy cold spring water that a bunch of people were drinking, when asked how they knew that it was potable they said the previous riders said so.
I just used the cold water to splash on my face and head.