DDYTDY

How many of us Ride fixed off road? Are there any in the Merrimack Vally?

Yesterday I a did a 4 hour ride from Ward Hill Reservation in Andover, through Hammond Reservation, Skug River Reservation, Harold Parker State Forest and on to the Nike sights in North Andover via the Bay State Circuit.

The trail is a mix of fast single track, twisty spongy fresh cut trail, fire road and typical New England giant Boulder strewn rock garden.

Crossing Hammond, there is a series of narrow foot bridges snaking about 500 yards though a swamp. The last 10 yards were rotted out and rather then turn around I waded across in 1' deep swamp water. After that there's a narrow stone pedestrian causeway the looks to be 100 or so years old. It curves though another 100 yards or so through more swamp.

In Skug River Reservation there is an old stone foundation straddling the river. It was laid without mortar and in places its over 12' tall. I think it may be an old mill.

Riding a fixed full rigid mtb is improving my offroad kung fu. I'm learning to float though rough stuff while peddling. I'm picking lines way ahead of time. Clearing small logs, lift front wheel over log, lift rear adjust peddles. Or, something like that. I'm not sure how I'm doing it.

crust & crumb

I do, although I'm not in the Merrimack Vally. Scorching's ace; I wish I lived in a place better suited to it, geographically speaking.

www.63xc.com

pirate

Technical singletrack, or anything with lots of big roots and rocks would be a bummer, imo, but it sounds like you're handling business. I take my bike on some flat fire road/doubletrack sometimes. Definately good times. It's real fun to get a little blazed and ride on the cliffside trails here, the ocean on one side and rows and rows of brussel sprouts and artichokes on the other. I always forget to let some psi out of my tires, so its usually a pretty harsh ride. Also, 25/28 are ****ty tire sizes for sand or gravel, and my road gear sucks sometimes... when I save up a little more $$$ I am going to build up a old 27" road conversion with 700's and plenty of room for knobby cross tires, two brakes and a low gear for riding in some dirt. I was going to build up an old stumpjumper with horizontal dropouts as a fixed mtb, but it is beat to hell and back.

DDYTDY

Yeah, some sections of trail are more hike-a-bike then ride. The same trails I rip through on my FS rig become somewhat more of a challenge.

High bottom bracket, short cranks, pick good lines, trackstand and hop, front a rear brakes and 32/18 gearing helps.

My fixed off road rig:

https://s21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...cture010-1.jpg

riderx

Get the rhythm, feel the zen. Lots of body English helps too. Plenty of rocks here, sometimes we ride over them, other times we ride off of them. No idea where Merrimack Vally is, but it sounds like good riding.

DDYTDY

Yeah! Thats what I'm talk'in about! Great pics in your album riderx. The Merrimack is in northern Massachusetts. The glaciers stalled here and dropped a bunch of rocks.

What part of the country you from?

riderx

Frederick (Fredrock), MD. Eastern edge of the Appalachians. Plenty of rocks around here.

anomaly

I can't imagine mountain biking on a fixed gear bike. I love my full suspension XT mountain bike, can't wait to get a full suspension 29er =P

anomaly

Def gonna go full SRAM though

dirtyphotons

wilder ranch? that is quite a nice ride. also a lot of the trails in the north uc campus are totally doable fixed. and a great place to blaze.