Downhill Riding At An Abandoned Ski Resort!!

Woo-hoo! That is steep. All right, pro tip. Anytime you need to climb with a full face and you don't want to get sweaty, take your cheek pads out and stuff them in your hip pack. Don't lose them. And that will prevent your cheek pads on your full face from getting sweaty on the climbs. All right, welcome back to the channel. Today, we have a special ride for you. We are riding one of my favorite low-key places called Arrowhead, and it's in Claremont, New Hampshire. I rode here last year, and it's a small little mountain, but it's just such a special place. It's got so much to offer. All right, so since the last time I've been here, they've built this really cool feature. But you have like a gap out of a berm. And I know they had this in mind, because I know the builders are the sinuosity that built this. If you want to, you have the baby landing, which is like right over the tree. And if you want to, you can get to the next berm. So it's a berm-to-berm gap. And I like when builders include multiple options for different skill sets. So this is a really cool feature. All right, jumping back into the helmet discussion. Technically, you can also just take your helmet off while you're climbing. In a race situation, you have to wear your helmet the whole time. You're not wearing it, but you can get a DQ. So I felt like I needed to clarify. All right, all right. It's been about 20 minutes and we're at the top. All right, my bike's looking a little bit dirty from the last ride I did. I didn't get a chance to clean it off. We were riding in the mud. You guys remember, I'm still kind of riding with a little bit of a bum wrist. Yeah, I'm still a few weeks out from that. So as much as it feels good on a daily basis, once I get into like rough stuff, like we're about to show, it can get quite painful at the end of the run. All right, shall we boogie? What is this skinny line that I see right here? Cause I like this. Well, I guess we're not going this way. All right, so we're back to the top. We're about to do our second lap of the day. Yeah, we'll go this way and do a fixer. Lighting is a little bit tricky today, but it should be all right. Something about this New England pine straw that I really like riding on. Got a bit of a road gap here. They did have an Eastern States Cup race here a few weeks ago. So there are some lines burned. Oh man, I'm struggling to see right now. It is very patchy light. All right, let's wait for the rest of the gang. The lighting is pretty awful right now. I'm glad you said that, cause I'm like, I don't feel really comfortable cutting loose in here. I got stuck to the, got like second seat bit. I got stuck to the outside and I was like, I want to be over there. And it kind of felt like I was just at the mercy of whatever. Woo, just shaved off like 10 seconds right there. I think we got a bit of a gap right here. More or less hocked the flat. I'm a little apprehensive on those blind hooks right now cause any like big impact on this wrist does not feel good, but we'll push through it. I still see a lot of comments in some of my videos asking me what bike I run. So I guess I would do a quick bike check. So the bike that I run is a GT Force Carbon LE. It's a bit of a mouthful. So I just call it the GT Force. It's got 29 inch wheels in the front and the back and 170 mils of travel in the front, 160 in the back. I usually just try to leave the stock suspension on it cause until something bothers me, to me there's no point in changing it. And so the like ZEB Ultimate and the RockShox Deluxe have been plenty enough for my use. Even at EWS, like I had no problems with them. And of course, GT is a sponsor of the channel, but one of our other big sponsors of the channel is Noble Wheels and Onyx Hub. So if you notice when I'm riding, you never hear the hub engagement. That's because it uses a sprag clutch or a one-way bearing. And so that means there's infinite points of engagement on the hub. So there's no lag between the time you push on the pedal and the power going to the rear wheel. I should add, it has a benefit of being silent. So you can hear the tires kind of gripping up on the dirt a little bit better. And that makes the video experience better, but it also makes your experience as a rider a little bit better because you can kind of hear how your tires are hooking up on the ground. It gives you some kind of indication of how slippery or grippy it is. The other thing a lot of people would like to ask is, what is this thing? This is called an idler. And this thing is not necessarily the thing that you need to pay attention to. So the thing that you need to pay attention to is it's got a slightly higher pivot point and that allows the back wheel to travel backwards and out of the way when it hits a bump. However, because of that, that means the chain is going to grow. And to compensate for that, they add an idler because that compensates for the chain growth. So when you hit a bump, the pedals don't get jostled backwards. I think the only thing that I've had a major issue with was the handlebars. Because if you remember, I bent the stock handlebars at Windrock when I slammed into a tree. What cranks are those? They're SRAM GX. Oh, they're just like completely polished off. I polished them. That looks sick. Started off with like fine sandpaper. And like you said, like grill pads, you know, steel wool stuff. What was your name? Gavin. Gavin, nice to meet you, man. Phil. I'm Brad. This is Brad. This is my wife, Haley. Yeah, we just did a lap down fixer. So I think we're going to do a kind of a lap down. WPG 13. Yeah, that one. All right, do you mind if I follow you down? All right, let's shift a few gears. All right, so Gavin here is a local. He works at the wheelhouse, which is the local bike shop. And I've known those guys for quite a while. Did a podcast with them earlier this winter, I think, or past year. I want to go check it out. I kind of forgot what this is. Yeah, so there's real steep section right here, then down a little bit. Haley, how do you feel on something like this? Well, it's easier on your bike. Honestly, like if that shelf wasn't there, I'd be a lot less excited. Yeah, I remember like my first time here, I came up to this. Yeah. And I was like, ooh, it's a little spicier than I expected. Yep. And so I know the drop doesn't look that big from up top, but it's a pretty steep little bit of a landing. And it's not something you want to flat. That's what I did and ended up over there. Are you going to hit the drop? I was planning on hitting the drop. Whatever speed you go, I'll be able to match it. All right. All right, set up for this. Woo-hoo! That's actually pretty much fun. Some nice classic New England off camber. Ho-ho! Oh, wow. You can roll it. Yeah, there we go. She got it. Hell yeah. She rolled up, checked it, and then went back and just- Did you do the steep side? The top one, I did my little- Yep. And then the next one, I did the gully. Heck yeah. I like that. I'm more aggressive. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That jacked up my wrist right now. I don't know. They rent it out just to whoever wants it. As much as the end of the season starts to bum me out, I do appreciate the cooler temperatures. Not cold, just cool. Cool like a cucumber, which I've never understood that phrase. Woo. Yeah, I didn't realize you could see it. No, I didn't know that either. All right, Chubbs. Cool. Let's do this. All right, this is kind of one of the more iconic trails here. If you look at Strava or any heat map, this is the one that kind of glows the most. Woo-hoo! That is steep. Oh, what am I doing here? Am I taking a new line? A little off-camber. Oh, nice. Gotta dig those side knobs in. Trying to land it in the manual. Woo. Time for the most fun part of the ride. The hike. All right, we're gonna bail out early from the climb and head over to Tomahawk. Tomahawk is the trail that had that sick berm that I showed you guys at the beginning of this video. Do you guys have pretty much free reign of doing like anything you want? Yep, anything on the property. I mean, as far as building big things, there's a little bit of restrictions there if we want. In the ski trails, we're not supposed to have berms or anything. We're not really supposed to modify the ground. We got permission. That one jump at the bottom, they said they'd let the skiers hit it. Oh, the one that everyone sits on? Yeah. All right, let's do this. Oh, a sneaky inside line. Woo-hoo. What is this? Can you ride this? You can. Ho, ho, ho, ho. Oh, nice retention pond. Oh boy, this is steep. Oh, I cased the crap out of that. Oh yeah, I came into that berm and I wasn't going nearly fast enough. I thought I was gonna die. Really? I was like, no traction. On the off-camber? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's pretty horrible. And then dropping into that chute, I was like, where's the dirt? Where's the dirt? All the way to the left. And then I was like, I'm not gonna make the turn. My watch finally died. Oh, my watch just told me 10%. Here, I'll make room for you, Phil. I can see, like, The stump bumper? Uh-huh. Stump bump. Ah. Woo-hoo-hoo. Those trees are so tight. Ah, that's a good section. I honestly really like that little section of trail. Oh yeah. I will have to cut it. This is a man, myth, legend. This is Rob. And he's kind of one of the big advocates for this whole area. So this probably would have happened, but not to this degree without your involvement. So now you are, you own a bike shop called The Wheelhouse with a few other people. Matt and Eli and myself, we bought a bike shop and we're trying to take over the world. World domination. Well, thanks for doing what you're doing. Do you do quite a bit of wrenching or? Yeah, that's mostly what I do. I know how to do. That's handy. I didn't really start wrenching on my own bike until I was like 19. Yeah. Do you mind if I leave this one out? Yeah, go for it. And do you remember last year, there was like that nasty climb? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The one that I got in. Right where you said. For my videos. Yeah, right where you said that's why you hate racing. Yeah. Cut that off. Cool. See, positive feedback makes things change. All right. Let's do this. All right. Whoops. Bad line choice Phil. All right. I think this is part of the old trail. Yeah, yeah. That part is nasty. But also in a good way. Oh yeah. So this is where they cut out the uphill. Oh yeah. Works so much better without it. Okay, where'd the trail go? Here's a creek gap. That trail. No, I, that was fun. I still think that's my favorite trail. Did you guys notice how slippery that rock was? I rode into that, hit my brakes on the rock and my tires slid out and I caught myself on the big rock. Well, I'm glad I didn't know that. I'm also glad you didn't hurt yourself. This place like always delivers. I really enjoy how the trails are built here. It's just like the right level of like old school natural stuff that I grew up with like downhill racing on and kind of like something like new school stuff. Either way, if you're looking for kind of a small bike park to come check out, this is definitely worth it. I think this is kind of one of the more underrated places but I'll see you guys next time. Peace.