The Bike Park With No Easy Way Down!

Looks like we're gonna be in the clouds today. All right, so today we're at Bolton Valley, which is probably one of my favorite places in the world. This is the first year that they've opened back up for mountain biking. They also have the world's shortest run-up to get your bike on the lift. So this is definitely not one of the fastest lifts around, but they are governed by how fast they can run this lift because it's not attachable. And what I mean by that is all these chairs are fixed to the cable. Some of the bigger resorts, these chairs actually come detached from the cable and they'll actually go at a slower speed at the base and at the tops of the mountain. That way the chair can run slow so people can get on and off the lift, but the cable can run at a faster speed so you can get up the mountain quicker. But they're also a lot more expensive, so not every resort can afford them. This might be an interesting video because I can only see one chair in front of us. All right, we're gonna be probably clearing off the lens of the camera a bunch today. Over to our right you can see they're starting the beginner loop right there. Yeah, it's going to be a muddy day. I'm also going to go ahead and let out a little tire pressure. I have 26 right now, but I think, okay, that should be 25. So we're actually going to start climbing for a little bit because this service road actually brings you up to a different peak. And this stuff right here is pedal access. This side of the mountain is called wilderness. When they used to do lift service mountain biking here, this is the side they operated on. You can see something's going on right there. The b-line actually goes under the trail, which is pretty cool. It's about eight feet down and 12 feet out. The off-camera coming in got you? I mean, that's why this drop is kind of sketchy. Now this is a run in. It's all not exactly straightforward. You can't see it, but right now there's like a rock face up there. That's like a double step. Not last year, but the year before I actually gapped it. And this is the thing I gapped. Landed right there. All right. All right. Into some sketchy root sections. That was not the line. So there's a section coming up up here that gets pretty hairy. I mean, this whole section's hairy, but this, oh, sorry. Distraction. Cool. Where does this start then? More potential for snowboarding. All right. So this section right here gets very sketchy. I'd be really ginger on your brakes because all the mud gets dragged onto the rocks and you can't get any grip. I'm actually surprised I made it all the way down with no issues. I'm going to stop so I can clean off the lens and probably my lenses too. Got a bunch of Bolton anacondas out in full effect today. Okay. So now, oh my God. Don't break on bridge. Bridges scare me. Coming up to traffic. Go ahead and pull off. Anytime I come up on traffic, I like to give them some distance. It's not busy, so I can just kind of hike back up, do the section again. I think I've given them a fair amount of time. Go ahead and start. I like gabbing to that rock. I don't know why. Roots here. I really like what they've done to the trail. It's a good mix of technical and natural. All right. So down before the bridge, this section right here is actually probably the hardest bit of trail and the slower section. Oh, cool. They went the old exit. So this place never gets any easier. I promise the dismount is right there. You can't even see it. That's pretty cool. So apparently there's a way for them to mark when a lift with a bike is going to arrive at the top. So on a day like today, when you can't see anything, the lifties have a warning to be able to get your bike. All right. So this is called Vista. It's in the winter. It's Vista Glades. I think it's just Vista in the summer. It's pretty incredible how they built this, to be honest. This was a pretty big task for them to do. If I had to be honest, I wish there were a few more hits or things to do on the way down. This was one of the few things we could do. All right. This trail straight across is called Hydra and that is the hardest trail off of this side of the mountain. We might hit it one of our next runs. Let's go down to Waterfall. So we'll walk down this to show you what the Waterfall Drop is. It's not that hard. It's about like 15 feet out, like 10 feet down. It's not much of a waterfall, but just a wee little guy. Haley's going to grab a video from me down there. Now we're going to traverse and go over to Boulder Gap. So earlier this season, I actually had one of my worst crashes on this trail. I got through everything technical. I got down to like the ski slope section, which is like you're out of the woods at that point. And my bike just slid out and I got like a really bad concussion, just slamming my head on the ground. Oh my God. This section is treacherous. I'd love to cut off my GoPro, but yeah, I came right here and this wasn't rocky before. So now I approach that section with an abundance of caution. Bowen Valley is one of those places where it's kind of hard to attack, even when it's like in good conditions. And then once it's wet, you have to ride really defensively. Seems like I'm not like attacking the trail. You'd be right. It's actually kind of right in here. Not even close. All right. This traverse up here is so sketchy. Actually, it didn't go too bad today. Clear off the lens. There you go. Actually, this is in relatively good condition. Straight into the muck. One of these days, I hope they do something cool here, but they have plenty of work ahead of them. So this is pretty low priority. So if you've grown up in New England, you may have heard this term, but if you're outside of this area, I'm not sure how popular this term is. But when all the leaves fall, we call this stick season because literally all the trees just become sticks with nothing on them. So we've done Hard Luck Chute. Hard Luck Chute used to start right there. And then what are they doing over there? Sorry, destruction. Spillway Chute starts right here. Ooh, spicy. When they first opened the trail, it was a blue. I always feel like, oh my God, I'm in Scotland when I come down this trail. That's going to be the beginner trail. It's going to come down from there. So as you can see, they're doing a lot of work up here. Gravity Logic has a few of their guys up here doing some excavator work. So eventually you won't have to bomb down the fire road every single time. But I think I mentioned this before. I kind of like it. Oh, that's fun. All right. So this is Hydra. I'll show you why this trail has its reputation. Right off the bat, you have a wood feature that you can barely break on straight into a muddy Rocky Rudy section. I actually had a pretty hilarious fall earlier this year where I just like, I think it was like right there, just tomahawked off the trail into the woods. So fingers crossed that that doesn't happen this time. Are you guys going to hit it? Oh, you good? Yeah. That's a prime example why this trail is sketchy. All right. Let's see how this goes. No brakes. All right. Okay. All right. That went better than I expected, to be honest. Let's clear the camera because this section is really sketchy as well. All right. Not bad. Got a little bit of a hip right here. Yeah, he slid right out on the first bridge pretty hard, but I think he's all right. Well, you can actually see this time. Your kit looks great. It does? Yeah. Actually, you need some turquoise goggles. Or some purple. Power lines. This is kind of like a really tight and turny trail. Case in point. Almost missed that turn. I don't do it that often, so I kind of forget what comes up. This turn is actually pretty easy to mess up on. Some old school New England jank right here. When you get to those off-camber sections, sometimes just got to not fight it. Just find a little roots and rocks are sticking out that you know you can get some grip on for a split second. Just use those as a stepping stone to get you down. Oh, my God. I almost hung out with the ground for a split second. I think I can still get to bottom out from right here. Yeah, so this was like the original trail. The moment you enter a bridge somewhat crooked, it's game over. We've all experienced that at one point or another. All right, for continuity sakes for my video, we have two new people joining us. We have Andrew and Taylor. Andrew, I have snowboarded with a bunch here. Taylor is one of those people who lives on the edge, doesn't wear knee pads. Well, I can tell you this one doesn't hold air. So in probably about three runs, I am going to have to go to the car and put air in my shock. My front hub is loose. My back hub is loose. My rear brake doesn't work that great. Um, I think that's it. I actually really like seeing people on older bikes and making them work. You don't always need the newest and latest, greatest gear. The top part isn't too bad. Once we get to the next part, at least we can see got off a little bit over there. So I lined into that was not good. So this was the first trail they redid this year. That turns always a little tighter than I expect the new blue jump trail. This is literally just finished. That's going to be pretty soft. So I'm not expecting it to ride a hundred percent right now because they opened this for the first time yesterday. Oops. Yeah, I can. Oh my God. I can understand why they closed part of it. This part down here is made with like the greater, this stuff is a lot firmer. So even though it's fresh, it should ride a little bit better. Okay. This stuff should work fine though. This stuff has been open. So eventually the top section will ride like this. Well, so Haley and I earlier this year, we bushwhacked down like this, uh, steep face to double down. This is such a clutch transfer, but when this is open, this is going to be like, it opens up like so many more possibilities. Oh, I saw you slide. Yeah. All right. Is Taylor with us? Oh, okay. Oh my God. Oh my God. I wonder if I can bunny hop over that. I tapped it. Did my back wheel go to the side? Yeah. That felt really good. Well, that's where we're going to leave this video off. Thanks for playing bikes with me today. And I will see you guys next time. Peace.