(Please forgive my translation errors! My French sucks...)
With 3 days off we decided to go ride in place that our friends of Rochester have spoken to us for a few years.
So we joined Echo and Tweek in Rochester.
Shortly after our 5 hours of driving to go to Rochester we travelled 2 hours to Ellicottville.
The trails of Ellicottvile, a small ski village, are located in NY State lands and are maintained by Western New York Mountainbike association.
We started with the “Race Loop” which is used for the a Wednesday local race series and famous “the 6 hours of Power”. After having to borrow the race loop until the top of the ski mountain, we jumped on the Hiking trail (open for bicycle) of Finger Lakes Trail. The beginning of the trail was very difficult with many rocks, true hiking trails:
It is super interesting to have the right to ride on an important path of hiking, it is a great step ahead for the presence of the divided MTB trails. The Finger Lakes Trail (FLT) is 562 miles and connects the Catskills mountains to the Allegheny mountain. A part is open for bikes and I dare dreamed that if the results are positive other section could open.
In addition to Finger Lakes Trail, there is a superb network of trails made for mountain bikes. With a name like Pale Ale how could we not like these incredible singletracks!
A day with no blood and sweat is a day lost!
The mountain bike trails are really well built, several section were worked to be driest possible. Certain work is very subtle and I only noticed the hours invested thanks to the maintenance made with the ADSVMQ. On the other hand certain work is very obvious. (to look at the bridge of rock to pass a mud hole and the artificial obstacles to show the way).
After incredible but exhausting ride of approximately 22 km and more than 4 hours we went to the micro brewery of Ellicottvile for good...... guess what...... Pale Ale!
Ellicottville Brewery is in the village only a few minutes from the trails. They support mountain bikes a lot and sponsor a race team. The beer garden is incredible and the beer still better, thus it is not a large effort to support them in our visit.
The evening arrives, so we have to hike our backpacks to go to be a place to camp.
It was the first time Hiking/Camping for Echo, he had just bought a back pack, lightweight sleeping back, and hiking poles.
David Crocket!
They detoured the hiking trail to build a golf course, and yes, even in edge of a state park, they destroyed perfect woods to make a green carpet for the rich person with Polo shirts!
In Hiking, one cannot carry much weight, then one compensates by quality. We had brought one beer for three but what a beer! A delicious Corne de brume, Scottish Beer of style which comes from the islands of the madeleine, a sheer delight. Those which came during beer festival know what I speak!
After one very windy night, breakfast at the edge of a pond.
The condo of Echo for the weekend.
Then a small hike to rejoin the car.
and return to the bicycles for a second day of riding.
The trails were extremely cool, of beautiful singletrack travelling with a technical flow.
The coolest part with these trails is that they cover a lot of ground. To explain, often the trails built for the bicycle (Kingdom, Coaticook etc….) uses to the maximum the ground available with much twisting, it is really fun. However the trails of Ellicottville breathe. They are made more on the model of hiking trails, zigzaging slightly between the trees but skirting the contours of the mountain for a long time in the same direction.
After a second day (the legs ruined from the day before) of approximately 15 kms we are returned to the Micro brewery to fill this “German Growler”. A container of 2 L which can be refilled at the brewery for a moderate price, before bringing to a new spot to camp.
The price on this growler is 25$ but what a beautiful collector's item!
Planning of the way of the following day.
I do not know what was in that beer but the lizards were disco music!
We missed a few trails to supplement a majority of the paths suggested to the bike shop of Ellicottville (where it they sell the maps). Then we left from our second camp-site to go ride the Rim Trail while climbing the suberbe BillyGoat (this trail was made for descending though).
It had rained extremely the day before and it was wet. The tracks which one rolled the last two days at high speed had become very slick and did not forgive any errors.
The rim trail was one of our favorite of the weekend with these impressive formations of dangerous slippery rocks.
It is really fun to have an immense play-ground with many options of routes. We chose to return from “Rim Trail” by the FLT and once again it was an interesting headache of rock gardens which awaited us at the beginning of the path, before tranforming into a ultra smooth trail, fast and overflowing with flow, wahhoO!
With the food and the beer being so good, we decided to still support the local business by going in Ellicottville Brewery for Perogies, Nachos and Quesedillas and of course BEER!.
A superb weekend with 3 days filled very well with singletrack and adventure with good friends.
With 3 days off we decided to go ride in place that our friends of Rochester have spoken to us for a few years.
So we joined Echo and Tweek in Rochester.
Shortly after our 5 hours of driving to go to Rochester we travelled 2 hours to Ellicottville.
The trails of Ellicottvile, a small ski village, are located in NY State lands and are maintained by Western New York Mountainbike association.
We started with the “Race Loop” which is used for the a Wednesday local race series and famous “the 6 hours of Power”. After having to borrow the race loop until the top of the ski mountain, we jumped on the Hiking trail (open for bicycle) of Finger Lakes Trail. The beginning of the trail was very difficult with many rocks, true hiking trails:
It is super interesting to have the right to ride on an important path of hiking, it is a great step ahead for the presence of the divided MTB trails. The Finger Lakes Trail (FLT) is 562 miles and connects the Catskills mountains to the Allegheny mountain. A part is open for bikes and I dare dreamed that if the results are positive other section could open.
In addition to Finger Lakes Trail, there is a superb network of trails made for mountain bikes. With a name like Pale Ale how could we not like these incredible singletracks!
A day with no blood and sweat is a day lost!
The mountain bike trails are really well built, several section were worked to be driest possible. Certain work is very subtle and I only noticed the hours invested thanks to the maintenance made with the ADSVMQ. On the other hand certain work is very obvious. (to look at the bridge of rock to pass a mud hole and the artificial obstacles to show the way).
After incredible but exhausting ride of approximately 22 km and more than 4 hours we went to the micro brewery of Ellicottvile for good...... guess what...... Pale Ale!
Ellicottville Brewery is in the village only a few minutes from the trails. They support mountain bikes a lot and sponsor a race team. The beer garden is incredible and the beer still better, thus it is not a large effort to support them in our visit.
The evening arrives, so we have to hike our backpacks to go to be a place to camp.
It was the first time Hiking/Camping for Echo, he had just bought a back pack, lightweight sleeping back, and hiking poles.
David Crocket!
They detoured the hiking trail to build a golf course, and yes, even in edge of a state park, they destroyed perfect woods to make a green carpet for the rich person with Polo shirts!
In Hiking, one cannot carry much weight, then one compensates by quality. We had brought one beer for three but what a beer! A delicious Corne de brume, Scottish Beer of style which comes from the islands of the madeleine, a sheer delight. Those which came during beer festival know what I speak!
After one very windy night, breakfast at the edge of a pond.
The condo of Echo for the weekend.
Then a small hike to rejoin the car.
and return to the bicycles for a second day of riding.
The trails were extremely cool, of beautiful singletrack travelling with a technical flow.
The coolest part with these trails is that they cover a lot of ground. To explain, often the trails built for the bicycle (Kingdom, Coaticook etc….) uses to the maximum the ground available with much twisting, it is really fun. However the trails of Ellicottville breathe. They are made more on the model of hiking trails, zigzaging slightly between the trees but skirting the contours of the mountain for a long time in the same direction.
After a second day (the legs ruined from the day before) of approximately 15 kms we are returned to the Micro brewery to fill this “German Growler”. A container of 2 L which can be refilled at the brewery for a moderate price, before bringing to a new spot to camp.
The price on this growler is 25$ but what a beautiful collector's item!
Planning of the way of the following day.
I do not know what was in that beer but the lizards were disco music!
We missed a few trails to supplement a majority of the paths suggested to the bike shop of Ellicottville (where it they sell the maps). Then we left from our second camp-site to go ride the Rim Trail while climbing the suberbe BillyGoat (this trail was made for descending though).
It had rained extremely the day before and it was wet. The tracks which one rolled the last two days at high speed had become very slick and did not forgive any errors.
The rim trail was one of our favorite of the weekend with these impressive formations of dangerous slippery rocks.
It is really fun to have an immense play-ground with many options of routes. We chose to return from “Rim Trail” by the FLT and once again it was an interesting headache of rock gardens which awaited us at the beginning of the path, before tranforming into a ultra smooth trail, fast and overflowing with flow, wahhoO!
With the food and the beer being so good, we decided to still support the local business by going in Ellicottville Brewery for Perogies, Nachos and Quesedillas and of course BEER!.
A superb weekend with 3 days filled very well with singletrack and adventure with good friends.
approved!
