Exploration Muni - The Long Path through Thacher Park, NY

We had an adventurous Muni ride over the weekend along the 'Long Path'
(http://www.nynjtc.org/trails/longpath/index.html) which runs from NY
City to Albany. We did just 11 miles near Albany, which was enough.

We have ridden part of the trail before, but parts were new to us, so
there was some adventure in the ride. We shuttled with 2 cars giving
us added incentive to do push through to the finish no matter what the
trail turned out to be like.

The first few miles up to Roemers Lookout and back down through Thacher
state park were great. We were all on 24" but these certainly would
have been fine on a 29". In the park we had some fun on stairs and
rocks and got plenty of comments from the weekend crowd. Leaving
Thacher state park the woods became more remote, and the single track
more challenging, lots of little dips and rises, plus mud, added up to
more walking. This section was still fun, and provided the best
overlook. Much of the trail was obviously newly cut and marked in
recent trail reroutes (away from the dirt roads) and will only get
nicer as more people use it.

Steve had a GPS so we've got 'GPS map and stats from our route'
(http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/6356165). Anyone wanting
to try the route can find the parking area at Elm Drive from this. At
the other end there is a country road with plenty of places to stash a
car.

I also had a camera, with all the pictures up here, and a few select
ones below.
http://tinyurl.com/5tt96s


-Ro


Roland, Steve, and Perry
[image: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3018/...10a0133f8.jpg]

A challenging staircase at Thacher park
[image: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3003/...c091d8350.jpg]

Perry at one of 3 overlooks on this ride
[image: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3177/...a78a92bbf.jpg]


--
rolandisimo
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rolandisimo wrote:
...Leaving Thacher state park the woods became more remote, and the
single track more challenging, lots of little dips and rises, plus mud,
added up to more walking...Much of the trail was obviously newly cut and
marked in recent trail reroutes (away from the dirt roads) and will only
get nicer as more people use it.

As usual, Roland understates the difficulty here.

There were 3 or 4 miles of the most uneven, rocky, rooty, cobbly trails
I've ever been on. I've certainly never ridden anything this hard to
ride for this long. This new portion of the Long Path trail was
typically a meter or two of rooty, rocky flat section, then a meter or
two with a one or two foot dip, sprinkled liberally with rocks and
roots. Literally every meter or two was another steep ditch out of
which we had to climb. We rode for miles standing on the pedals,
without being able to sit at all. It was one of the most difficult
rides I've ever done.

Roland once even said "*this is pretty tiring*." I've never heard him
say anything like that.


--
steveyo

steveyo
...like having your own personal rollercoaster...

- a few 'uni race write-ups'
(http://home.nycap.rr.com/rduhan/uni_race_writeups/)
- muni and kokopelli uni 't-shirts, mugs and stickers'
(http://www.cafepress.com/steveyo)
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steveyo wrote:
Roland once even said "*this is pretty tiring*." I've never heard him
say anything like that.



And I still haven't heard him say that. He must have confided this to
you when I was struggling to catch up through one of those brutal
rooty/rocky/dippy sections.

Thankfully I have no short-term memory and have already forgotten about
the pain. Should we tackle this trail again over the weekend?


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--
capuni

My 'Ride The Lobster Photo Album'
(http://gallery.mac.com/perrywoodin#100208)
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Looked at the pics. It looked like a blast. Did you much walking? It
would have wore me out! Ha! Thanks for sharing


--
rem48
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capuni wrote:
Thankfully I have no short-term memory and have already forgotten about
the pain. Should we tackle this trail again over the weekend?



yes, we should
'Panama ' (http://tinyurl.com/56ngcs)will be harder (but you wont
remember that).




Did you much walking?



The last 3 miles or so I would guess were 20% walking....maybe less?
Not sure, seems to also be fadding from my memmory. Lets check Steve's
speed graph from the gps....maybe a bit more
[image:
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/c...Visible=false]


--
rolandisimo
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Looks like loads of fun. I would like to get my friends to muni and go
on some rides!


--
oneisenough

Plaeze x-cuze mi spelin' (If its wrong)
'Youtube' (http://www.youtube.com/user/RookieFilming) 'Vimeo'
(http://www.vimeo.com/user496125)

The UniSLAB wrote:
Go big or go home, don worry about those little clown tricks called
flips and wrap arounds. We don't dance with our uni's, we jump em

2nd Place*)---', 6ft Static Gap
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