PA Explorations on the Mukluk

I took my new Mukluk to State College on a family visit trip and managed to sneak in a four hour ride on Sunday morning.  It is hard to decide which bike(s) to take as there is so much good riding in the area.  I feel like I could take them all and ride for a month and still have the hankering for more.   But the Mukluk is new and I was eager to learn more about its character, so I brought that.

Sunday morning started very chilly with 30F temps and frost on the car windows.  Brrr, winter is coming.  I brought some colder gear but not for 30F.  So I waited for a little bit and then dressed as much as possible to head out in to the cold.   I went to the Shingletown gap to start.  This is one of the rockiest, most technical 3-mile rock garden excuse for a trail.  The mukluk did ok, but there was lots of bouncing off the plentiful angular rocks, no match for a full susp bike that I rode here earlier in the summer.  

This area had received a lot of rain recently and a small part of the gap trail was concurrent with a stream bed.  There was one section with about 6" of muddy muck and the big tires on the fat bike went right through without too much drama.   Once I hit the fire road, I encountered a big 50 mile trail race in progress.  It was a relay and there were about 100 people standing up at the saddle, very strange.  So I dove off course down the Shingletown Rd, a grassy, fast descent.  There aren't any large rocks in this trail, but lots of small, high frequency bumps to jiggle you loose on the way down.  Again, this bike is NOT a full susp bike.   

I then turned up Pine Swamp Rd, across on 26, and started to explore more forest service roads I had not been on before.   I found a snowmobile trail, Pump Station Rd, that was a grassy, rocky climb for 1.5 miles on 10% to 20% steady grades.   I put the bike in its lower gears and went in to rock-crawler mode. I made it up the long ascent without too much effort, but it was slow going.   Once over the top of Tussey Ridge, I went down a switch-backy fire road down to PA Furnace on Rte 45.  Parts of the road are nicely graded forest road, then without warning, it turns in to a rocky jeep trail, again with an impromptu stream running down it.  I've never seen anything like this before, it is almost as if the nice road disappears in to someones 4x4 play course.   

Not wanting to ride back to town on 10 miles of road, I went back up the gap and hooked up with a long, straight, amazingly flat forest service road that ran the length of the ridge.  I dumped out on Pine Grove Mountain and made my way back to town.

Overall the bike did great.  It is a great choice for this kind of adventuring.  Probably my full susp GF SF100 would have been a better bike, I had plenty of fun on the mukluk.   It was also nice to discover new dirt roads and trails I had not been on before.   I can't wait to go back to explore more of this area.

AEP Adventure Ride

This Saturday I took my new fatbike out for an adventure.  Two years ago, I had visited the AEP Recreation Land on my motorcycle and have always wanted to go back.  The area is a reclaimed strip mine .  It is amazing to think what happened in this area not too long ago.

 

The "Big Muskie", a single ginormous shovel, moved more than twice the material in this part of Ohio than was moved in the entire Panama Canal.  I believe the bucket, which is large enough to hold a two-story house, is still on display.  It is hard to imagine what this area was like during the heyday of mining.  It must have been an abomination and the world truly looked like it was coming to an end.  

Now it seems beautiful, but also not quite real.  It definitely does not feel like Ohio, something just seems out of place.  But if definitely is beautiful and an enjoyable area to ride through.

The area looks more like a savannah with wide open areas of grasslands.  I can't quite figure it out.  Maybe they mow it?  The grass wasn't that high.  Or maybe the soil is so mineral-poor that things just don't grow well?  I had a few moments of cutting across the prairie and the soil underneath was often very gravelly.


Lots of the area is typical gravel and dirt roads.  When it is dry, like it was yesterday, the going is quite pleasant.  I can imagine it gets pretty messy when it is wet.  Some of the area had double-track from old roads that are growing back into the prairie.  There were some areas where "bushwacking" was necessary.


My new fatbike was a real joy.  It is definitely a different frame of mind.  This is not a fast bike, and if you need to go fast, get something else.  It can go if you pedal it - I did maintain 15-20 mph on the pavement.  But going uphill it is slow.  It is a 34lbs bike afterall with very wide tires.  They worked great on the dirt and gravel.  And were perfect for the few cross-prarie moments.  There we just a few wet spots with a marshy feel; the Mukluk went right on through without problem.


But at the end of the day, there is no denying that a cross bike or a fast (rigid) mountain bike would be the perfect tool for the job here.  Fatbike was ok, but if I went with a group, I'd have to be in better shape or they'd have to be patient.

On this beautiful fall day, the area was full of outdoors people.  Hunters, campers, fishermen, and 4x4 types.  I'm glad lots of folks are out using the area.  I wonder what it is like in winter.




Here is a movie of the whole adventure:

Going Fat

I got fat this week.  My friend JG found a Mukluk at a very low price in MN.  A couple of phone calls later, and I had a 2011 Mukluk coming my way in the mail.  It arrived on Monday and I put it together that night.  The wheels are just ginormous, almost comical.  

It rides surprisingly normal.  Yes it is heavy, but if you are willing to dial the speed back just a little, there isn't much this bike can go through.  What I didn't anticipate is the level of notoriety it commands.  Everyone turns their heads and stares at you and the bike in disbelief.   I had become accustomed to being a bit more anonymous on my bike, not so with this one.  Everyone notices you.