On the Spot at the Bluff Point Adventure

The CT Chapter of New England Mountain Bike Association scheduled it's first Mountain Bike Adventure Series for 2012 at Bluff Point State Park.  There was a joint event with the Fairfield County Chapter at Collis P Huntington State Park called the Happening at Huntington but this one was put on solely by the CT Chapter.  Hundreds of hours were put into getting the park ready for what could be an onslaught of mountain bikers due to it being summer and the many beaches that are accessible from Bluff Point, that you don't have to pay to get into!

A small core of individuals that ride Bluff regularly assisted by the CT Chapter's board spent the last month clearing trails and posted regular Trail Maintenance reports on the Chapter's Blog.  Saturday's plan was to mark the main trail for the adventure ride and then the family trail would be marked on Sunday morning consisting of carriage trails.

After driving through a few rain showers the weather at Bluff Point was remarkably different.  Partly cloudy and sunny, with a slight breeze out of the west.

The slight breeze didn't help much in the woods because it was still hot.  Paula, Stephen and I rode cleanup, following Cory, Margie, and Karina as they laid out the markers.  We were still doing some clipping here and there, as well as ensuring the intersections were clear so that people wouldn't get confused and going down the wrong route.

Stephen

On the Spot On the Bluff

We got out on the park's namesake, The Bluff and the wind was a huge relief!  On my way up to the Bluff I stopped off and had my tubeless tires recharged at Pedal Power.  Never new tubeless was so much work because I am more of a fire-and-forget rider that tries to keep my bikes always ready to ride so that I can just grab one and go!  Might have to rethink this.  The Spot was running really nice and riding tubeless was a big plus because of all the thorns and prickers on the trails.

 

On the Bluff!

It took us almost 4 hours to mark all the trails and then we all got into the water to cool off!  What a benefit of Bluff Point!  Afterwards, we convoyed up to North Stonington where the CT Chapter reserved some camp grounds for the volunteers that were coming from other parts of the state and Massachusetts to stay over.

After getting our tents set up we all gathered at a picnic table to eat

drink beer and of course talk about mountain biking!

The morning after was not so pleasant because it rained from 3 to 6 AM and my tent leaked.  I didn't have the window frames in, which I had to do at 3 AM and while one worked the pole for the other one was broken and I had to pull the picnic table next to my tent to tie off the guide line in order to make it work somewhat.  Still, I didn't have the fly on right and quite a bit of water got through making sleeping hard.  I am done with tent camping!