Just the other day, I was talking to an acquaintance about high-tech bike gear. Specifically, we struck up a conversation about portable tire pumps, the little ratchet-type pumps that are lightweight and can be carried with you in case you get a flat tire on the road or on a trail in the middle of nowhere. They only weigh a few ounces, not even a whole pound. But they sure come in handy if you get a flat tire, get it fixed, and need to inflate it again to continue your journey.
After finishing that conversation, I realized how much I love getting out and mountain biking on trails near where I live. Unfortunately, here in California we’ve had a few fires, and one of my favorite trails has literally burned to the ground, it smells like you’re riding through a burnt barbecue, it’s ugly, and it looks like hell. Although one does not know what hell is like, I think you could say the same if you saw it this way.
One of the coolest things I like to do when I travel is rent a mountain bike, or borrow one from a friend and find out what kind of trails they have nearby, trails you could explore on a mountain bike. In fact, there is a very good book about mountain bike trails in the Philadelphia area. This is a Falcon map guide, it is a book that I have and would like to recommend to you. The name of the book is;
“Mountain Biking in the Greater Philadelphia Area: A Guide to the Delaware Valley’s Best Off-Road Bike Rides”, by Bob D’ Antonio, Falcon Press, Guilford, CT, 2004, 223 pages, ISBN: 0-7627- 2806-X.
This book comes with all the information you need. It tells you where each trailhead is, how to get there, where to park, the number of hills, the number of miles, and suggestions on equipment you might need and how long it might take to complete based on your skills and physical strength. Each trail also displays an elevation graph like they do in the Tour de France stages where you can look and see on a graph how many feet of elevation you go up and down as you ride.
If you’re going to be doing any type of mountain biking in the Greater Philadelphia area, then you need to get this book too. It is not very expensive, but it is essential. Please consider all this and think about it.
