Shenipsit

Mountain biking in the Hartford area means mountain biking with sprawl. Sometimes, trails you used to ride disappear completely and sometimes you deal with encroachment. There used to be these trails across town from where I grew up in Avon in Huckleberry Hill Park. Then, some parts of the woods became a subdivision and you can't ride there anymore. It was too bad.



Yesterday I was riding at Case Mountain and instead of crossing over to Gay City and riding to Blackledge Falls, I decided to keep going down the Shenipsit. It's cool. The first couple miles before getting into the Meshomasic are weird. It's this techy, bench-cut singletrack in backyard's McMansions in a creek valley.

I must say that the areas around the Shenipsit are probably better than the areas around the Metacomet for suburban mountain biking along ridge lines. The Metacomet is pretty good, but there's something to be said for trails that were made with mountain biking in mind. Al Tinti is a pretty talented guy. I wish he had a counterpart on my side of the river. Although, the Shenipsit itself through much of the Meshomasic is a ten foot-wide ATV road.