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- Apr 1, 2009
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I took my 11 year-old out for a MTB ride on Saturday over at Graham Hills Park, which is in Westchester county, NY.
It was a blast, and while Son of Beanbag has been MTBing since he was about 7 years old, this was his first time on this trail. One of the main reasons for that is there is a very long, steep climb to get to the top, and he just wasn't ready for it before this year. In fact, when we got to the top Son thought he was going to puke, and we had to wait about 10 min.s before he was ready to focus on the downhill. I was really proud of him because video doesn't do this, or any trail justice. It's more technical than it looks and his information processing and decision making was perfect. He was riding like an adult, not an 11 year-old, and he was really ripping it up.
[video=youtube;DKdJDvs8LxY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKdJDvs8LxY[/video]
The trail is a designated mountain bike trail. Where I live in Westchester County, NY we are very lucky. We have three wilderness areas with with maintained MTB trails. In fact, next weekend is the Fat Tire Bike Fest at one of the parks, Blue Mountain in Peekskill, NY. It is an amazing place to ride, and was actually voted the "best homegrown trail in America" Check this out: Bike Magazine
If any MTBers are in the area next weekend the Bike fest is a must do event. Here is a link:http://www.wmba.org/
Keeping with the MTB theme this weekend, today I decided to do some trail maintenance on one of the local trails I frequent pretty regularly. It was quite overgrown, and when your MTBing that can be dangerous in many ways. Riding through the brush you can end up with serious head or eye injuries, cuts, scrapes and pick up deer ticks.
I broke out my David Farmer Golok for the job, and it worked like a charm. The specs. on it are: 19 in OAL, 13 1/2 in blade. Steel is 1095. Handle is cherry. It comes with David's legendary super sharp convex edge.
When I think Golok, a big ole heavy chopper like the Bark River golok (the only other one I've owned) comes to mind, but this one is a little more machete-like.
While it can definitely do some heavy chopping, it's 1/8" thickness makes it very quick to swing, and that makes for easy trail clearing. You can see how it cleanly cut through a maple sapling in one swipe.
This blade made quick work of all the overgrowth I encountered today.
Before:
After:
Trust me, it was vastly improved.
Because I only had my crappy camera today, I leave you with some good pics of the golok taken by David Farmer. This blade is very balanced, and was just an absolute pleasure to use. After about 2 hours of clearing, the edge was still super sharp.
It was a blast, and while Son of Beanbag has been MTBing since he was about 7 years old, this was his first time on this trail. One of the main reasons for that is there is a very long, steep climb to get to the top, and he just wasn't ready for it before this year. In fact, when we got to the top Son thought he was going to puke, and we had to wait about 10 min.s before he was ready to focus on the downhill. I was really proud of him because video doesn't do this, or any trail justice. It's more technical than it looks and his information processing and decision making was perfect. He was riding like an adult, not an 11 year-old, and he was really ripping it up.
[video=youtube;DKdJDvs8LxY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKdJDvs8LxY[/video]
The trail is a designated mountain bike trail. Where I live in Westchester County, NY we are very lucky. We have three wilderness areas with with maintained MTB trails. In fact, next weekend is the Fat Tire Bike Fest at one of the parks, Blue Mountain in Peekskill, NY. It is an amazing place to ride, and was actually voted the "best homegrown trail in America" Check this out: Bike Magazine
If any MTBers are in the area next weekend the Bike fest is a must do event. Here is a link:http://www.wmba.org/
Keeping with the MTB theme this weekend, today I decided to do some trail maintenance on one of the local trails I frequent pretty regularly. It was quite overgrown, and when your MTBing that can be dangerous in many ways. Riding through the brush you can end up with serious head or eye injuries, cuts, scrapes and pick up deer ticks.
I broke out my David Farmer Golok for the job, and it worked like a charm. The specs. on it are: 19 in OAL, 13 1/2 in blade. Steel is 1095. Handle is cherry. It comes with David's legendary super sharp convex edge.
When I think Golok, a big ole heavy chopper like the Bark River golok (the only other one I've owned) comes to mind, but this one is a little more machete-like.
While it can definitely do some heavy chopping, it's 1/8" thickness makes it very quick to swing, and that makes for easy trail clearing. You can see how it cleanly cut through a maple sapling in one swipe.
This blade made quick work of all the overgrowth I encountered today.
Before:
After:
Trust me, it was vastly improved.
Because I only had my crappy camera today, I leave you with some good pics of the golok taken by David Farmer. This blade is very balanced, and was just an absolute pleasure to use. After about 2 hours of clearing, the edge was still super sharp.
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