I was just getting my head around navigating State College by bike (which largely involves finding cool back routes to the Wegmans, the Walmart, the Giant food, and Faccia Luna pizza without riding the heavy traffic on College Avenue and Atherton Street) when my mountain bike staged a break from its basement prison. Of course I had to give chase....
I'd been to the Rothrock State Forest trails a few years back, so I decided to mix it up and explore some other trails shown on the excellent Purple Lizard Rothrock map. We (my bike and I) buzzed over the mountain to Greenwood Furnace State Park - Purple Lizard says they have lots of trails. It was a bust. Nice view from the Brush Ridge Road ski trail, but the balance consisted entirely of logging roads, most either lost or closed to bikes. Shoot.
But we were only 16 miles from Huntingdon, which is only 8 miles from the Allegrippis Trails, so I thought maybe we'd just drop down to see what the fuss was about - we were already halfway there.
The Allegrippis Trails were built by an IMBA trail crew in 2008 with support from the Army Corps of Engineers who oversee adjacent Raystown Lake (the largest in Pennsylvania). Since the Corps owns the most of the shoreline, there is very little development. There's some boating and fishing here. There's even a small tour boat. And the trails.
The trails were recently touted in Mountain Bike magazine, and receive rave reviews on line, with a reputation for super flow and speed. I was excited to experience IMBA's best, built to their latest standards, and compare them to what I know from the Keweenaw.
The roads to the trailhead were well signed, as was the trailhead. About a dozen cars, several bikes, and one shuttle van from Huntingdon were scattered about the parking lot. Pretty good for a late summer afternoon. A nice couple from Allentown (three hours away) rode off the trails claiming there's nothing like it in Pennsylvania. Smooth seems to be rare in the east. A reviewer on MTBR made direct comparison to the Kingdom Trails in northern Vermont - an IMBA Epic and probably the most highly regarded trail system in the Northeast - and Allegrippis did not come up wanting. I'd ridden some of the Kingdom Trails a few years back and found them excellent, having much in common with the best of the Keweenaw, but more so with 50 miles of flow and scenery arrayed around the town of East Burke.
So I had to know - where these the best since sliced bread? I only had time to ride some of the trails, so I quickly jumped in on Buck and Doe (marked beginner) then dropped onto the intermediate Sleek Dog. Excellent flow, with a surprising number of rollers and jumpable (for some) rises and mounds. And nice banking on dropaway and climbing grade turns. You can really carry you speed here. Some have compared it to a 30 mile pump track. Maybe not quite that (there's over 500 feet of elevation) but momentum is rewarded.
As I turned onto Eagle and then the advanced Hydro, I began to realize that the entire system had roughly the same grade and technical level - the ratings were mostly about total climb. In fact, the roughest thing I found was armoring on a beginner trail. I seemed to be riding what to me seemed like an endless, flowing, buffed ribbon of what I'd describe as intermediate, wide single track. It all reminded me of Copper Harbor's Woopity Woo in terrain and soil type, without the ledges, and wider and much, much longer. That's how nice it was. Had to watch the rear wheel in a bit of loose broken rock over hard pack on some of the drop away turns and not to get air when I didn't want it on some of the rollers, but nothing interrupted the Zen flow.
It was a great ride, and I can't wait to go back and ride the rest. Especially when the leaves are down and the views of the lake really open up. The only vague regret I came away with could be described as "too much of a good thing". After a while, the trails were so singularly similar that I began to secretly wish for more variety. Maybe some different soil types, some tighter and some wider open sections. I feel guilty being so picky, they were so good.
As a trail builder, I was interested in examining the trail construction. This was my first experience with fully machine built single track. It wasn't always obvious, but usually (and especially on the benches) you could see the machine width. Maybe that was part of the variety I missed - the width was less variable. As vegetation grew back in some areas the width was somewhat hidden, but other areas support little under story and were visibly wider. That width adds confidence and safety at speed, and in these rocky soils what IMBA did would take years more with hand tools. Still, I harbor a soft spot in my heart for narrow, hand built trails, despite their impracticality for professional builders.
The trails had excellent maps at many intersections, and professional trail posts everywhere. This is about as good as it gets for marking and routing. Even a few benches for resting and taking in the views. All exactly an hour from our apartment to trailhead. Nice.
And how does Kingdom Trails compare to Allegrippis? For Kingdom: more variety of trail, more variety of scenery (New England farm fields, hardwoods, dense conifers, ferns and lichen, and a cute little burg. For Allegrippis: better signs and maps, scenic lake (only easily visible with the leaves down), and consistent flow and quality. Tough call, but I'd have to give nod in the end to Kingdom Trails. Maybe it's the variety, maybe it's just Vermont. I'd make a special trip for either, but I think I'd drive further to and stay longer in East Burke. I'll be back at Allegrippis regularly while we're in central Pennsylvania - you couldn't keep me away.
More photos for those interested at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/jbp1111/AllegrippisTrails?authkey=Gv1sRgCOmFsayBqfrGLg#
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