Fall Rhapsody

Hello Everyone, 

The first step to enjoying a weekend mountain biking adventure is to smash your balls against the seat of your bike while attempting a wheelie. Things can only get better from there. I was in Vallée du Bras du Nord (VBN) last weekend with friends for a couple days of biking. It was pretty great. In fact, another step to enjoying this kind of vacation is to drive the winding country roads to get there in the dark, so that when you wake up, everything is a surprise. Which is what I did, and I can see why they are building up that area as an outdoor sports attraction because it is exceptionally beautiful. Lots of places look great in fall colours, but this place has rolling hills, a wide valley, steep cliff faces. It's the full package. Modeled after Kingdom Trails in Vermont, the small town of St. Raymond is building an extensive trail network for hiking and biking. They charge people to use them which allows them to hire crews to build and maintain them. Capitalism at its finest. The result is an amazing network with trails the run alongside waterfalls, bridges and log rides and other features, and banked berms on descent trails. Very much worth the price of admission.  

Wes

Photos 

The first three are from the biking weekend and show us on the trails, where we stayed and the trail that follows a waterfall. You can see the features along the left bank of the stream. 

The last photo is of my handsome roommate at the dog park. I liked the colours.