Exploring the Gunks

With the offseason in full swing the team has been spending a significant amount of time riding upstate, including two trips north to the Gunks. Corey Morenz recaps one such trip, with photos from a separate trip this past weekend by Photo Rhetoric.

Riding in the Gunks by Corey Morenz

After a superlative ride in the Gunks in 2012 with my dad, getting up their for another foliage ride was on my bucket list for this fall. I talked up the ride and on a lazy sunday with our significant others occupied, myself, my teammate Dan and fellow racer Tomi loaded up our cyclocross bikes to go leaf peeping.

Our ride was nearly derailed by some serious rain on Saturday, but since most of the trails are gravel I convinced everyone they would be fine and we should stick to the plan. Luckily I managed to guess this one correctly. After waking up to the first brisk morning of the season in New York with temps in the high 40's, we made the short drive up to Minnewaska state forest to commence our ride.

The crisp air and falling leaves rejuvenated our love for the sport like no ride on 9W could. The trails and scenery were just as amazing as I had remembered them. The low technical factor of the routes made the trails even more fun on cyclocross bikes than mountain bikes. Despite the best difficulties we encountered (painfully slow baristas, four flat tires, one crash) it seemed nothing could derail our high spirits that day.

After a few hours of incredible shredding, we headed back to the car. We would have happily continued if not for our fear of getting stranded and having to run/walk miles back to the car after running out of all our tubes (the horror of any means of transportation not on two wheels!!). Next stop was the Mountain Brauhaus, a fantastic german restaurant and beer hall strangely but conveniently located at the base of the cliffs, miles from the nearest town.

We mulled over our next bike adventure while drinking tall steins of dark German beers and enjoying brats, pretzels and fries. The question of if we had to go home came up repeatedly and was just as frequently dismissed. Why can't the offseason last forever??

Weekend Roll from Photo Rhetoric (October 18-19)