Despite it's well deserved reputation as a concrete jungle New York City actually has a reasonable collection of trails to ride within ninety or so minutes of Time Square (and a few like Cunningham Park and High Bridge that are even accessible via bike or subway). As a team we have spent many ShredFests on Eastern Long Island's trails. In fact weekends out East have become a bit of a winter tradition for the squad as we look to escape the doldrums of cold days on our usual 9W training routes.

During the summer months however we are equally as likely to head West from the city - for the trails of Six Mile Run. While a bit of a drive from NYC proper Six Mile features a long, swooping loop and terrain that is perfect for a cyclocross bike making it one of our favorite trail systems in the area. It's fast enough that you can still get in proper training efforts yet has enough curves and ups and downs to get away from the monotony of training on the road.

We dug back through the TBD Journal Archives to rescue a few images from one of those perfect blue sky days at Six Mile Run that had been lost on our old team site. As captured way back in 2016:

Summer Days at Six Mile Run

With a long summer weekend on tap Roger and I teamed up with Lisa and Liz from CityMD for a weekend of good times on two wheels. We kicked things off with Sunday’s CRCA race and the sarcastically named #ParktoPoolFondo. The following day for the shredding portion of the weekend we chose one of our favorite cross bike day trips: Six Mile Run in New Brunswick, New Jersey. 

While we may have dramatically misjudged our hydration requirements in the mid-day heat, a quick dip in a trailside creek helped remedy the situation before returning to the mostly empty trails. As always there were a few spills along the way – I was the lucky winner for the most dramatic fall as Roger and I were doing our best to destroy each other. Thankfully a minor bit of blood aside none of the crashes were serious. To wrap up a most excellent day on the bike in the best way possible we enjoyed Wawa sandwiches and assorted snacks in the trailhead parking lot before heading back to the city.