I finally made it up to the Goodrich-Loomis trails near Belleville/Trenton. We were hearing the “heat advisory warning” on the radio on the way up to the conservation area. 33 degrees celsius, 39 with humidex. Joy.
Anyhow, it was a fairly comfortable day in the trees. I was taken on a great route by my friend Heinz!
Heinz is rocking a really cool bike. It’s a Titanium hardtail. He was breaking a bunch of derailleurs so he switched over to an Alfine internal gear hub. One of the neat things is that you can shift gears at a dead standstill and you can also shift without pedalling.
The trails in the conservation area are pretty nice XC-ski -type pathways. (Avoid the Beaver Trail.)
The fun really begins at the back of the property. In the adjacent Domtar forest you can find some amazing XC singletrack. My favorite run was the pipeline downhill (Bearclaw trail) that went on, and on, and on before it apparently stopped, and then surprisingly kept going, and going! On the elevation plot on the chart below, you can see the big “V” where we shedded about 100m of vertical (and then re-climbed the ridge). On the map, this is the big V-shaped excursion on the top/left. This is a very respectable size of hill for flatland Ontario!
With Heinz’s help, we harvested some Chaga. It was growing on some birch trees along a certain ridge. I am going to try making some Chaga-tea.
This is definitely one of those trail systems where satellite navigation or a riding with a guide can help, A LOT. I felt very spun around. One of the trails is named “Lost-Boy”…you’ve been warned.
As a small postcript to the ride, we passed by Bloomfield Bicycle Company in Prince Edward County. One of my all-time favorite bike shops. These are the people who do the deadly Paul’s Enduro in the Ganaraska Forest – awesome event! We got hooked up with some shop stickers (represent!) and also a new set of “petite” handgrips for Lucy’s ride.
Total time: 03:04:16