"44 Days and Rolling" Week 5

The Freehub Mag crew is wrapping up their fifth week on the road and they have spent a lot of time in the Highland Mountain Bike Park.The Freehub Mag crew is wrapping up their fifth week on the road and they have spent a lot of time in the Highland Mountain Bike Park.

The Freehub "44 Days and Rolling" crew is on the last leg of our journey across the country and back. Having spent too many hours on the road, we've come up with a game to make things interesting. The first person to submit a picture of the truck making the long journey home wins a free copy of the new Freehub Magazine and a Freehub T-shirt.. Good luck finding us and get ready for the webisode series which will premiere on Pinkbike in early June! In the meantime, checkout our written and video Week-5 Recap where we spend some time riding bikes in the Northeast.

Check out the GoPro Friday Week-Five Video

Note: This is not the webisode. These are weekly recaps as seen through the lens of our GoPro


Ryan's Bangers:

Bike, eat, sleep have been the peaks of our mental activity for some time now, and our strides have even developed a zombie like stagger when we show up somewhere new and crawl out of the truck. The miles of trail behind us and the hours of that halfway sleep you get when you live in a truck have started to take their toll. You know you've seen some highway miles when the truckers start to give you the nod of approval to sit in the "professional drivers only" section of the diner. After the twenty-eight hour drive from Colorado followed by three solid days of Pisgah's epic singletrack, we decided it was a good chance to shutdown and relax for a few days.


Good friends, good ole southern cookin' and the spirit lifting Blue Ridge mountains got us back on track. From Carolina, we headed north to Washington, D.C. where we dropped off a few stowe-aways we picked up in the mountains. After the quick airport stop we decided to strap on the fanny packs and get all touristy on the Nation's Capital.


With D.C. in the rear view we were driving through the night to get to Milford, Massachusetts and Vietnam.

Vietnam
In the small town of Milford, MA in a spot you wouldn't expect lies a trail system that is the product of a strong community of riders and builders that work hard to do what they love. With nearly 40 miles of trail, the Vietnam trail system has something for everyone while keeping good progression throughout the trails. We showed up to the parking lot and were greeted by riders of all ages and styles of riding. A few pedal strokes in and it was easy to tell it's not hard to have fun out here. The rocky trails are littered with options and maintain good flow.


The crew here loves to get out and build so we joined them for one of their weekly build sessions before heading out for Highland Bike Park.

Highland
Northfield, NH seems like your standard Northeast town, but it has something most towns don't ...a world class bike park. Highland is one of those names you're starting to see more and more of in the bike world. After getting to spend a few days there, we suspect its popularity will continue to grow. Though they do have an operational saw mill, Highland isn't your typical "run of the mill" bike park. We got to sit down with owner Mark Hayes and discuss what sets this park away from the rest.

"Customize your run"
Highland isn't the biggest hill out there, but it offers 10 high quality trails with connectors allowing you to dial your run and progress at a level you feel comfortable with. Progression seems to be a big theme for the crew at Highland. You can see it in everything; from the way the trails are designed to the addition of the HTC which houses a foam pit, resi-ramp and lips that mimic those found on the slopestyle course.

A beer with Mark

Milling at Highland

Aaron Chase showed us around the hill for a bit

HTC lighting up the sky

Dave Smutok is one of the many familiar names at Highland and plays a huge role in course design here. We caught up with Dave for a lap down the new course designed in anticipation for this weekend's Pro GRT #2.

Dave Smutok

Jon on the chase

Rooty-rocky goodness

We really wanted to highlight all styles of trail, so we got a crew together to shoot one of the new flowy trails. What we thought was going to be just a few riders turned into a train of ten riders all of which were so inclined to going fast on two wheels.

Big Crew

Shreddin' Berms with Van Dine

Crazy end of the day light rollin' in

The bugs this time of year are good motivation to keep it movin'

With the slope style course not quite operational, Dave decided to give us a preview of what it has to offer once it's dialed.

Now we're off headin' West huntin' down the whatever riding there is to be had along the way.
Honk if you ride bikes,
Freehub Crew

Words by Jon Angermeier
Photo: Ryan Kirk
Video Editing: Chris Grundberg

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