Ravensburg State Park

Ah Ravensburg Statepark, my newest playground here in the greater Williamsport Area. A nice tract of land packed with tons of hills, technical single track, and challenging downhills. It doesn't hurt that it is but a half hour out town, which makes it a nice place to hit up for a quick weekend blast.

In the last week, I got out to Ravensburg twice for rides. Taking a trip around both of the "major" loops at the park. I did one trail per visit, but they could easily be combined into one huge loop, which would take somewhere along the lines of 3 hours to complete (Completely dependent upon pace of course)

The shorter lower loop is by far my favorite of the pair. It has all the best things you could want in a short training loop. It offers a nice warm up on well maintained grass roads, a short zip through a gully and a nice pair of climbs all before rewarding the rider with a lovely section of technical single track.

The biggest downside for me during the ride was my complete utter lack of front brakes. This is the exact reason we should all check our gear before going on a ride. I somehow managed to make it though the ride without any *major* issues. Some of the downhill sections were a bit sketchy, but all that really mattered was that I remained on the bike during the sections.

Just yesterday I attempted the upper loop, and lets just say, it SUCKED. I cannot recall ever being as disappointed with a trail as I was yesterday. There were a few good downhill sections, but they not worth the struggle of climbs and terrible trail conditions.

The first climb was by all accounts epic. it became so steep at one point that even the author of the guide book I had said that you would have to hike the bike up the hill. A mile of pushing a bike up an extremely steep rocky grade, is NOT my idea of a fun day.

Luckily after this epic bike push, there is a nice downhill section on a forrest road. This is where things got interesting. According to my GPS, I was traveling around 25MPH down this grassy road, when all of a sudden I rounded a turn to find that the trail became a huge rocky slice down the middle with but 5 inches on either side to travel upon. Needless to say I was traveling way to fast to adequately handle the change in terrain. I hit the first series of bumps while attempting to slow down as fast as I could, one rock lead to another rock and before I knew what was happening I was holding on for dear life attempting to make it to the side of the trail where it was smoother. Somehow I managed to stop without flying off the bike. Things got so violent that it actually ejected my water bottles from the cages. This was by far the only highlight of the ride.

After this nice ripping downhill, I was rewarded by a 2.2 mile climb up a park road, which by any account, sucks. After you manage to slug all the way up this 800 vertical foot spin, you get to hit up a nice single track, which is the final section of trail you encounter on this loop.

To say the least, this section was horrible. It was completely overgrown, and at times it became extremely difficult to even know whether or not you were on the trail. For about a mile or so, you are traveling though thick underbrush and tons of limbs and sticks. It was not fun in any way. If it were even slightly more worn down, it would of been 100 times better.

Thats my basic run down of the biking at Ravensburg. It is a nice place to just go for a ride, or a climb though the rocks. I recommend everybody check it out at least once.