Trailway to Heaven
Located in the Finger Lakes region of New York, Trailway to Heaven might just be the most stunt-laden trail of all time. Builders have somehow managed to squeeze 30 features with a combined 700 feet of decking into a run that’s less than a third of a mile long. Madness.
Stunts on stunts on stunts. Wonder how many planks went into the decking?
Comments
Wrecker151
9 years, 5 months ago
@John Utah
No skinnies shown in this video. Narrowest elevated trail sections are 30” wide.
@AlanB
While they might look large the gaps between slats are all either two or three fingers wide. They max out at 2.5” apart. The wider gaps were done purposely to increase rolling resistance and slow the speed of the bike down to set the rider up perfectly for the next feature.
@Raymond Epstein
While it can snow heavily in this area of NYS, we’re usually “covered in snow” for 2.5 months and not 6 months. January, February, and early March are traditionally the coldest and snowiest…but recently that varies a lot from year to year. The Land was built with 4 season riding in mind. We ride them all year long including during the winter months (see our website or Facebook page for winter riding photos). The unrideable days for our wooden features are limited to the “sketchy traction” days which include: loose powdery snow, snow greater than 3”, ice buildup, or rain. In total, and being generous, that might be 65 days out of 365. For me, I’ll take 300 days of riding every year any day!
Yes, trails like ours with many large wooden features do require a lot of maintenance. Trailway to Heaven which was featured in the video, gets inspected before every ride and requires repairs every year. I’ll freely admit, with more than 700’ in length of combined decking, it can be pain in the ass to keep up with. But it’s a labor of love and it’s worth it to have such an epic trail to ride. Plus it’s private property so it’s our eyesore to deal with. 🙂
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Build and ride what you love.
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AlanB
9 years, 5 months ago
Wow! Great skills, but did you see the gaps between the slats!?! You could slip through right up to your kneecap!
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Raymond Epstein
9 years, 5 months ago
These are always cool to look at and even better if you've got the skills to ride them. Realistically though, these kind of trails have fallen out of favor because of the liability issues and as mentioned so few people can actually ride them. Stuff like that then falls into disrepair and becomes and eyesore in the forest. There are bits and pieces of previous Northshore-esque stuff all over the US and now it all lies by the trail side rotting away. I am not a huge fan of "flow" trails, rather I like the the trails to remain natural. This includes naturally difficult with the only intervention being to clear erosion problems. These efforts when done with some creativity not only solve drainage/trail migration issues, but allow for some fun trail features as well. As for the trails in the video, that area is covered with snow for half the year.
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roknfnrol
9 years, 5 months ago
Butt-puckering.
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Lubo Blazek
9 years, 5 months ago
This used to be on west coast ( norht shore ) before " flow" trail builders took it over
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John Utah
9 years, 5 months ago
wow that made my stomach turn, too many skinnies.. Reminds me of the old school shore trails up the trees..
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Red Bully
9 years, 5 months ago
What skinnies? Skinniest things I saw were wheel width ladders 😛
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satn
9 years, 5 months ago
New York City??
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Pete Roggeman
9 years, 5 months ago
Nope - Finger Lakes region of NY state.
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Ryan Haner
9 years, 5 months ago
I wish NY had more riding like this, but the state seems to be pretty anti mtb.
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Nobby Nic
9 years, 5 months ago
NY isn't anti-mtb; ADK land management is.
Big state, even bigger difference.
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KRad
9 years, 5 months ago
Love the article. My heart sinks every time i see cool trail features like this, since they have become out of flavor for most riders. I live and build professionally in Whistler now, but if you like structure, make a trip to the Kootenays. Rossland, B.C., and Castlegar have some of the best built and maintained trails with challenging structure. My favorite "structure" trail of all time is in Castlegar called Chellenger, and in Rossland there are a number of structured trails which add some real fun to the ride, such as Snake, and Full Monte. Cheers.
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