All Mountain Road Trip - Day 2/3

Second day went to the newest bikepark in the Harz mountains; MSB X-Trail. So new in fact, that it wasn't completely finished, and some of the lines where barely bedded in yet. 

6 lines are available; 2 very easy trail-ish lines, 1 easy, 3 medium/hard lines - depends on your speed. Overall an easy park to ride, with most lines not lasting longer than 3-4 minutes. 3 of the harder lines are a bit more DH oriented, with loose steep stuff. The 3 other are more flow/fun minded. One of the lines is north-shore oriented, and although I normally shy away from northshore lines, I have to admit that this one worked ok. Its possible to combine some of the lines, this definitely made the park a bit more interesting.

A new park, with new lines, also opens up for a critical thing; design flaws, and this park did not evade that aspect. 3 of the lines had a very awkward start, where pedaling was a must, but 10% into the lines the trails picked up the speed due to mr. gravity.

Some stuff made sense, like the very cool wallride, or some of the mega berms. Some stuff made less sense; are jumps to flat fun in 2014? 

Drea on one of the many build features in the park. This is actually a table, we had a hard time hitting it correctly, and even if you did, you had to snipe a small wooden bridge afterwards. Bad design choice imo. But even despite that flaws, some of this stuff was perversely fun to hit.

Some of the drops where tiny(1,5meter-ish) and where very easy to hit, this gave room to play around.

Some of the bigger drops where in to 2m-2.5m range, with a very good transition. They look small, but are surprisingly deceptive. ANYWAY. Drea tried to hit one of these drops full speed, and had a massive 3,5m drop TO FLAT. He rode it out - a bit shaken..
And yes, he did use all travel ; )

Allways a joy to see a local ripper in action. You could easily get away with a trailbike here, and perhaps even be faster compared to a full dh rig, some 20-30% where on full dh bikes. 

A good day in a bikepark always ends with a beer (or a beer in-between, as seen here). We had a good day here, but if you are into a true challenge, then this isn't the place for you. Ill probably re-visit this place again sometime in the far future, for a single day of riding, to see if some of the minor problems has been ironed out. Until next time..

Day 3 was all about the natural trails....but we ended up in the lift again, and rode a really cool DH line, more about that on "Day 3".