New (to us anyway) North Country Trail Exploration

Chris and I (pete) rode some new sections of the north country trail last weekend. We started off at thumb lake rd. courtesy of a drop-off from Sarah. We followed the blue blazes all the way to the turn-off by Pumco. From there we took the bike path past the airport to Chris's house in Woodloft. Totals: 34.3 miles 8.1 mph avg. 4 hours 17 minutes. We were both under the impression that it would be a fairly easy ride once we got north of maxwell rd. However, that was the section we had never ridden before. To say that it was harder than we expected would be an understatement of epic proportions. It was almost all singletrack and hills the likes of which you don't see very often in this area. There was one climb in particular that took us almost fifteen minutes.....to walk up it. Yuck. There were plenty of hills that were simply to steep to ride. All in all though, it was a good day and one hell of a workout. Next year I think we're going to try and ride the nct to middle village road and then left to my house. That should put us well over the fifty mile mark and probably closer to sixty. Hopefully, we'll be able to round up a few volunteers to torture themselves with us.