Mountain Bikes & Other Things: Jedi Training Camp

July 2008
“You must feel the Force around you; here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes.” – Yoda, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.

Just in time for the upcoming Westwood DINO race, Meredith and I took part in Jedi Training Camp in State College, PA. Yes, this was our vacation with the boys. The trip was awe-inspiring and the many references to Star Wars and using the force refreshed my memory of Cheryl’s technique of visualizing herself successfully negotiating obstacles on the trail.

(In fact 4 of 5 X-Wing Fighters team members were in attendance.)

The KIBTT mini-van was full of bikes, people, gear, and enthusiasm as we departed for State College, PA. on Thursday, July 17th. Arriving with some daylight left, we immediately changed and grabbed the bicycles for an hour-long tour of the neighborhood golf courses and other urban features on mostly double track paths.

Friday we hit the nearby single-track section of woods that felt much like Wapehani (times a thousand!) in that it was very tight and twisty with trail offshoots that led who knows where. Several parts of the trai

l were overgrown leaving crisscross patterns on our arms and legs where thorn bushes had cut through the skin. The pace was perfect and I felt good for the 3+ hours of meandering to and fro. After supper we took a slow/moderate tour of Penn State on the bicycles stopping by Berkey Creamery for some ice cream. Coach Battin and Jason showed off their technical prowess by climbing up and down this flight of stairs on campus. (Sorry for the poor picture quality.)

Day 3 – Saturday – An Indiana native, our friend Nick drove down from Maryland to join us on our Tussey Mountain Excursion including Shingletown Gap. The Nittany Mountain Bike Association has a brief description of this trail and others on their website. Rock & Roll, Baby! When I wasn’t trying to breathe hard or contemplating my next move through boulders, I had a big smile on my face. Big Wheel (My Gary Fisher 29er) performed beautifully on this rocky, technical course; switching out my

seapost for a Thudbuster (suspension seat post) gave me the perfect set-up for this new experience. We logged about 4.5 hours of riding including our lunch stop at the top of the mountain. Of course the way down reminded me I really need to work on strength as my arms and core were worn out from braking. As if this wasn’t enough fun, the guys decided to do a 17-mile hammer night ride on some nearby double track. Meredith and I opted for pillows.

Again, the girls chose to skip the Sunday morning 2-hour loop in lieu of eating breakfast at a local waffle shop. After some grub, we decided to do a little more shopping at Appalachian Outdoors, Jean-Luc’s hang out. Luckily, we returned to the house just in time for JL and Matt to lead us on their second, our first, 2-hour loop. Stephanie joined us for this jaunt while Scott, Jason, and Nick caught up on some recovery time.

Monday proved to be the most exciting part of the trip for Meredith and me. This was the last stage in the Tour de PA—another epic ride. Our first drive and ride, we headed to Greenwood Furnace State Park. Right out of the parking lot is a climb that seemed never-ending. In fact, it took just under an hour to complete. At one point I actually tried to shift down and found I was already in my granniest of grannies. (I think the trip enabled me to use every gear on my bike!) Sadly, one rider succumbed to the climb. At the top of the hill, Jason turn back towards the car for some food and a nap. With 5 of us left (Nick had returned to MD and Stephanie was working), we rode onward through more rocky single and double track undulating trails. Around the 3-hour mark, Meredith and I decided we would let the guys hammer out the rest of the trail (they had been patiently—almost happily waiting on us all weekend) while we took the gravel road shortcut back to the car. Estimating 30-minutes for this “shortcut” we grabbed one of JL’s maps and headed towards home.

Unfortunately, one of the turns was not marked as all the others had been. We proceeded going the wrong way until we were off the map. Not wanting to turn around and climb the nasty hills we had just gone down, we decided to look for some other way back to the park. Summoning the courage to ask two lumberjacks for directions (As females, we realize the peril of our situation. We’re lost and alone!), we were given a lot of useless information about the roads in the park; they were able to regurgitate the information on the sign 30 feet from us. Note: this information is not on our map so it does not connect us in any way to where we need to go. We did get, “the logging trucks are going this way,” as it might be some indicator of the way we want to go. Seriously? In their defense, they were nice and didn’t harm us in any way. Using logic and useless information, we went the way of the logging trucks. Lo and behold, we found a sign at a trailhead for Greenwood Furnace State Park—ONLY 9 MILES AWAY! Note, on mountain bikes this takes a lot more time than road bikes, and we had already concluded the guys were now worried about us. Using some 6th sense, we didn’t go that way, rather we decided to stick to our “paved road” that would take us to the “main road” thereby giving us potential of calling for a ride as neither of us had phones. Oddly enough, another mile or so down the road we found another sign for Greenwood Furnace State Park only 4 miles away. This time we took the bait and arrived at our destination about an hour and 15 minutes after our scheduled time. Jason and Matt were in the van driving gravel roads looking for us while JL & Scott stayed behind to welcome us. Coincidentally, the search and rescuers did our entire route! They figured out our mistake at the unmarked road, talked to the loggers, and came back the same road we did using the same signage.

Instead of driving back to Indiana the next day, we all agreed it would be fantastic to pull an all-nighter and leave Monday night and arrive home early Tuesday morning. What an extraordinary trip! I’m happy to have some new skill sets under my belt and am looking forward to more adventures.

More pics: