Hareskov trail: Mostly dry and quick!

1st June 2014

Only one more weekend to go on the trails here in Denmark before heading over to Bodensee in Southern Germany. Wanting to make the best use of time and also the sunny conditions, I headed up to Hareskov this morning for some forest fun. 

You'd think by now that I'd know these trails inside out and back to front, but no, there are so many km's of trail here, and the forest is so dense that it's easy to get confused. Well, I find it easy to get confused. Just when I think I know where I am and what's coming next - Surprise!!! I'm not at all where I thought I was and instead I'm taking evasive action so as not to take any bark off a tree! 

The conditions now 2 months later are so vastly different. No longer are the trails riddled with muddy bogs. Rather, though a little moist still, the trails are quite compact which presents a totally different ride, a much quicker one. In and out of the tree lines and over the roots and occasional logs and bridges. Its not very technical but it's a lot of fun. 

 

After a little over 20km on the trails, I headed off to the shop for my lunch which as always I make early morning to take with me. I arrive at MTB Tours to be greeted by a parade of fat bikes.

The owners were sat out having a drink so I joined them to chat fat bikes, snow riding, desert and beach riding and so on. These guys were real fat bike enthusiasts and have summer as well as winter versions. Check out the On One with the custom built lefty (above) at 160mm!  

Interestingly, the owner of this one was saying that a front suspension on a fat bike makes it more difficult to handle and can in fact be counter-productive depending on the terrain because you have the built in suspension offered by the fat tires (5 inch at 7psi) and the suspension offered by the customised (by Cannondale) fork which can kind of counteract against each other, resulting in the rider being invited to vacate the bike via the bars!! 

 
So now I know a little more about fat bikes, which will be useful next weekend when I borrow one from the shop for a few hours. Yay, looking forward to it. Notice that two of the fatties are On One's from Sheffield, UK - the same make as two of mine in Australia.