Bike park is a place where you'll most certainly be spending money
you gas to get there probably pay for tolls and parking and maybe even rent a bike
At the very least you'll be buying lift tickets
to ensure you're getting your money's worth you can read reviews on a bike park before visiting and often times this is effective
So starting today, I'll make it a point to review the bike parks
I visit so you can see what you're getting and hear my opinion on them
I'll use the lift tickets for some kind of Mural in the hack shack the first lift ticket will be from Mountain Creek
Bike Park in New Jersey
If you didn't know new Jersey even had mountains you wouldn't be alone, but the Northern part of the state which borders on
New York and Pennsylvania is surprisingly rugged.
Mountain Creek they use every inch of precious elevation for Downhill mountain bike trails the best part. It's only ten dollars
I just paid ten dollars for a lift ticket and there is
Nobody out here
This is same lift for the bikes?
Yeah, oh, okay
Alright very good
Yeah, nope not that let's take its get when she charged you for that ten bucks
And I freaked out because I just a whistler was like seventy dollars every forty five yeah that if that sounds more fair
Correction it's Forty five dollars, but that's still a good deal only an hour from New York City
Everything out there is crazy expensive and this wasn't
During my day at Mountain Creek. I took between 10 and 15 runs enough to get a good feel for the park
Let's start with a summary of my day and then get to the review
The bike I brought to mountain Creek didn't have a lot of travel 150ml on the front and 130 in the rear
these guys are sending her
Indeed trail bikes were a pretty common sight at Mountain Creek
And I found that most of the park could be conquered on one without a problem
Conditions during my visit were dry so dry that I did drift off the trail once into a drainage ditch
plus one for drainage
During my first two runs. I did notice plenty of variety at the park from wall rides
to tech
oh yeah
this
this is a proper New England Jank. oh!!
I knew that was going to happen to North Shore features take this line
What about this man you gotta go left to go down this thing and think it's a nice size drops
what the f*ck is this?
Above my paygrade hit that blind on the way down. I noticed this one. I think they called it the patio drop
Anyway, it's great for a beginner looking to do their first big drop because it's off a super smooth surface onto a real wide landing
Since it's at the bottom where many trails converge. I hit it on almost every run
It was midweek so most of the riders were kids or college aged
My cover was blown pretty early on but that gave me a chance to Follow some regulars around the Park.
I don't know how old this kid was but I know he was older than six and probably younger than 13. he could shred
Yeah. this one? Yeah. this kid's deranged
Oh my god
In summary it was a good fun day
with that let's move on to the ratings I'll rate the park in ten categories from Zero to ten and then add them together.
A rating of zero means something isn't applicable for instance if a park doesn't have rentals then the rental rating is zero
One would be real bad and a five would be average
Ten means, it's the best in the world, and I don't think we'll be seeing that very often
The first Category is lift ticket price as I said
$45 for a lift ticket only an hour from New York City is very fair.
But countrywide, that's Dead average
Still Mountain Creek is in a notoriously expensive metro area so it gets an above average rating of 6 on value
Since they probably could charge a lot more
The next category is ease of access in other words
How hard is it to get there from Long Island it was an absolute traffic disaster both ways
Once I got past the city though it was smooth sailing
In a metro area with tens of millions of people Long island is only one part of the equation
There are millions of other people who can easily access Mountain Creek with a relatively short and stressless drive
So I'll give it an above average six as well. on to rentals
Although I didn't rent a bike. I did ride with two guys who did and they had nothing but complaints
I heard them behind me bottoming out violently while my mid travel trail bike was cruising along
These guys were not heavy this means that no one bothered to set their bikes up
The tires were also pumped up like crazy because they had inner tubes in them and to be honest the bikes didn't look meticulously maintained
Still they were decent downhill bikes and I'm sure the mechanics would have adjusted the preload had been requested of them
From what I understand. It's one hundred and fifty dollars for one-day rental which does come with a lift ticket
Although rental bikes are notorious for being beat up. I can't give mountain Creek more than a four in this category
let's rate the lift, a zero would be no lift at all, and a ten would be air-conditioned gondolas with beer tabs inside
at mountain Creek you stand in these little open chariot thingies which hold three riders
There's no place to sit you sling your bike over the side and leave it resting on the head Tube
There's a plastic rim to sort of protect your bike
Although the lift was pretty noisy. I didn't feel unsafe on it
Everything was in good working order, and I know it could have been much worse. I give it a four
thats pretty sweet. on to the quality of the trails
Although this may be one of the most subjective ratings I give Mountain Creek an above average 6
Their trails look fairly well taken care of and it was clear that new stuff had been added and switched around recently.
I Also, give them points for tree cover and most spots. Which is great in summertime
Another plus was the lack of bad braking bumps
Although there were some spots that needed tlc. I don't think it is uncommon enough to subtract Major points Mountain Creek has pretty good trails
The next rating is trail variety
There was really something for everyone at Mountain Creek from beginner trails to drops that I wasn't going to do that day
There was flow tech wood and lots of spots where you could choose your own line.
I probably only rode 3/4 of the park that day and so enough variety to satisfy riders of all skill levels.
I give it a 6 on variety as well
On to the food. I'm sorry but beer garden was absolutely terrible, and I didn't see much of anything else to eat there
I had a bison burger with fries and the fries were crazy stale
The Burger almost made me lose my appetite, but I was too hungry to care
Still the beer was cold the service was good
And the whole place was very clean I give it a 3. on to fun factor
this is another subjective rating that considers the whole package and feeling of being at the park how much fun was I having?
A 5 would be average and at a bike park
You should expect to be having an absolute blast so to gain above a 5 the fun factor needs to be pretty serious
I give Mountain Creek a 6
The trails were kind of addictive there the runs were short, but satisfying the trails were nothing out of the ordinary
But they flowed well and had lots of line options
I said one more run quite a few times the kept meaning to go back up for yet another one more run. on to scenery
Just being out in nature on a mountain should be an automatic five and you would think New Jersey would be just that
average
But actually I give it a six
I almost hit a squirrel. although you might not notice on video this Mountain was packed with
Wildflowers of all different colors.
in A lot of places the grass was really tall and in some of the Rocky
Sections nature was allowed to encroach just enough to make it interesting
finally a likelihood of returning
Regardless of any of the other ratings I asked myself what the chances would be of a return visit to Mountain Creek
Was the overall package fun and convenient enough to get someone like me to go back there? That's a big yes
which I'd put in an 8
There's nothing closer to Long Island and there's a lot of stuff. I want to try hitting on a bigger bike
Mountain Creek held my interest while I was there and left me wanting more
I have to leave though because I was getting hungry again didn't want to go back to beer garden
When we add up all these categories Mountain Creek gets a 55
it's a spot you can ride right outside of New York City with plenty of fun variety scenery and value
I think this rating system will make more sense once we've rated other parks
It's not perfect, but it's a start if you guys like this video and want to see me rate more parks
Then let me know in the comments
If the weather holds I'll be reading another park in the northeast next week until then thanks for riding with me today
And I'll see you next time
i Thought that was the trail
20% grade
Straight into this rope. That's like a burnt like brownish orange
That's that's awesome