 Race organizer Tim Schopen looking for trails |
The very thin, energetic, and fast talking race organizer Tim Schopen (just back from mountain biking in Majorca, off the Spanish coast) and his trail-building friend Mark Sullivan waited at the top of the hill shaking their heads and laughing at me trying to negotiate a monster (alright moderate) climb up a leaf covered soft dirt slope. As the youngster in the group by 10 years, these grizzled vets had every right to laugh as I huffed, and I puffed, and I nearly passed out. They have been building trails for mountain bike race courses together for over seven years and they are the type of people who have no "off" season. If they aren't out riding roads or snow-covered trails in the winter, they are riding rollers in their basement. A winter of pizza, beer, and fries had led me to this sorry state, and I was paying some serious dues.
But because of where I was, regardless of my physical duress, I couldn't help but be excited. I was helping uncover the mythic trail system of Williams Lake Resort for the Williams Lake Revival Mountain Bike Race on May 15th, and riding some of the most challenging and least accessible terrain in the area. Williams Lake Resort is located on Binnewater Road in Rosendale and encompasses 700 hilly ravine-choked acres that include a series of gorgeous lakes, and miles of trails on single track, double track and rail trails. To use the extensive trail system you must be a guest of the resort or purchase a season membership, which is $800 a year.
From 1988 to 2000, local trail genie Tim Quiltys ran the Williams Lake race. In the year 2000 after 12 years of organizing world class races, Williams Lake Resort and Tim Quiltys decided to part ways. For the past five years the single track trail system had grown wild and tangled. For this year, Tim Schopen was asked to organize two races in the Campmor Hudson to Highlands Mountain Bike Championship Series in northern New Jersey. A driver for Fed Ex by trade, he has been racing mountain bikes and organizing races in NJ and NY since 1993, and he was familiar with Williams Lake from racing here several times over the years. On a whim, Schopen decided to try calling them up to pitch holding a race, and the race was on.
 Jonathan D. King, Tim Schopen, Tom Feaster, and Gabriel Constantine racing past old cement kilns |
The land is covered with remnants of the once thriving Rosendale cement industry—giant smokestacks overgrown with weeds, crumbling cement kilns and most spectacularly countless mine shafts, many of which have filled with water, form underground lakes on the property. These deep shafts breath fresh cool air from the earth on mountain bikers, and form obstacles in the form of treacherous bottomless water filled caves lining the course. As organizer, Schopen has to consider everything and he said to me "I'm going to have to count riders to make sure no one falls in one of those things, because we would never find them if no one saw them."
The local buzz is hot for this race and with good reason. Tom LaFera, owner of Table Rock Tours and Bikes in Rosendale, and a life-long area resident, told me that he recalls hearing stories about mountain bike legends Tinker Juarez and Ned Overend showing up for the first Williams Lake races in the late 80s. He was enthusiastic when he heard about the Williams Lake Revival. He said "It's good for mountain biking and good for the area. And it is such a great place to ride. There's really no place like it." As word of the fantastic setting spread over time, the race eventually drew much larger crowds, especially for the Halloween race, during which bikers would race in costume along a jack-o'-lantern-lined course.
 Riding out of a mine |
The loop winds for approximately six and a half miles and Williams Lake has all of the traditional east coast trail trappings—roots and rocks, and plenty of tire-clogging mud. Tim and his friends have cut some new trail and mixed it with many of the favorite sections from the Classic such as the drop into the cave, a twisting descent into darkness, followed by an underground sprint to exit the other side. Twisting and turning, the trail winds through thin lines in the woods, along exposed knife edge ridges, before dropping into a ravine that you eventually have to climb out of up an almost sheer vertical wall; things can get ugly there, especially with bikers on your tail. Steep climbs are spiked with rocky descents; it's your own personal hazardous roller coaster. This is not a fast course due to it's technicality, although there are plenty of places to uncork some speed. It is a course that both asks and answers that elusive question: Do you know how to ride your bike? The suffering all becomes worth it on the last leg of the grueling climb up the summit trail, where riders get a beautiful vista of the hotel, the lake, and the Catskill mountains in the distance. And after that it's all downhill, for a berserker one-mile euphoric sprint to the finish line.