Powder Ridge Bike Park

Photo: Powder Ridge Resort

Overview:

Powder Ridge Bike Park is located in Middlefield, CT and has been operational since 2017. I visited back in 2018 when the park was in its early stages and the trails weren't fun at all. However, I came back two years later to find that they had done a lot of work and were in the process of making many new trails. These trails include Drainpipe, a blue flow trail, Flowdawg, a blue jump line, Eagles Landing, a black jump line, as well as a big dirt jump park at the bottom of the mountain. So far there are only 10 trails and it is 30 minutes farther from my house than Mountain Creek, so is Powder Ridge worth it?

Pros:

There seems to be quite a bit of work going on here to improve the bike park, and many of the trails have plenty features. My two personal favorite runs are Bigfoot, a black tech trail filled with sketchy slabs and some wooden drops, and Raptor, a black flow trail that runs super fast and has a couple of wooden features at the top. Another benefit of Powder Ridge is the short lift lines. Since this place isn’t as popular as Thunder Mountain, you can usually get in as many runs as you want packed into one day.

Cons:

The mountain is still in its early stages and I don’t think they’ve worked out a lot of the logistics of operating a bike park yet. You can see this in the ridiculously slow chairlift which more than makes up for the lack of crowds, the way they load your bike onto the lift (the bike always looks like it is about to fall off), and the lack of trails. The latter issue will likely improve fairly soon. There also were some trail quality issues worth pointing out like the annoying pebble sections found on Wild Turkey, the steep drop landings on Flow Dawg, the tight steps on Bigfoot, and the drop on Raptor. That Raptor drop comes up far too quickly— making riders feel like they are going to get bucked over the bars.

Rating (Bike Park Scale): 4/10

I think the only thing keeping Powder Ridge below average is just the short time they’ve been open. I think once they add at least three to five new trails it should definitely be a more established destination for East Coast park riding.

Update (8/6):

Powder Ridge just added Gentle Giant, a sick double black jumpline built by Dirt Sculpt. Although I haven’t had the chance to hit this trail yet, it far bigger than anything else in the park, showing that Powder Ridge is starting to get serious with their trails. So far, only the upper part is open, but I can’t wait to see what else the trail builders have planned, and push my limits on jumps that are probably way too big for me!