Birdsboro Preserve

Photo: Berks Trail Works

Overview:

Birdsboro Preserve is located in Birdsboro, PA (duh!) and has quite a lot of trails. Although this place has existed for some time as a cross country network, Berks Trail Works has been hard at work, turning this place into an enduro hotspot. There are basically 4 downhilll zones to the park: Zed’s Dead/Pirate Jet, Roller Coaster, Ramble On/Black Dog (Led Zep Zone), and Good Day Sunshine/Penny Lane. The downhill runs usually fall into one of two categories: enduro stages with jumps, or loose chutes.

Pros:

Birdsboro is quite massive, and everything here seems pretty well built, unlike the neighboring Mt Penn. I was also pretty blown away at the quality of dirt, as it reminded me more of vermont loam than Pennsylvania pebbles. Ramble On was my personal favorite trail, as it was a long and fast downhill through the woods with a couple of jumps that reminded me of the west coast. I also really enjoyed bombing down steep chutes like Dirt Surfer.

Cons:

Although everything at Birdsboro is pretty well built, the trail builders haven’t quite figured every thing out yet. When I first saw pictures of this place, I was expecting developed trails, similar to a bike park. Instead, I found only 7 berms (in total!), with the rest of the corners being flat or off camber on high speed trails. Another issue was the lack of easy access around the park. Since a river divides many of the downhill zones, we had to go way off course to find a bridge, costing us valuable time.

Rating: 5.75/10

Birdsboro is a pretty good spot, but I definitely wish the trails were a bit more developed, as I love the trail builders’ work and really want to ride more of it. As for the access issue, it’s annoying, but due to the lack of space and elevation, it seems the trail builders had no choice but to spread everything out.