Strange Day Jammin Gears at Ricochet-Mountain Bike Ride at Newberry Hill Heritage Park

Monday I went to Newberry Hill Heritage Park for some mountain bike riding. This is a  newer 1082 acre park west of Bremerton and between Newberry Hill Road and Seabeck Highway. This is really an old clear cut that has regrown. The county recently acquired the property from the state and is planning for future development. Currently the area is crisscrossed with old roads and trails that were developed by the local mountain bike community. Most of the roads and trails are multi-purpose, non-motorized use trails. Some are marked "no horses" and some accesses to wetlands are marked "hikers only". But this acreage has long been used for off road activity. In the early 70's, I rode motorcycles here. It had not been long since it was logged and you could see across the area from the higher points. In the 80's, I rode mountain bikes here and discovered more trails than I used when I rode motorcycles. After I moved in 1990, it was no longer close to my home, so I never went back until this week.

There are several accesses into the trail system, but I chose the road into Klahowya Secondary School. This is a allowed parking area as long as you stay outside the schools gate. The trails are all named, so after consulting with my map, I started heading south on Deer Fern. After crossing Old Loop, I headed down Bird Meadow and Wildlife until I reached the southern side of Old Loop. These trails were all flat, smooth, fast trails.

The southern end of the park has three loops that are rough singletrack tracks named Ricochet, Gear Jammer and Strange Days. I intended to ride all three. Ricochet was across the road from where Wildlife ended, so it was the first logical choice. I started down the trail and soon found that it was a tight challenging course with some ups and downs. About halfway around the loop, I was grinding up a short steep section when MY CHAIN BROKE! I have not had this happen in many years and this is a newer chain so it was a surprise. Well, no problem, I carry tools including a chain tool for pushing the rivets in and out of the chain. So I started digging into my seat bag and sure enough, the first tool was the chain tool. Great! But wait! It was missing the pin for pushing the rivets. So I carefully unloaded the contents of the bag and in the very bottom I found the missing pin. Whew! I quickly reassembled the chain and continued the ride. I deferred riding Gear Jammer and Strange Days.

I continued south on Old Loop  until I reached a kiosk near the southern park entrance. I reversed my route and rode east and north on Old Loop, turned right on Rhodie Hill, right again on Salal to Whisper Ridge. This area I recognized from my earlier days riding here. It has really changed with a forest replacing the old clear cut.

I continued west on Rhodie Hill, to Old Loop, right on Deer Fern and back to where I parked the truck.

This was a fun day of riding. I intend to go back soon.

Newberry Hill Heritage Park Trail Map

Onboard video of my ride.