Mt Biking in St. Maarten

Wish I had some pics to go along with the post, but I dont. The day started as I disembarked from Royal Caribbeans Explorer of the Seas ship, where I was on a 10 day cruise. I dont do family vacations very well, so this was my time away to keep my sanity.

There were 14 in the group that would be ripping up the single track of St Maarten. I must admit, I was expecting the worst. I was thinking beach cruiser bikes and a pace of .05 miles per hour. We all boarded the bus and were driven from the Dutch side to the French side. We soon pulled into what looked like a building that belonged in Camden, NJ, where to my surprise, 14 Jamis Dakota Sports were waiting for us. Granted they were a couple years old, but they were real mountain bikes, and I was happy.

We all received our bikes, and an over sized red helmet that made all of us look like little kids. The ride leader then went over how to use the bikes, how to break, shift, etc. We were then off.

The ride started on the road, and through a traffic circle. Once through the circle we did a bike of a road climb where I was almost taken out by a stray goat. Yes a goat. At the top of the road, we went through a gate and were finally on some dirt.

The path was along one of the bays of the french side of the island. After a quick downhill section, we hit a slight uphill climb. This was the first time I was yelled at by the ride leader. While I am not a racer this year, I still like to get climbs over and done with. As I hit the top of the climb, I see that there is no one behind me. I took the opportunity to look out over the clean water of the bay and the cool breeze that came off of it. As the rest of the group hit the top, the ride leader, who was out huffing and puffing, thanked me for waiting for the rest of the group.

The cool part about reaching the top of a hill is that you get to go down. The ride leader said there was a bad bridge that we would have to walk over. After seeing it, I had not doubt that I could have ridden, but I am sure most of the group could not have, so I walk like everyone else.

The downhill ending in a storage yard for rock and sand. We took this out to a road where we did another out and back ride on the road where we stopped for a breather. After riding the road back in, we stopped and had an option. We could continue the main road back to the beach, or add another two miles to the ride. I took on the extra two mile challenge.

We started up a nasty dirt road climb and ducked into a fence that lead to another singletrack climb. That was mile one of the extra 2 miles. The rest was all downhill to the beach. I decided that I would let everyone go first, wait a bit, and then rip the down hill.

After about a 15 min break, I saw the trail was clear and let it rip. The downhill ride was very smooth with some rock thrown in. As I reached the final section, the ride leader was making his way back up the hill to look for me. "I thought sometin happen to you man, like you crash." I will take that as getting yelled at for the second time.

We took the road back to the beach where the bikes were loaded up, and we relaxed on what was NOT the nude beach, but I was glad some of the local females though was.

All in all it was a good ride, much better than I was expecting. I think we got about eight miles in and I was able to see some parts of St. Maarten most visitors do not see.