Hi all. My name is Andrew Drouin, I’m from BC and I’ve recently completed a month-long tour of a whack of NS singletrack trails. I thought that I might provide a West-Coaster’s thoughts on June/July riding in your fine province (once my home-province as well).
Roots;
You folks must have developed the same kind of adaptive riding habits for wet root riding as we Westerners have for large, sharp rocks!
I had a {crash-course} in root-riding during my stay; but was figuring it out pretty well by the end of my visit.
Fight Trail;
Holy Shiite – you guys have what can only be described as a national treasure there!! I sincerely hope that NS riders are aware of just how rare that kind of riding terrain is in Canada, if not North America.
I was so blown away by the Fight Trail Network that I found myself falling in lust with mountain biking all over again - this, coming from a bike-bum who travels with Mt.bike-at-hand, riding four / five days a week, spring, summer and fall.
I urge every one of you reading this to join a local trail alliance or bike club tomorrow and together rally hard and loud for the protection of that wildly fun riding area.
Bring local Tourism Halifax reps’ to the site and show them this amazing place. If you frame your goals in the light of an opportunity for the region to bring in tourists and generate revenue, you will get their attention.
Do the same with city councillors and even the mayor. Bring then in from the ‘top’ of the trails, just off Alabaster Way. This will allow them to see both the best of the trails and the looming development in short order. Time isn’t something that most of them have a lot of. Write letters to the editors of (every) print publication in the area - they are always seeking interesting content to print.
In my opinion, the Fight Trails offer the most enjoyable riding of the many trail networks that I visited while in NS.
Without a strong ridership voice however, I’d say that from what I can see, the local housing development Corp. is going to blast the land to smithereens and build street after street of generic housing atop your trails…
That would be the shame of shames, as the place is indescribably unique.
Do the right thing; join a local club ASAP and make your voice heard!<<
Horseflies;
Nova Scotia might just be Canada’s National Breeding Centre for deer-flies & horseflies! I mastered the art of riding with a pine bough in one hand in order to defend myself, as DEET seems to simply whet their appetite 
My mom, a NS equestrian, suggested that I wear a double-sided sticky patch on the back of my helmet, as many horseback riders do. I will stock up on those the next time through.
Beer;
Happened upon an establishment called Maxwell’s Plum in Halifax. 60 types of beer on tap; need I say more ?
Kudos;
I’d like to thank the Trail Flow crew for showing me around a bit while I was in their neighbourhood, The Bike Peddler in Dartmouth for fixing up my broken parts in very short order and BikeTrout.com for supplying a tasty list of trails for me to explore while I was in-province.
If any of you are ever in BC’s Okanagan Valley, contact me via either of the links below. I write / maintain SweetSingletrack.ca - our version of BikeTrout if you will, and am the president of the South Okanagan Trail Alliance.
I’d be more than happy to show you folks around any of the more than 100 (!!) trails that we have to play on in the valley.
Our riding areas are completely different from yours, as you might expect; featuring lots of smooth, fast, flowy trails, punctuated by masses of uber-technical rock.
Andrew Drouin
sweetsingletrack.ca
southokanagantrailalliance.com
