Mountain Bike Gnar: Burlington Landlocked Forest

I took a trip to Mass last week with 1 goal: ride my bike 2 days in a row, and just get some mileage on my neglected old friend.
On the advice of Jomo5, I checked out the Burlington Landlocked Forest, and became instantly furious. This place is a blast, it's beautiful, it's one of the best marked places I've ever seen, it has great bridges, you get the unique experience of riding directly next to a highway (Route 3) and it's like 3 miles from the Burlington mall, where I slaved away for 5 years, always wishing something was really close to me to ride. Thanks a bunch NEMBA, for once again completely ignoring an awesome place to ride on your lame "places to ride" section. I could have been riding this place all along. FURY.
Apparently this place is in trouble- jerks want to tear it down to build shopping malls or something, so ride here quick/take a stand, etc.
Loyal readers- If you don't care about mountain bike trails, you may want to skip this one, as there will be a bunch of pictures.

After riding through neighborhoods full of weird looking houses that look like they're from the future, you head out up a hill into this:

I screwed up, but in hindsight, I would recommend taking a right on the second hill, up a very faint trail into the woods on the right. This is what I feel may be the best place to start the yellow loop. 

This place is incredibly well marked, with arrows sending you the right way at every intersection. There's a ton of interconnecting trails and some blue stuff, but I stuck with yellow.

This section was neat.

The first bridge I was scared of, but the trail turned me right.

Haha yea right.

I'd often seen people riding this section from route 3 (the on-ramp from the Mall is right there) and I always wondered what it was. Now I know. Sadly, I had to ride up this and it was not happening, so I'm sure a bunch of people on Route 3 had a laugh at the fat guy walking his bike up a hill. 

If you fall off this rock, you will fall like 20 feet into a highway.

When I say you ride right next to Route 3, I'm not kidding. The top of the grass is the highway. What an odd feeling. 

This field is literally 20 feet from Route 3. Whoever designed this trail is a genius- you spend A LOT of time riding along side Route 3, and it's awesome. Never has there been more of an obvious feeling of being close to a city, but completely out in the middle of nowhere. Turn one direction, nature. Turn the other- garbage, commerce, and assholes. It's also pretty neat to hear the sound of cars flying by and horns honking behind the sound of your wheels, gears, and panting- you're just in a completely different world and state of mind, as close as possible to the opposite. 

I got all deep. 

Once you escape Route 3, the trail gets boring for a very short time, and then gets very loopy and fun, in very thick woods. This car (which reminded me of course, of Willowdale) is it for awhile- nothing but woods beyond. 

This was about the time I did this. Woo! Haven't a flat in a long time, and thankfully, I had the stuff I needed to fix it and with bugs killing me, I did it fairly quickly.

ahah whoever put this here is a lunatic.

The deeper into the woods that I got, it got more interesting. Some great loops, some nice switchbacks, and this huge 2 part bridge. Shortly after taking this picture, I saw 2 deer. 

This place is awesome. It's generally pretty easy- very few rocks, a few insanely rooty sections, but other than that, mostly rolling hills, or, at least the way I rode it- downhills. I only had to walk up 2 or 3 hills, and only 1 of them was big enough that, even if I was in shape, I'd still be walking up. The trail is designed to be flowy with awesome downhills, and FAST, all along Route 3. And, as I said before, it's very well marked, and if you wanted to get lost and spend a day exploring, there are tons of side trails. This place is a lot of fun. I think the yellow loop is about 4 and a half miles- totally worth checking out, and once again, I wish I had known about this place for the last few years. I could have been on the trail 20 minutes after leaving the mall. 

I then went to Tobin's house, and with nobody who actually lives there actually there, I ate a delicious roast beef 3 way, a weird Jomo hot dog, and sat with Joe and Katherine, playing on the internet on a sweet patio. I hurt from the ride, but it was that good hurt- the kind I always feel after riding.