Hilton Falls (a.k.a Hardtail Hell)

Don't get me wrong - the title says it all, “Hilton Falls (a.k.a Hardtail Hell)”, but I still love the mountain bike ride there. We put in an excellent 2 ½ mountain bike ride last night after work and found ourselves full of energy at the end of the ride, which is due to the fact that you won’t spend much time spinning during a ride there. Hilton Falls is jammed pack with an absurd amount of rocks, and if you don’t pick the right line you’ll hit just about every single one of them along the way…you’ll probably even hit a few of them twice.

The parking lot for Hilton Falls is located just west of Appleby Line and Cambellville Road (5th Sideroad) in north west Milton. Entrance to the park costs $7, which is well worth it and helps maintain the trails and keeps the park open.

I recently put on a new Mavic Crossmax SL wheelset on my hardtail and wanted to put them to the test, which is exactly what I did. I’ve been through Hilton Falls on a set of Mavic 517 and a set of Sun Black Flags and both needed to be trued after each ride. But the Crossmax SL rims withstood anything I could throw at them; including nosing into a rock that sent me over the handlebars. These rims are ridiculously light, sick looking, and just like every review I read before I bought them stated – they are STRONG! The only complaint I have is that a special tool is required to adjust the spokes, which is a nuisance as now I need to carry around another tool in my already crammed CamelBak. Why can’t manufacturers just stick with the standard tool set that comes on our mini bike tools? That would be too simple I guess.

I would have like to take some pictures to truly display to my huge list of blog followers what Hilton Falls has to offer, but my lovely girlfriend didn’t tell me she took the camera to take pictures of her friends eye makeup. Give me strength.

While the Crossmax SL rims had no problem with the rocks, I can’t say the same thing about my 3 week old SLX crank set large chain ring…3 teeth gone! I guess I should have bought the bash guard. While I love riding at Hilton Falls, I only do it a couple times a year because my wallet can’t take the beating and neither can my bike.

Andrew Nause