Apollo is a small quaint town just Northeast of Pittsburgh, PA. It's hard to imagine that this little town is home to some of the best singletrack in Western Pa. The land(652 acres) is owned by the Roaring Run Watershed Assoc. It is private ownership, and the trail builders have a great working relationship with the owners. So good in fact, that they have built 18 miles of killer trail. There will be more trail building going on in the near future and there should be around 20 total miles when it's all said and done. The primary trail builders and maintainers are: Don Olson, Mark Rexrode, Tawni Wilson, Jay Martin, Liz Martin and Dennis Calahan. PORC and PTAG have helped out for one trail building session as well. This Roaring Run is not to be confused with the other Roaring Run that is south of Pittsburgh

The thing I always look for in a trail is diversity. Riding the same thing over and over again gets old quick, no matter how good it is. At ARR, you will find a nice mixture of trail types. The first half of the trail will throw some nice technical bits at you. It's not as technical as say Moraine state park, but it is quite challenging in its own right. Further along, the trail opens up into some nice scenic sections which overlook the valley and the Kiskiminetas river below. Finally, the ending part gets less technical and more rolling and has the only true Downhill in the place.

The technical sections consist of rock gardens which require the right line and some momentum to make it through. You will also find the bigger slabs of rocks which you can roll up/down on, go over, or boomerang up and back down again. These were my favorite sections and really showed off the uniqueness of the trail. In general, these sections are spread out enough so you have some time to get your flow going before the next section. The bridges were wide enough to accommodate most bridge phobic riders and were well placed. Some of the entrances to the bridges were very interesting which made them more fun to ride. You won't find any manmade stunts here, everything is nice and natural. The way it should be.

Overall, the climbing wasn't too bad. There's a nice semi technical climb with many switchbacks near the beginning of the trail that was gradual and not to steep and should be doable in middle ring for some. There was only one climb that I thought was really tough. It was short and rather steep and catches you off guard if you don't know its coming. There's also a gradual 1.5 mile climb on double track to get to the top of a hill which leads to many loops of down and ups. Descend, keep your speed, and then pedal up when your momentum runs out.
Another nice thing about this trail is its bail out points. At almost any point on the ride, you can take the gravel road that runs along the river back to the parking lot. This trail is still a work in progress and there are plans to eliminate some of the double track sections in the near future. You can tell the trail builders have put a lot of passion(and hours) into building this trail and take pride in their work. After riding the trail, check out the Mosey Inn right down the street. Good down home cookin' at an affordable price.

Moab