Bike Season is Rolling Out

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Created on Friday, 21 September 2012 14:26

Written by Brian Stone

BURKE - As the leaves change and the nights get colder, more and more people start asking, "When will winter start?" The employees at East Burke Sports are wondering the same thing. Now is the time of year when East Burke Sports, and many other sports stores, start switching out pedals for poles and make the transition from bike shop to ski shop. As ski season opens, the stores are hoping to see the same success they had during bike season. 

After a mild winter this year's biking got off to an early start, for both riding and business. "This season was the best ever actually, it was really dry and we had just great conditions all year," said Ry Wolfle, a bike mechanic at East Burke Sports, "So we had a lot of people coming in. And we actually had about 10-15% growth from last season, which was actually our best season."

With predictions of above average snowfall for this coming winter and the addition of 140 new snow guns at Burke Mountain, there are high hopes that this year's ski season will be better than last year's.

"Last winter was definitely a slow one, it was below average for sure as far as business and snowfall. So it can only hopefully get better and also we hope for more snow making from Jay Peak buying Burke so that will help things as well," said Wolfle.

Kingdom Trails is also making the transition out of the bike season. Kingdom trails some of their last events during the Burke’s Fall Foliage Festival this past weekend, including their 12th annual Halloween Bash and the Circumburke. While bike season may be ending, Kingdom Trails does have a Nordic trail system during the winter. Since the trails only use natural snow there is no set opening date.

The bike season officially ends with the closing of the trails next month, but ski season is quick to follow with Burke Mountain planning on opening almost two weeks earlier than normal.