Paisley Woods Florida

Santos is plenty fun, but I needed a change of venue, to switch things up for my long ride. Even the green trails at Santos are fairly twisty, which is more fun in general, but makes it harder to do sustained endurance riding, when you are accelerating out of turn after turn.  Most riders are not concerned with this. But if you are and would rather not get your long ride on the road, Paisley Woods certainly fits the bill. The main loop is about 19 miles with a half a mile feeder. There is a cut off to make a half loop.  I was running about hour and a half laps, so multiple laps are need to get the higher durations. The Paisley Woods trail has a different feel in each direction, so between that and the half loop you can put most any duration rides together without getting bored. Don't get me wrong this trail is like 90% flowy singletrack.
Wider tires, such as 2.35 or 2.4s work best in the occasional sugar sand. I got to try out a 2.35 Maxxis Ikon up front for the first time. I have had it for a while, but was waiting for a tire to wear out. I switched back to the 2.2 for the half lap at the end to compare. Even at the same 20 psi the 2.35 felt less harsh and I should be able to run even softer.

Paisley Woods Kwik Stats

After three days of rain, where to go? Mark Huff, one of the local riders, told me that Paisley is actually better after rain, as it makes the sugar sand hold together.  The last time I rode Paisley was after a rain, albeit less, and it seemed a little faster, but my times say otherwise.  But, this time I did know the trails better and was making a concerted effort to get in some threshold work.

San Felasco Hammock Preserve, Gainesville

Do you like riding for hours of curvy, natural feeling single track, in old growth pines with great visibility of what is coming around the next curve? Well I do.  Heck I even the first loop, Cellon Creek, had me grinning. With 8 miles,Tung Nuts is the anchor of the system. Need some hill repeats without repeating a hill? Then hit Conquistador.

If you're looking for gravity feed, feature rich, jumping and hard tech, look elsewhere.

Cruisin through an Endor like forest of tall pines, with hardly a palm frond or scrub to be block  your view around corners, really lets lets you open it up and let her rip.  Unlike most of Florida, where it is either flat or pit, there are enough hills to work climbing and use gravity to work your corners faster than pedaling speed.

My favorite was the Hidden hills Loop, I kept expecting a mountain to emerge from what seemed like foothills. But wait I am in Florida, right?!

Any downside? My personal compulsion to make everything a big loop is not possible here, most loops lollipop off of another.

Considering how well the far end of the park is marked, I had a little trouble following the core trail, Tung Nut.  I think that some of the signs need to be replaced. Particularly where feeder trails come in. Likewise, I kind of had to hunt and peck and look at the map intently, for the two feeders to Conquistador.

I believe they are working on a new map, as the current map looks kind of like a flow chart.  Which might be for the best as an exact rendering my might be hard to follow. See my Strava file below. The map does put loops in their relative location to each other, pretty well though.

I feel like this system is between Paisley and Santo (excluding the pits) in terms of ripping twisty trail. Paisley was more steady state, Santos was as twisty, but you can see others coming form the other way much better at San Felasco. Plus you got some non-pit hill climbing to boot.

A small note on flow. I really enjoyed the flow of these trails.  I have read reviews that said they did not. These trails have a very natural feel to them.  The trail builders really put these trails together well. You won't find a man made berm, although a couple natural berms have been incorporated into the system.  If you have read some of my other articles, you will know that I prefer more natural trails. Berms can be fun, but I had to unlearn how to take a corner, as the berm does the work for you. Being able to flow natural trails at blasting speed is where it is at. Learn to corner and fly.

I found out about San Felasco Hammock Preserve, Gainesville, in an article on Single Tracks.
http://www.singletracks.com/bike-trails/sanfalasco.html
http://www.sanfelasco.net/docs/SanFelascoBikeTrails11-2013.pdf
http://www.sanfelasco.net/index.shtml

Bethel Biloxi Mississippi

Always looking for 20-40 miles of riding, I saw Bethel in Singletracks.com, listed 30 miles.  Well that was an error or old info.  The Directions are for the northern Trailhead, which is now for Motorcycles and ATVs.  I put in a correction to Single Tracks, so it may be accurate when you read this.  There may have been 30 miles when the north trails were for bicycles and the south was for motorcycles and ATVs.  A few years ago, to keep everybody happy, things were switched around.  So while there is a Bicycle TH sign of of Bethel rd to the north, after a fair ways on a graded dirt road, you come to an unmarked clearing with only a couple orange arrows and ATV tracks on the trail.  The current TH is just a short way up FSR 426, just off of route 15, with a map kiosk, cinder block restroom, picnic table and fire ring (bring your own H2O).  Located in the De Soto National Forest, it is easy to feel that you are nowhere near civilisation.  Strange how quickly that happens after leaving Biloxi Mississippi.

There are currently between 19 and 20 miles of mountain biking at Bethel, with only one on the forest service road and another on old double track.  I bumped into and rode with Tracy and John from Bethel Mountain Bike Trail Group.  Tracy said there were plans to replace the fireroad between the  Couch and the Badlands, trail with single track. While there are no bluff on the Badlands trail, the tall grass was reminiscent of the Maah Daah Hey, though it was named for the oppressive heat in summer due to the lack of shade, also much like the MDH of North Dakota.  The sandy soil handles rain much better than the slough of the MDH,  Tracy pointed out several places that used to be big drainage problems, that they had successfully ameliorated.  Some bridges were replaced with spaced pavers on the bottom of the washes.  Different sections of the country have different views on paver is the water crossing, I am not sure why, yet.  There are a just a few places that still hold water.  Pavers have also been used make berms, in certain fast corners to firm up the sand.  There is still sand inside the turns so those die hard old school riders can still play in the sandbox and get their sand on!  They are also working on new sand management methods.   

To me the trails have an old school, natural feel, not overly manicured, yet well maintained.  Some sections flow and some corners test your skills more than others, a nice mix.  Pine needles made themselves known as well, they have good traction up to a point and then just slide out!

No big elevation here, about 1k for the Full Monty.  But it is not as flat as the non-pit sections of Santos, more like Paisley in north central Florida.  It is more akin to the Games loop in Pensacola FL(but longer), which is not surprising as they are so geographically close to each other, even down to the touch of clay.  But not the elevation change of UWF, just across the street from the Games loop.

You won't find pump or jump tracks or pits, just good old fashioned singletrack, with enough personality change from trail to trail to keep it interesting.  There is a nice section of Couch that follows the Tuxachanie river.  The system can be done as one big loop or shortened at several places that cross the main fire road or FSR 426 or a trail aptly called Bail Out.  All the major intersections are well marked, most with a map with a "YOU ARE HERE" star.  The only tough spot is the Clay climb, which is basically a stair case for giants.  It suffers from erosion, so a much more gradual switchback was made around it.  There are may water drainage, mainly dips between humps and usually small, though a few bigger ones sneak up on you.

They have a really cool Google Earth map for your smartphone.  You need the Google earth App on your phone to open it, but once you load it, it uses your phones GPS signal to show you where you are on the map, regardless of cell reception!  Pretty darn cool.

Here are some videos

There are a few other trails that are available like these from SAMBA

Standard trail Map
http://www.singletracks.com/bike-trails/bethel-bike-trails.html
https://www.facebook.com/groups/BethelMountainBikeTrailGroup

http://www.gulfcoastbicycleclub.com/index.html
https://www.facebook.com/groups/gulfcoastbicycleclub/

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Santos IMBA Epic mostly Plus

I wanted to get in the whole thing and rode the trails out to where the orange flagged trail ends, near the  Marion County-Dunnellon Airport.  The trail out that way is very rough in places and dug up by wild pigs in others, it was just not that fun.  So when I got to the end I took the limestone road back to route 200.  It is called the Tricycle trail.  Except for the pigs, it does seem more ridden in than last March, but it could use a few hundred wheels on it.  I chose Paisley Woods and San Felasco as my other long days, to keep this fresh, as I did a good chunk of the Santos Epict a few weeks ago.  Ern N Burn and Nayles trail are worth the trip for sure.  Lots of rollers of all sizes, with lots of tight twists and turns over rooty terrain, with the occasional moon rock thrown in for ambience.  For shear distance and variety, the Santos epic ride is tough to beat!