Alafia River State Park is on the IMBA epic list.
ARSP is less than an hour from Tampa.
The riding here is the polar opposite of my usual stomping grounds in northwest New Jersey!
One of the trails is called Rock Garden, but the only rocks to be seen are gravel.
I thought the climbs at home were short compared to the mountains, but ARSP has super short steep climbs, left over from the phosphate mining in the area.
I have to give the local club SWAMP, a ton of credit for this and the Balm Boyette trails systems.
There is plenty of fast flow trails through the sand, pine and palm trees. Then progresses to the blue trails that start to have some more up and down as they generally follow the contours of the terrain, with more twists, hairpins and roots. The black diamond trials step it up a notch and take advantage of the ridges by twisting in, out up and straight down them. My favorite being Moonscape, with all the extra advanced sections.
The south east section of the River Loop, a green or easy trail, was closed, but I put together a fairly full loop, that hit all the blue and black trails,intermediate and advanced respectively, and most of the green.
If you are in the area you have to check out Balm/Boyette as well!
See the Strava file and TWO videos below:
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