Saturday, July 28

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Easier also

3 comments:

dmars said...

Hey Dale,
Where are these pictures from?

dale said...

These were from several trails in the Shawnee National Forest in southern Illinois - Cedar Lake, Kincade Lake, and Trigg Tower.

These are multiuse trails with hikers and equestrians.

I played it carefully since I didn't see any other users during my 13 hours of riding, so I was walking many ttfs. Kincade was the most contoured (mtb friendly), though a tornado last fall closed most of the Butterhill trail there. It took me about an hour to go 4 miles, while about 40 minutes to return. I had to get off or put a foot down over 20 times out and 8 times on the way back. I could get that down to 4-5 push sections in the return direction with more practice.

These are nature trails and not groomed race courses which is how I would classify our trails. I rode part of the River to River (R2R) Trail which connects the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.

Easy to get off the trail. I got lost several times. USFS maps and a compass would be good tools to have in the camelbak when riding without local knowledge.

dale said...

http://smbatrails.com/trails.html is the local IMBA trail club. I rode Cedar/Hollow Cove the first day. Needed to be picked up at the end because I didn't have the fuel and energy to make it back to the start.

Then Kincaid/Buttermilk, Trigg, and Glendale the second day. This day took over 12 hours door to door. Wet clothes all day gave me a monkey butt. 8-)