FINALLY Back at Brown County!

Posted on December 11, 2019 by Matt Hunt

I first rode Brown County State Park in Nashville, IN (not a typo, it’s INDIANA!) when I was still a new rider in the summer of 2017. It is still to this day my longest ride ever at 32 miles! Shortly after that ride, they opened a new flow trail, Hobbs Hollow. Now there’s yet another new trail open, Weed Patch.

I was back in Indiana in the spring of 2018 for a friend’s wedding, but that was shortly after I had broken my wrist in Moab, so I was unable to ride. In the spring of this year I was back for another friend’s wedding, but this time excessive amounts of rain had all of the trails closed!

Thankfully, luck would be ON my side for this trip! I was back home for Thanksgiving, and Mother Nature blessed me with a 57° day! While it had rained a couple days prior, the trails had enough time to dry up and be just fine for riding (minus some mud puddles here and there).

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The new trails were absolutely fantastic! I rode Weed Patch in both directions in order to sample both downhills, and it’s great in either direction. Reminded me so much of the trails in Arkansas! They didn’t just build the downhill sections to go straight downhill. There were a lot of little rollers that allow you to keep momentum going back up a little bit so that all the elevation isn’t used up in a quarter mile! And that’s exactly how they’ve been building trails in Arkansas.

The terrain is pretty similar, too. They aren’t big mountains with a lot of elevation change, but they are rolling hills with a few hundred feet of elevation to work with.

Hobbs Hollow did not disappoint either! There are a lot more jumps on Hobbs Hollow, but unfortunately the lips on these jumps were not very well-defined. They were rounded off a bit, but that’s to be expected this late in the year. I’m sure that come springtime the trail crew will be out there re-working those lips, and I can’t even imagine how great it’ll be then!

Of course, I’m also not that great at jumping anyway, so even if the lips had been freshly packed, I’m not sure I would have been clearing those table tops. They seemed pretty long given the speed… okay, maybe I’m too slow, too!

All in all, it was a fantastic day in the woods! Glad that I finally had the opportunity! Check out the video below!

Riding Cat Mountain in Austin, TX

Posted on December 6, 2018 by Matt Hunt

It wasn’t just another day of riding last Saturday. It also wasn’t the first time I woke up at 4:30 am to go do something fun.

I’d be making the 3.5 hour drive down south to Austin to ride a trail on private property. You won’t find this trail on MTB Project or Trail Forks. You’ll need to be a member of Freeride 512, or be with a member in order to ride it. In my case, I’d not only be riding with a member, but the main builder of these trails. Oh, and I’d also be riding with a YouTuber named BKXC. You may have heard of him before.

He wasn’t the only YouTuber, and I wasn’t the only other one. Also there was the man of Austin, Eric from No Front Brakes, Tony from MTB Drop In, and my friends Chris CXK & Cobra Kyle. We had a crew!

Brian (BKXC) and the local guys were pretty fast. They all jumped out ahead of the rest of us YouTubers. We struggled to breathe as we mainly walked up the steep climbs, and just tried not to slide off the hill on the descents! Seriously though, these trails are tough, but boy are they sweet! Seth, who is the main trail builder I spoke of earlier, has also added many wood features, like drops & jumps. Most of them were well beyond my pay grade.

This really is one of the best ways to improve as a rider, though. Ride trails that have features just a step above your current skill level. Try one new feature, or a more difficult line on a feature each time you ride, and your progress will be exponential. In my case, I did a little bit of this, but looking back on it now, there were some things that I skipped that I now wish I would have gone for!

After the ride, Brian, Eric, Chris, his wife, Kyle, his girlfriend, and myself all went to Hopdoddy to chow down on some burgers and hang out! It was cool to actually meet Brian, but after watching his videos for so long it was as if I had met him already. Kind of a weird thing! All in all it was a great time, and we were also blessed with great weather! Doesn’t look like we’ll be so lucky on that front this coming weekend!

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Check out the video!

#LiveTheAdventure

Checking Out More NEW Trails in Hot Springs, AR – Northwoods Trails

Posted on November 19, 2018 by Matt Hunt

9.5 hours round-trip is a lot of driving just to ride one trail! But there’s been so much rain & flooding here in Dallas that mountain biking has been tough to come by lately. And Arkansas continues to build incredible trails! This time it’s not Northwest Arkansas, it’s Hot Springs!

This is yet another trail system funded by the Walton Family Foundation. When it is complete, it will feature 44.6 miles of trail. The first phase, that opened up on Saturday November 17th, is 14 miles worth of green, blue, and black trails. There’s a mix of more traditional singletrack and flow trails that mimic trails you’d find at a bike park. Sculpted berms, table top jumps, gap jumps, drops, rocks… this trail system has everything!

I spent most of my time on the blue flow trail. It reminded me a lot of some of the trails I’ve ridden at bike parks this year. I still need work on my jumping, as I wasn’t able to clear many of the table tops. But they were very well designed, and they are all roll-able if jumping isn’t your thing.

I never made it over to the black downhill trail. According to the shuttle driver at the event, this trail is pretty rowdy, and has some big gap jumps. I do wish I would’ve checked it out, but I’m not sure if there were bypasses for the gaps.

Either way, I’m pretty stoked to have another killer trail system less than 5 hours away from home! It makes for a long day trip, but it’s certainly possible, and that’s what I did for opening day!

For more info, check out the Northwoods Trails Facebook Page!

Check out the video below!

The Iconic Trail 401 in Crested Butte

Posted on October 18, 2018 by Matt Hunt

I could not ride for 6 days in Crested Butte and not hit Trail 401! It always comes up whenever I read an article about mountain biking in Crested Butte. I considered it a must for this trip!

Trail 401 is a bit longer in distance than Teocalli Ridge, but the elevation gain is about the same. The difference is that it’s split into two climbs on Trail 401. I knew it’d be another tough climb, regardless. I live in flat lands 500 or so feet above sea level, so being over 11,000 feet at the peak of these trails after climbing roughly 2,000 feet was going to be difficult no matter what!

It’s a little over 6.5 miles from the parking area to the start of the downhill, and most of it is on the road. This road climb wasn’t too bad. I was actually able to pedal the majority of it. At one point I passed a couple who were driving up the road and stopping to take in views along the way. The guy asked me, “is that fun?” I replied, “Not yet!”

Even if it was just a workout at this point, the views were spectacular. I think that’s really the case no matter what trail you ride in Crested Butte!

Once you enter the singletrack, it really starts to go up. I had to walk a lot on this section. After venturing into the forest, with the wind picking up, and my body drenched in sweat from all the exertion, I started to get quite chilly! I’d take my jacket off to try to dry up some of the sweat, but I really needed the jacket on to cut that chilly breeze. I was also a little paranoid. It was very quiet. I was all alone. There are bears and mountain lions in this area. My head was on a swivel. Suddenly, my heart skipped a few beats as I heard a loud cracking & crashing, ending with a low-pitched thud! A tree had fallen nearby! I didn’t see it, but it couldn’t have been too far away. As if I wasn’t paranoid enough about animals that could eat me, now I had to worry about trees falling on me!

Needless to say, despite my gasping for oxygen-depleted air, and rubber-like thighs, I continued to pedal as much of this singletrack as I could. At this point I was getting mad at the fact this climb wasn’t over yet! But a little anger is always a good thing when you need to push yourself physically!

There was no rain in the forecast on this day, but as I approached the top, there was clearly rain off to my west. I better hurry up, I thought. I wasn’t too worried about it once I got going downhill, as I’d be going fast, and I’d be moving away from the dark clouds. Luckily I was soon starting the descent, and I never looked back.

The descent starts on a lot of straight trail, but it’s fast, and has some great views of the valley! In the summer, this part of the trail is lined with wildflowers, but in the autumn they have all turned brown and lost their will to stand up straight.

After kindly asking a couple cows to remove themselves from the trail, I got into a bit more flowy section with loamy hero dirt! I was really working on my cornering all week, focusing on leaning the bike, while keeping my torso upright and fighting the urge to squeeze the brake levers. I felt really good out there on Trail 401! The primo dirt conditions certainly didn’t hurt matters.

I made it down the initial downhill in a hurry! As a matter of fact, close to the top 10% on Strava! Well, I’m sure most people stop a million times to take in the views and snap a few photos, so take that with a grain of salt. Though I do think at this point in the week I had already gotten faster than I was on day 1.

On the second climb I came across one of the most beautiful landscapes I’ve seen looking over toward Gothic Mountain. Goodness! Just look at it!

Do you smell that? Oh wait, I can’t send smell through blogs. Dang it! I really wish I could. The wonderful aroma of the pine forest is one of my favorite scents! You won’t hear this from many people, but… I must say, Trail 401 smells great!

The rest of the downhill was more great cornering practice, with a few more rocks thrown in for good measure. It was over a little too fast, and then it was back to the car park, as the Brits would say. My bike had enough mud splattered on the frame to certify this as a legit mountain bike ride!

I had that runners high feeling after completing that trail! Yeah, I mountain biked it, I didn’t run, but I never hear people talking about a mountain bikers high. Why is that? Actually, a mountain bikers high is much higher than a runners high. At least for me. Screw running.

Anyway, check out the video, if you will:

#LiveTheAdventure